{Baking} STONE FRUIT & CHOCOLATE CLAFOUTIS … with flaxseed!

“A man’s worth has its season, like fruit.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

As usual, my fridge is stuffed to the gills with an assortment of stone fruit. The weather is wonderful with the monsoons {rainy season in India} showing up, and a gentle breeze blowing through the house on most days. Two days ago, I was dog tired as the school vacations were still on, the kids had friends from Ukraine over for the day, but the weather was perfect for baking! So what did I have in the fridge? A bag of peaches, a box of cherries and some plums. Mangoes too, but those awaited a different fate because the kids love mangoes in their milkshake.

Nothing gives me more joy than when I work with fruit, especially stone fruit. Oh the colours! I would slave every single day if I had to, just to enjoy the colours that fruit offer during these summer months! With such a vibrant and exciting task on hand, tiredness forgotten, I tossed the chopped fruit in a sachet of vanilla sugar that my friend just brought for me from Ukraine. Yes, it was time for a clafoutis, and also time to experiment.

That bag of Linwoods Milled Flaxseed, Cocoa and Berries is still good to go for a few more guinea pig run, and this time it was headed for the clafoutis. I contemplated adding some additional  cocoa powder or dark chocolate to deepen the flavours, but stopped. Wanted to get a feel of how it would taste as is. Also, took no chances and added a little cornflour to help set the custard., and added the beans scraped from a vanilla pod too. I dislike runny, eggy custard! While I was doing my silly experiments, the kids were running RIOT all over the place, the boys especially!

The skies had been overcast all morning. By noon, the rain came down. The girls stayed indoors, but not the boys. Boys will be boys, and decided a game of soccer was in order, and the only way to have fun was splash in dirty muddy puddles in the middle of the road. Nothing stopped them, and before we knew it, my exuberant fellow was splat out in the middle of the muddiest puddle of them all! SIGH… good thing I remembered to write down notes as I was adding ingredients to the clafoutis!

Don’t know whether I had more fun that day taking pictures {of the fruit, dessert, kids etc}, putting the ramekins together, or eating the clafoutis. Making the dessert and taking pictures was a celebration of colours, a brilliant palette of JOY! Clafoutis is traditionally made with cherries, but IMHO, all stone fruit should be headed into one some time or the other! Anything-but-clementine actually, as this post on Smitten Kitchen rightly suggests!
The verdict on the clafoutis was YUM YUM, and the fact that it had healthy milled flaxseeds made it even better! We all loved it, kids included. The daughter really enjoyed all the fruit juices that bubbled out through the edges. It wasn’t very light because of the addition of  the flax-seeds. In addition, I used loads of fruit, so less batter went into each. The fruit got stewed in there, and delicious syrup rose up the sides once the custard was baked. With a little time on hand and a teeny bit of low fat cream in the fridge, I eyeballed ingredients and cooked up some kind of sauce to go with it. That turned out to be delicious too and very flavourful!

Clafoutis can be made as you like. Play around with ingredients, somewhat like pancake batter! Find what works for you. You can probably grind flax seeds and combine them with cocoa powder. Else use flour instead of the milled flax seed mix. Experiment - use fewer fruit if that’s what you prefer or maybe just a single variety. Some folk skip the cream and use whole milk, some 2 eggs, not 3. It’s a forgiving and infinitely adaptable dessert to make … am sure you’ll find what works for you! Next time, I might add some dark chocolate or more cocoa to the batter to make it more chocolaty.


Before I get to the recipe, I have a giveaway for one winner from my printing onlinesponsors, Uprinting

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Limited to US residents only 18 years old and above. To be entered in the giveaway, simple leave a comment to say so before the 17th of July 2010, midnight anywhere. Thank you!

