Sunday, June 3, 2012

Cherry season

Pitting cherries with my DH posh tourne knife 

Summer is here. Spring was exceptionally beautiful this year but as usual in this place short lived. Very quickly the green lush turned yellow and dusty. Pretty delicate flowers were replaced by thorns.  It's getting hotter everyday as well. The temperature hits 30 centigrade by 10am. Although I am not a fan of Israeli summer, there some nice sides to it like cherries.
Cherries for sale in the Banias National Park

We've just returned from a vacation in the North of Israel, and everywhere we went they sold cherries. We couldn't resist their lovely color so we bought more than a kilo of cherries. They were in good price.  Getting home we discovered that not all tasted that good but even sour cherries are great for dessert.
We've decided to make a French classic: "clafoutis aux cerises" namely cherry pudding. Since the amount of flour is minimal in this recipe we had no problem to convert it to a gluten-free version. The recipe is based on the one published by Benny Saida. With our northern cherries the dessert turned out just perfect.

Ingredients
 6 egg yolks
3 egg whites
2/3 cup sugar
2 table spoons of brandy or cherry liquor
1/4 cup soy flour + 1/4 corn starch
1 cup milk
1/3 cup whole cream (38% fat)
1/2 kg pitted cherries
 1 bag of vanilla sugar
A 26cm diameter pie tin or personal soufflé dishes buttered.

1.       Heat the oven to 180 centigrade. Mix the eggs in a large bowl while adding the sugar till a light fluffy mixture is formed.
2.       Add the flours and liquor mix till unified. Add the milk and cream in slow stream while stirring the mixture.
3.       Mix the cherries with the sugar and vanilla sugar and spread at the bottom of the tin.
4.       Pour the batter on the cherries and bake 50 minutes till the pastry is browned.
Clafoutis- such a cute word.


9 comments:

  1. How lovely..and interesting!In the shops here in Bavaria they're selling cherries, but they're from Italy. When I look around me (and we are in the sunniest, most southern part of Germany) the cherries on the trees are there, but tiny and green..:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cherries! How pretty. I completely missed the green spring of Israel with our hike in the desert. Never made clafoutis before, your version looks wonderful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Sarah and Margit for you commenting. You made my morning :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just finished the last piece last night when you were all asleep. It was great.
    DH

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love cherry season in Israel!!! I ate my fair share before we left :-) Your clafoutis looks delicious, what a wonderful, classic dessert.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Katherine. When you'll get back we have to arrange a get together and eat some really nice things. Have fun back home.

      Delete
  6. My most favorite clafoutis is a cherry one! G-d knows how long has it been since I baked one?! Dying to get to Israek and enjoy its abundance!Except the heat that is but DC ain;t much better!

    ReplyDelete