Bastille Day Cherry Clafoutis  | Image: Laura Messersmith — **Bastille Day Cherry Clafoutis** | Image: *Laura Messersmith*

So many of the recipes I love to make are inspired by the flavors and traditions of France, so in honor of Bastille Day I wanted to make a classic French dish to celebrate a country that has given so much to the culinary world. As I scrolled through the Google results looking for inspiration I came across a dessert called clafoutis.

The descriptions and photos I studied made it sound like a recipe straddling the borders of pancake, soufflé, and custard (distinctions that seem to depend on cooking time, flour content, and batter ‘fluffiness.’)

Intrigued and psyched to find a dish that didn’t involve a ton of actual cooking on this humid quatorze julliet (I do want to make bouillabaisse some day, just not on in the middle of summer!) I decided to attempt it. I came across many other recipes that used other fruits and contained variations on the batter proportions, but decided to go with Saveur’s recipe, which uses the traditional black cherries.

Lessons Learned:

The biggest challenge I encountered was regulating my oven temperature. Remember all the trouble I had with the Honey Vanilla Pound Cake a few weeks ago? Well, I think I found the culprit: wonky calibration. I discovered when I bought an oven thermometer that my oven runs about 20 degrees cooler than the marked temperature. Turning it up 20 degrees doesn’t fix the issue because then it over compensates. As a result, I nearly burned my Bastille Day Cherry Clafoutis! Thank goodness I checked on it after about 10 minutes. I think I salvaged it by covering the top with foil and reducing the temperature for the remaining cooking time….

Small Kitchen Friendly?

Yes, absolutely! I used a 9” cast iron skillet (heavily buttered with a pastry brush), but any baking dish about the same diameter should work. All the mixing takes place in a blender, so all I needed was a small bowl for the pitted cherries, measuring cups and spoons.

A note on pitting cherries: Even though traditionally the cherries are just de-stemmed and added whole; I’m just not interested in dodging pits when I’m trying to enjoy a delicious dessert so I did pit them for this recipe. However, I don’t own an olive/cherry pitter… Food52 to the rescue with this DIY kitchen hack using a beer bottle and a chopstick. I tried it and it really works!

The Verdict

Black cherries are one of my favorite fruits and are definitely the star of this Cherry Clafoutis. The batter surrounding them is fairly mild even with the strong doses of liqueur and vanilla, a little more salt (I started with 1/8 teaspoon but I think ¼ or even ½ might be better) would help enhance the flavor. I like the lightness bread pudding-esque texture, but next time I’d like to try a variation that uses even less flour for a more custard-y result.