Literary Friday: Baking With Fruit

This week I read Baking With Fruit, a Love Food book by Parragon.  This is one of the prettiest cookbooks I've ever seen:  The photography is truly gorgeous.  I found it at Books A Million on the sale table for $6.97.  It's hardcover, and has around fifty recipes.  The copyright says 2013, so I feel lucky to have found it at such a great price!

I enjoy cooking seasonally, and this book encourages the reader to bake treats with fresh, seasonal fruit.  It includes several classics, like apple pie and strawberry tartlets.  There are also some unusual recipes, like tamarillo cake with chocolate.  If you're wondering what a tamarillo is, it's a tropical South American plant of the nightshade family that bears edible egg-shaped red fruits.  This might be dangerous….

On Monday, I baked a clafoutis.  Beth told me that the clafoutis is the national dessert of France.  :D

Everyone loved it, and we had no leftovers!  The recipe in the book is for a cherry clatoutis, but I had some frozen blackberries, so I used them instead. Here is the recipe:

Cherry Clafoutis

Ingredients:
2 eggs, separated
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 T vanilla sugar or a few drops of vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup milk
pinch of salt
pinch of grated lemon rind
2 T vegetable oil
1 2/3 cups pitted sweet cherries
confectioners' sugar for dusting
whipping cream, to serve (optional)

Procedure:
1.   Put the egg yolks, granulated sugar, and vanilla sugar or vanilla extract into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy.  Add the flour, milk, salt and lemon rind and beat until smooth.  Let rest for thirty minutes.
2.   Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3.   Beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks, then carefully fold them into the batter.
4.   Heat the oil in an 11-inch ovenproof skillet.  Pour in the batter and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, until the underside is lightly browned.  Sprinkle the cherries over the surface.
5.   Transfer the skillet to the preheated one and bake for about 15 minutes. Slide the clafoutis out of the pan onto a cake plate.  Dust with confectioners' sugar and serve lukewarm with whipping cream, if using.

Makes one 11-inch clafoutis.

Mr. Art @ Home loves blackberries! 

Until next time…

Happy Reading!

Ricki Jill

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