Blackcurrant Clafoutis

 Am having a clear out of last year's fruit from the freezer, and found a bag of blackcurrants lurking in the depths. I have to say that they're not my favourite fruit - not sweet enough for me, but OH loves them. What to do with them? Didn't want another crumble or tart, so had a look in one of my cookbooks and found a recipe for an apple clafoutis - I was sure that blackcurrants would work just as well.
What is a clafoutis? A batter pudding/flan with fruit, usually cherries.
I 've seen many recipes for the batter, including one using yeast; I read through this one, then did it the wrong way round - beating the melted butter and sugar together instead of the sugar and eggs, but it didn't seem to have made any difference. I was a bit worried that the blackcurrants would be too tart, but in the sweet batter they were fine.


Preheat oven 220C/gas7 and grease a gratin dish with a little butter.


Put 500g of fresh or frozen blackcurrants [or cherries, thinly sliced apples, plums, blueberries] into the dish.
Beat 2 eggs with 100g of caster sugar and a tspn of vanilla extract. Stir in 150g of plain flour, 400ml of milk and 100g of melted butter till well mixed. Pour this batter over the fruit and bake for about 30 mins [if you're using frozen fruit, add another 5-10 mins].

 

I used the gratin dish I bought from a pottery in Alsace. The clafoutis had a good texture hot, but I preferred it cold.

I know it doesn't look very appetising in this photo, but there's a great contrast between the tart fruit and the sweet batter. It's more solid now it's cold.

Blackcurrant loaf

I'm desperately trying to use up the contents of the freezer before we move. Just before we came here, I ended up running down the road to my friend with an enormous plastic bag full of food from the freezer! I want to do a better job this time, so it's 'use up some blackcurrants' day!

I love teabreads and loafcakes, so was very pleased to find this recipe in a little book I bought ages ago from a NT shop. There's no author's name, and the book is called 'Favourite family teabreads and other delights'.

Here's the recipe which I've adapted.

100g fresh blackcurrants
275g sr flour [plus a bit for tossing the blackcurrants]
100g butter or margarine
100g caster sugar [and a bit for sprinkling on the top]
2 large eggs, beaten
a little milk

Preheat oven 160 fan/180C/350F/gas4

Grease a 900g [2lb] loaf tin

Rub the fat into the flour. Add the sugar then the eggs and stir together. The mixture should be fairly dry, but if it won't come together easily, add a little milk.
Put the blackcurrants in another bowl and toss them in a little flour [to stop them sinking to the bottom of the cake] then mix them into the dough.

This shows that tossing them in flour does work - no I didn't eat 2 pieces!

Put into the tin, sprinkle the top with some sugar and bake for about 45-50 mins till golden.

I used light brown caster sugar and added a little cinnamon to the dough, as I love it!

We still have several bags of blackcurrants left, so watch this space!!