Stone Fruit & Chocolate Clafoutis
3 peaches, stoned and diced
3 plums, stoned and diced
1cup sweet cherries, pitted and halved
1 sachet vanilla sugar, optional
3 eggs
200ml low fat cream {25% fat}
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1/2 cup vanilla sugar {or regular granulated}
1/3 cup milled flaxseed, cocoa and berry mix from Linwoods
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cornflour

Method:

Stone and chop all fruit, toss in sachet of vanilla sugar and divide equally between 8-10 ramekins.
Blend remaining ingredients together till smooth, and gently pour over fruit.
Bake at 180C for 25-30 minutes {increase to 45-50 minutes if doing on large portion} until lightly browned and fluffy.
Serve warm or cool, or even cold out of the fridge if you like, with some lightly sweetened cream, or drizzle a generous spoonful of chilled chocolate cherry cream sauce over each ramekin and serve!

Chocolate Cherry Cream Sauce
1 tbsp cherry brandy
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100ml low fat cream
2-3tbsps vanilla sugar
Method:

Place all of the above in a small pan, and stir over low heat till the sugar melts and the sauce comes together nice and thick, 5-7 minutes. Taste and adjust sugar if required. Add a little more cocoa if it is too sweet, or increase the sugar if it isn’t sweet enough.
Strain into a bowl, cool and then chill.
 ♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥

Don’t miss a post
Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

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Comments

  1. Jessica @ How Sweet says:

    The chocolate in these totally excites me!! They look fabulous.

  2. Rosa's Yummy Yums says:

    Deliciously healthy! That clafoutis is wonderful!

    cheers,

    Rosa

  3. Junglefrog says:

    I love all those colorful photos. Absolutely beautiful and the shots of the kids playing are priceless too. I love stonefruit too and can never get enough of them!

  4. Barbara says:

    I do love clafoutis! And a chocolate one is so creative! What a super idea. Cherries and chocolate are perfect partners. And how interesting to add milled flaxseed!

    Super photos, as usual!

  5. SnacksGiving says:

    That looks like a nice and healthy dessert or breakfast – and so colourful and summery!
    The mention of mangoes in milkshake reminds me of all the summers when my mum would whip up a few glasses and all of us kids would drink glasses full of deliciousness!!
    Lovely pictures as always!

  6. Xiaolu @ 6 Bittersweets says:

    I'm sad to say I've yet to try clafoutis of any sort (with the traditional cherries or otherwise, but your post makes me want to try them right.now! Thanks for sharing this with us :) .

  7. Asha @ FSK says:

    Friends from Ukraine? How come? exchange program?

    I like that you are posting larger photos.. very nice .. agree with you on the colors.. there are a fabulous riot!! :) )

  8. Chow and Chatter says:

    beautiful dessert as always

  9. Flora says:

    Its heavenly. Chocolate clafoutis is Interesting.

    Flora
    http://eggfloursugar.blogspot.com

  10. Divya Vikram says:

    I recently made cherry clafoutis in a similar way. looks delicious.

  11. Amanda says:

    Amazing, amazing, your pictorial is wonderful as usual Deeba. :) I love the photo collage of the boys, that is such a wonderful peek into your life!

  12. Abolutely delicious! So yum! I love dessert with fruits loaded.

  13. lisaiscooking says:

    Beautiful fruit! I love the mix of stone fruits you used. And, I need to practice at making clafoutis. My first attempt was a fail, but it seems like it should be easy!

  14. Looks wicked,, yummy yumm!!

  15. Sanjeeta kk says:

    A treat for the eyes! Great clicks. Love the colors of those luscious cherries.
    Nice post Deeba.

  16. Grimmy says:

    These look delicious. And a giveaway thrown in too. How awesome!!

  17. Anonymous says:

    Absolutely yummilicious! Could you please tell me what size the ramekins are? I'm planning to buy some for individual dessert portions and I'm very confused about what size to buy. Thanks!

    -S

  18. debug says:

    Dee…I love the fact that both yr kiddos are wearing "LONDON" T-shirts…and love the rains…and yes of course I love the dessert ;-)

  19. Curry Leaf says:

    Beautiful clafoutis.Love the use of flax and the cherry-choc combo is classic.

