Cherry Clafoutis and Apple Flaugnarde

Till a few months back, I had no idea what 'Clafoutis' and 'Flaugnarde' meant, but thanks to all the blog hopping, I actually made these on Sunday !
I am still not sure I know how to pronounce these, though !!
Deeba, the baking diva, has some amazing creations on her blog...Her pictures are fantastic and I can spend hours drooling over all the exotic dishes she comes up with !
I've seen her use these pretty little ramekins and I recently picked up six of them, so had to try out something in them - thankfully, I didnt have to wait too long - with cherries in season and this really neat recipe on her blog, I knew exactly what I was going to make as a Father's day special !!



Deeba used plums in hers and I am sure the juice of that added a lot to the taste of the clafoutis, but after my overdose with plums last year, I decided to stay far away from them...



Filled three ramekins with the pitted cherries (learnt that here)that looked really nice and red and for the remaining three, I tried the flaugnarde. I learnt from Deeba's blog that flaugnarde was basically the same batter used with fruits other than cherries - this was a great idea - it meant I saved my time pitting the cherries and I could get 2 desserts with one meal !!



I used apples and raisins for the flaugnarde and actually liked it better than the clafoutis - I am guessing the cherries were not sweet enough or perhaps didnt seem to ooze out too much juice to make the clafoutis moist...Maybe, I will try with the plums someday...

For the original recipe, go straight here

To see my tweaked version, continue reading...

What you need -

25- 30 red cherries
3 eggs separated (this was another adventure !)
3/4 cup castor sugar
1/2 cup plain flour / maida
2-3 drops vanilla essence
3/4 cup fresh cream

What you do with it -

Preheat oven to 170C
Grease 6 small ramekins with oil / butter
Pit the cherries, and halve them
Arrange half the fruit at the bottom of the greased ramekins
For the flaugnarde, I chopped the apple and heated it in a pan with 2 tsp of brown sugar till the apple looked a little stewed. Arrange these in the ramekin. Drop in 5-6 raisins in each ramekin over the apples
To make the batter, whisk the egg yolks with half the sugar until thick and pale. With a rubber spatula, fold in the flour first, the vanilla essence and then the cream
Whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar till they form firm peaks
Fold them into the batter gently
Pour the batter over the fruit to reach about 3/4 of the way up
Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins, take out and arrange 3 whole cherries on top and bake for a further 5-7 minutes
Serve warm with some cream or vanilla ice-cream

Am back with some Calzones...

I'm back from a rather long unplanned break from blogging. Was on a month-long vacation and after I got back, it was just too much lethargy to get back to blogging. I cooked a lot, but taking pictures and writing about it seemed like too much effort...
Met up with cousins after a long time, and had a wonderful time together. The kids got along fabulously which was the best part of it all...

We also travelled out to see places and on our visit to Niagara, my cousins from Canada came down to meet us..It was unusually cold out there with rains and crazy wind speeds.. We were cold, tired from the long walk around the falls and really hungry. We then drove down to a lovely Italian restaurant. As we waited to be seated I saw these awesome calzones being served at a few tables. They were huge, compared to the ones I've seen here in India..We ordered for those calzones, pizza, salad and pasta and some really good wine for dinner..





It was a wonderful meal before we headed back into the rains outside..That day turned out to be a little too adventurous, with the fire alarms at the place we stayed going off way past midnight and the hotel being evacuated..We stood holding our son, who was fast asleep, for over an hour in the cold outside..The next day was better, still cold and windy, but we enjoyed seeing the falls..It is really mindblowing seeing the force of all that water...

Now we are back home, and I was still thinking of those calzones and decided to make them last night for dinner..The ones we had there just had a whole lot of cheese as the filling..I looked around in the blogosphere and saw this one on Raaga's blog. She made it seem pretty simple and it was ! Thanks Raaga for a wonderful dinner idea !

I followed the recipe for the dough from Raaga's with a few changes, and for the filling I made some mushrooms in white sauce...

What you need -

For the dough

1.5 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup flour / maida
1.5 tbsp yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp chilli flakes
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 tbsp thyme (use any herb here)
1/2 tsp crushed pepper
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup warm milk

For the filling

1 cup cleaned and quartered mushrooms
1 tsp flour / maida
1/2 tsp butter
1/2 cup milk
2-3 tbsp grated cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red chilli flakes
1/4 tsp pepper powder
1/2 tsp peri peri sauce (optional - i used it to make it spicy)

What you do with it -

For the dough

In a large bowl, add the water, milk, oil and sugar
Stir to make the sugar dissolve
Sprinkle the yeast (I used the active dry yeast) and keep in a warm place for about 10 mins till it gets frothy
Add the herbs, salt, pepper and chilli flakes
Knead in the flours and place in a greased bowl, keep for about an hour in a warm place
Cover with a damp cotton cloth
The dough should double in size, keep longer if required

For the filling

Saute the mushrooms with the salt and spices
In another pan, melt the butter and fry the flour in it for a minute or so
Add the milk and then stir in the cheese
Add the mushrooms to this. Keep stirring on a low flame till it thickens
Add more milk if required

Making the calzone

Punch the dough and keep aside for another 15 mins
Preheat the oven to about 200 deg C
Divide the dough into equal sized balls
Flour the surface and roll out the dough
Add the filling in one half and then cover with the other half
Punch the edges down with a fork and then make small slits on the top
Place in a greased oven pan and bake for about 20-25 mins at 200 deg C
Serve hot