Clafoutis with Plums

I spent the last couple of weeks in france, recuperating from the stress of finishing my thesis.

Unfortunatly I missed the cherries by a couple of weeks, but there was a lovely bush of little yellow plums, a lot like greengages except for their colour. A little Clafoutis seemed like the best way to use the huge amount of fruit. Clafoutis is half way between a cake and a custard, with a golden top but a moist interior.



Traditionally clafoutis is made with cherries, but any fruit is very good with it, particularly stone fruit like plums, greengages and damsons, though I've made it with apples and pears before too. Fruit with big stones is worth de-stoning and slicing in half, but these plums were only slightly larger than cherries, so stoning them seemed a little labour intensive, plus my father always insists the stones add to the flavour when cooked.



Heat the oven to 210oc. Melt 60g of butter. In a bowl mix 80g of sugar, and 3 medium eggs. Add 300ml of milk, and 200ml of creme fraiche, and fold in 90g of flour and a teaspoon of baking powder, and last but not least the melted butter. Place the fruit in a shallow ovenproof dish and spoon the mixture on top. Bake for about 30 minutes (depending on the size of the pan) until the top is lightly risen and golden, still leaving the bottom moist and custard-like. Serve hot, either plain or with a dollop of icecream, cream, creme fraiche or yoghurt.