Pear clafouti

Ingredients

3 firm pears, peeled, thickly sliced
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup plain flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Butter a pie dish and set aside.

Prepare the pears and then arrange the slices in the buttered pie dish so that they fan out to create a circle. Fill in the centre with the smaller pieces of pear.

In a food processer, or with a stick blender, combine all the remaining ingredients until a thin batter has been created.

Gently pour the batter over the pear slices.

Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove and leave for five minutes before serving with a dollop of cream and a little icing sugar over the top.

Notes

The traditional clafouti recipe uses cherries instead of pears but with cherries out of season at the moment, I went for an alternative fruit. I guess you could use any fruit that wouldn’t completely collapse with cooking.
This dessert is fantastically simple to make and looks really impressive.
Serve this hot for maximum impact – I think it loses a little something (a little of its vanilla egginess perhaps?) when it cools.
This Pear clafouti recipe was created by Ella Walsh for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder.