Updated April 9, 2019
Clafoutis Cerise is a baked cherry custard, French dessert. Cherry clafoutis is an easy dessert, served in individual ramekins. To my mind, it is one of the best sweet breakfast recipes! Moreover, it’s great for Mother’s day brunch!
What’s great, you can make it with any berries that are in season like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or blackberries! It can be also made with fruits like apple, peaches, apricots and pears.
But cherries are the most popular traditional ingredient in clafoutis. By the way, the name itself speaks for cherries. It is from Romance language (spoken in south France) verb clafir that means fill – the batter with cherries.
It is a popular dessert in France since 19th century. I think because it is so easy that you can make it for the breakfast or afternoon snack instead of crepes. Moreover, you will need only staple ingredients and no special equipment (except the oven, of course).
Clafoutis is made with flan batter that is poured over the berries. It is such an easy dessert that you can make it almost every day! It’s so good with your cup of coffee or tea!
Cherry clafoutis: to pit or not to pit
Moreover, traditional clafoutis is baked with fresh cherries that have pits inside! Yes, yes, a whole cherry with a pit. So if you feel more lazy or you want to taste it more traditional way, don’t remove the pits. It is said, that pits during the baking process also contribute to the flavor of the dish.
However, I don’t know about you, but the thought of eating a dessert with pits doesn’t make me happy at all. At the end of the day I wish to have a moist and delightful desserts in my spoon. I love my teeth, too, haha!
Traditional clafoutis
As I already mentioned, traditional clafoutis is made with cherries…that are not pitted. I love cherries, and they will be in season soon. Well they are in season, depending where you live. Anyways, a great option to make a clafoutis all year long is to use frozen cherries!
Frozen cherries are available all year long, usually sold without pits. They are almost fresh. Great if you have some preserves from the last year, too.
Well yes, fresh cherries may retain their shape better during the cooking, but it doesn’t affect the taste! You will have soft moist baked custard with sweet and sour taste of cherries.
Traditional clafoutis is always dusted with powder sugar, when it slightly cools. However, here, at Cooking Journey Blog, we try to use less sugar, when possible. So as sugar looks great, it doesn’t add any benefits to you or this dessert.
Moreover, I think cherries go really well with rosemary! It gives a fresh fragrant to this simple dessert. My sister just arrived from her trip to Greece and presented me some freshly dried herbs. So I decided to use that rosemary in cherry clafoutis. The flavor combination is amazing!
Cherry Clafoutis for Mother’s day brunch
As I already mentioned, clafoutis dessert is great to serve for Mother’s day brunch. It is so easy to make, and your mother will feel grateful! It is better than booking the seat in the cafe. Because you did it home-hand-made dessert. So you can wrap it in cling film and give as a gift!
Just reheat the cherry clafoutis for about 10 minutes or less (you can check the center with your finger, if it’s warm). However, it can be served cold with a nice cup of coffee and good conversation! Moreover, it is great to serve warm clafoutis with ice cream or thick yogurt.
If you need any savory ideas for Mother’s day brunch, check our spinach quiche and lentil salad.
Don’t forget to follow us on Pinterest , Instagram , TikTok and Facebook !
Cherry Clafoutis
- Two 5,7 inch / 14,5 cm baking dishes or ramekins
- Whisk
- 2 bowls
- Oven
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1 2/3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp butter melted
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup cherries defrosted, strained
- 1/4 tsp lemon zest finely grated
- 1/8 tsp rum extract (optional)
- 1/4 tsp rosemary dried, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp powdered sugar (optional)
- Preheat oven to 356 F / 180 C.
- Add rum and sugar to cherries. Gently mix until all cherries are covered with sugar. Leave aside.1 2/3 tbsp sugar, 1/8 tsp rum extract, 1 cup cherries
- Whisk egg, then add milk, lemon zest and whisk together.1/2 cup milk, 1 large egg, 1/4 tsp lemon zest
- Add flour in small batches, whisking until you have batter with no lumps. Whisk in melted butter in the end.1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1 tbsp butter
- Distribute cherries to two ramekins in one layer.
- Slowly pour batter over cherries.
- Sprinkle rosemary on top.1/4 tsp rosemary
- Bake about 30 minutes or until edges are slightly brown and clafoutis are puffed and set in the middle.
- Let them cool a little and serve with yogurt or ice cream! You can dust powdered sugar on top if you have a sweet tooth.
I am looking to make this for my mother this weekend. She is 102 years old and loves everything cherry!
I’m not much of a cook/baker, so I have a question. I see lemon zest in the ingredients, but not in the recipe directions. Am I missing something? What should I do with the lemon zest?
Thanks
Hi Lou! The recipe is pretty easy, so you will be fine. Thank you for spotting this, I will edit recipe card. You can add grated lemon zest after adding milk. By the way, if your mother loves everything sweet, you can dust clafoutis with powdered sugar before serving. Wish you a lovely Mother’s Day! Let me know what she thinks about this dessert 🙂
What do I do with the 1 tbsp. of melted butter? Some recipes mix butter into batter and some have no butter.
Thanks for reaching out, Lyn!
Yes, I’ve melted butter (it should slightly cool) and whisked it right into the batter in the end, after mixing everything with the flour.
Make sure your batter is smooth. Butter always adds a great taste!
Happy Baking! 🙂
Rosemary, rum and cherries what a fantastic flavoursome combo. Love how easy and simple this dessert is. Pinned it too!
Thanks, Sunrita! This truly is a good combination for an easy dessert 😉
How beautiful is that for a Mother’s Day gift! That is so funny about traditionally the pits are not removed. I’m usually all about tradition but not this time. 😀 Looks delicious!
Thank you, Ginny! Yes, I know people who make cherry jam with whole cherries, I can understand it… But nothing should distract from enjoying the dessert like this clafoutis! 🙂
What an absolutely gorgeous dish! This would be such a showstopper to serve to guests for a special brunch.
Thank you! Yes, it is easy, but very special to serve for brunch for the person you love!
Oh my goodness this look absolutely amazing! It truly looks delicious! I can’t WAIT to try this! I bet those flavors are amazing! This looks sooooo good! Yummy!
Thank you for a great recipe!
Thank you Veena for the kind words! This recipe is easy and truly delicious!
Oh wow! This looks amazing! Can’t wait until the cherry tree in my parents garden has cherries on it so I can try it 🙂 And I would be definitely pitting the cherries 🙂
Thank you, Julia! Lucky you! 🙂 Fresh cherries are great to eat right away, but hard to leave for the dessert to make later 😀 You can always make this dessert with frozen cherries, just like I did. By the way, I love your blog 🙂