Lessons in Clafoutis

I have been bested by a French dessert. I have not written of my trials and tribulations clafoutis, but I have spent the summer trying various recipes and fruits and techniques, and after today I've decided that it's not me, it's clafoutis.

Clafoutis looks like a custard fruit dessert. It's generally a flour-milk-egg concoction, traditionally with cherries but certainly one can substitute other fruits. Which I have done in many variations. I've tried it with cherries, berries, plums and now peaches. And I don't like it one bit.

This is not the first time I've not liked a dessert, but each time is like a little death to me. The problem with clafoutis is that there's no contrast, and no surprise. It doesn't make the fruit better, it doesn't 'set it off', it just holds the fruit. The best way I can describe it is a soggy pancake - but it's not soggy. It's heavy. A fruit dessert shouldn't be heavy.

So, if you're thinking of making a dessert to impress, or something exotic for dessert, I highly recommend you not make clafoutis. It's very plain. Edible, but as we know - the rule of dessert is that it needs to be worth the calories. And after at least a dozen attempts, I can definitively say that clafoutis is not worth the calories. Sorry to dissapoint.