  20. Jamie says:

    Oh my!!! I just had to pick myself up off of the floor. I'll bake you 10 cobblers for just one taste of these magnificent clafoutis! Wow, Deeba, you outdo yourself! Chocolate clafoutis? For me! Filled with peach, cherry, plum? FOR ME FOR ME FOR ME!!! I am going to make this for my sister in Florida! And the others if they want to taste. This may be one of your best yet, sweetheart!

  21. RamblingTart says:

    Absolutely beautiful, Deeba! :-) I can't tell you how much your photos delight me. :-) The ones of your boys crack me up! Remind me of my brothers when they were little. :-) I'd love to be entered in the giveaway! Thank you. :-)

  22. Eliana says:

    These look simply irresistable, especially with that beautiful chocolate. YUM!!!

  23. Sarah, Maison Cupcake says:

    I have been meaning to pop by and check these out for 24 hrs now and I'm so glad I did, they look lovely, I have always wanted to try making clafoutis, I think I said to Jamie recently it sounds like a French word for "sneeze"!

    Those white ramekins are wonderful, they're like ceramic cupcake cases!

  24. pigpigscorner says:

    You used all my fav ingredients here! and did I hear mango milkshake??

  25. Cookin' Canuck says:

    What a beautiful use of summer fruit! Your photos are really lovely.

    Please enter me into the giveaway.

  26. Avanika [YumsiliciousBakes] says:

    These look so good! I'm going to make something similar, there's an abundance of fruits!! I lovee that last shot of the chocolate in the fab mug!

  27. Magdalena says:

    As always, great pictures and a lot of good job.
    Tomorrow, I am going to bake my first clafoutis with cherries (with pate sable aux amandes), using a recipe from the book of Gerard Mulot (the great pastry chef from Paris, having his pastry shop at Rue de Seine). He advises to put frozen cherries into "appareil", to prevent fruits from loosing their juices…we will see, if my clafoutis will be of the same taste as this one I used to often buy in his shop. Kind regards.

  28. Kerrin @ MyKugelhopf.ch says:

    i have definitely picked up on your love for stone fruit :) and i looooove how you have made them the star here. clafoutis all the way — and with chocolate. now *that's* my kind of recipe. the photos of the sauce above are just extraordinary. and i love imagining all the fun you had – taking pics, enjoying your children, dessert, rain and smiles and dessert… fabulous ! :)

  29. Chetana Suvarna Ganatra says:

    As u rightly said the stone fruit brings a certain color riot…luved ur captures as usual.
    Kids, fnds, rain and sumthing sweet….wat else can u ask for…
    Ur son's pic reminds me of hw much I miss drenching in de rains..sigh
    Nevertheless this clafoutis can make up for it..

  30. Christina (Ume) says:

    Even if I wasn't hungry, I took one look at those photos and I am ready to put on my apron! They look scrumptious.

    Please enter me in your giveaway! I could use the business cards :)

  31. Spice says:

    Love those clicks….& freshness of all that fruit is making me hungry for some dessert.

  32. Great looking clafoutis! I really like the use of chocolate in them!

  33. Valentina says:

    I am a great clafoutis fan.Now, chocolate and clafoutis..did i hear someone say 'paradise'? i'm sure i did. I have never tried such a selection of stone fruits in a clafoutis. it looks absolutely stunning. and with that sauce it has to be a winner.

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  35. FrugalGal says:

    It looks devine! There are few things in life more enjoyable than chocolate. Thanks for sharing!

    I'd like to be entered in your giveaway also. Thanks for the giveaway.

  36. Bonnie says:

    Cherries are in season here now. What a beautiful post. I'd love to be entered in your giveaway.

  37. Sophie says:

    Wgat a healthy, tasty & fabulously lovely dish!! I so much love these individual desserts servings!!

    MMMMMMMM,…Totally wicked too!

  38. Really its beautiful dessert as always of Stone Fruit & Chocolate Clafoutis.

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