Easy and Delicious Dark Cherry Clafouti Dessert

Desserts are our favorite way to put an exclamation mark at the end of any meal. I have an easy classic French fruit dessert that will impress your family and friends. With cherries in season, winter is the perfect time to bake this delicious dark cherry clafouti dessert.

Most people think that a French dessert must be hard to make. That is not the case with a clafoutis – which can be spelled with or without the “s” at the end. Either way you spell it, the word is pronounced “kla – foo – tee” with the emphasis on the “t”.

A clafouti is a very versatile dessert because you can use many different types of fruit to make it, depending on what is in season. A fruit dessert is healthy, right?!

Winter is the time to use cherries. Their bright dark red color is attractive, especially for Christmas and Valentine’s Day.

Clafouti is at its core a dish that celebrates fruit. And since cherries are an iconic winter fruit, I’m excited to show you this original cherry version.

What You Need to Know about a Clafouti

Let’s talk French. Here is everything you should know about clafouti.

What is a Clafouti?

Clafoutis is traditionally a crustless French recipe consisting of a pancake-like batter poured over cherries and baked until fluffy and golden.

Its name stems from the French word clafir, meaning to fill.  Originating in the 18th century, the cherries were not pitted, but that practice has changed to pitted. It is typically served warm, dusted with a hefty dose of powdered sugar, and sometimes with a dollop of cream on the side. 

Where Does the Clafouti Dish Come From?

Originally from the Limousin region in southwest central France, clafouti used dark cherries, which are classic in the region. It’s the number one dish in Limousin.

What Fruits Can Be Used in Clafouti?

There are so many possibilities. You can use the fruit individually or mix fruits, such as figs and raspberries. It’s always preferrable to use fresh fruit.

• red cherries
• plums
• prunes
• apples
• pears
• cranberries
• raspberries
• figs
• blackberries
• blueberries
• peaches

You may notice that strawberries are not on the list. They have too much moisture and get too mushy in a clafouti.

Technically, a clafouti made with any other fruit beside cherries is called a flaugnarde, pronounced “floo-narde”.

In summer, peaches are a wonderful option for a clafouti. Here is my version of a summer Peach Clafouti.

What Type of Baking Dish Do You Use to Make a Clafouti?

You can use a round, square, oval or rectangle baking dish to make a clafouti. You can use a deep dish pie dish.

Since you may want to serve the dessert directly from the baking dish, I recommend baking it in a pretty dish. I like to use my Emile Henry deep dish pie plate. It’s a pretty dish that comes in different colors.

This is what I used for my most recent Valentine’s Day dinner party.

I’ve also used my oval Le Creuset baking dishes.

Source for this Recipe

I discovered this clafouti recipe about twenty years ago when I was an assistant in the culinary school at our local Sur la Table. I assisted Joanne Weir, who at the time had a cooking show on PBS.

The first time I met Joanne, she had just released a new cookbook, More Cooking in the Wine Country. She was on a tour to promote the book, and Sur la Table was one of the stops on her tour.

One of the best parts of my job was picking up the traveling chefs and taking them to their hotel and to the store before the class. It gave me the opportunity to visit with the chefs and learn about their culinary journey.

Of course, I bought every cook book that a chef was selling. (We got a great discount on everything we bought at the store.) And, the chefs always signed the books.

More Cooking in the Wine Country has remained one of my favorite cookbooks. The original recipe in the book was Fig and Raspberry Clafouti, but Joanne shared about using cherries instead.

So this is the recipe that I’ve used for over 20 years. I hope you love it as much as we do.

One Recipe – Two Times

I adjusted the recipe to one and a half times for my Valentine’s Day Girlfriend Dinner, and there wasn’t much left over. Sweet Shark requested that I make another batch for him.

So you’ll see different images for both batches.

For the second batch, I used a Le Creuset round pie dish. Mine is blue, but it comes in other colors.

Steps to Make a Dark Cherry Clafouti

As I said, this is an easy recipe. You can have it ready to serve in an hour.

Step 1

Your first step is to rinse, remove the stems and pit the cherries.

I love cooking gadgets and this cherry pitter is one of my favorites. It can also be used for olives.

The cherries I used were from New Zealand. They were a dark cherry red, and a little on the large size. They were delicious.

this Idea.

Step 2

Spread softened butter on the baking dish and add the cherries.

This is the first batch of 2 pounds in a larger dish.

This is the 1-pound of cherries that serves six.

Step 3

Gather your batter ingredients.

Put all the ingredients in the blender. Process until thoroughly blended. If you see dry pockets of flour, scrape down the insides of the blender, and then blend for a few more seconds.

Step 4

Pour the batter over the cherries. Some of the cherries may show above the batter.

Step 5

Scatter the sliced almonds on top of the clafouti.

Step 6

Place the clafouti in the middle of the preheated oven. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until golden and puffed up.

Step 7

Place the cherry clafouti on a cooling rack for 15 minutes. Sprinkle the top of the clafouti with powdered sugar.

This is the first batch.

This is the second.

Step 8

Make the Chantilly Cream which is basically heavy whipping cream, confectioner’s (powdered) sugar, and vanilla extract.

You can either make it in a stand or hand mixer or in an immersion blender, which is what I usually do.

Always place your piping bag and piping tip in a tall container or glass. This makes adding the whipped cream so easy. Then you can store the extra whipped cream in the container.

Serving the Dark Cherry Clafouti

Serving the cherry clafouti is easy, too. You can simply spoon the Chantilly Cream on top of the clafouti or put it in a piping bag. The piping bag method is a little more elegant. That’s what I did for the Valentine’s party.

I served the cherry clafouti in my vintage pink sherbet glasses. I topped each one with a raspberry.

Everyone loved the dessert. No one had ever had one before.

Here is my second batch for Sweet Shark.

Dark Cherry Clafouti Recipe

I hope you will save this recipe because it is so good, so easy, and everyone loves it.