Flourless Sweet OR Savory Clafouti

Curried Fish & Spinach Flourless Clafouti. Isn't that a mouthful!

I absolutely love this recipe! Clafouti — or clafoutis, some call it — is a traditional French fruit dessert that stands somewhere between pudding and cake. Here it is reinvented as a gluten free, dairy free (if you want) and very nutrient-dense dish that can be made with fruit for a dessert, but also with any combination of vegetables and protein for a nice lunch or dinner.

I’m always looking for ways to use coconut milk and this recipe is perfect for that. I’d use dairy only if I can get it non-pasteurized. I also love recipes that use lots of eggs because it is such a high quality protein for the price! Even if you get eggs that are $8 a dozen, that’s still less than $1 per egg.

Fair warning: the base of this dish is eggs and because of the lack of flour, you will end up with something that reminds you of a frittata, but the other ingredients make it much lighter and creamier.  Give it a try!

Prep time: 10 min
Cooking time: 30 to 45 minutes
Servings: About 4

Ingredients:
* 6 eggs of the highest quality you can find and afford — pasture-fed and/or organic
* 6 tablespoons melted butter or ghee, cooled to room temperature. More for greasing pan
* 3/4 cup coconut milk (my favorite), or organic or non-pasteurized cream or half & half
* 4 cups stuff*
* Seasonings, depending on what you’re preparing

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400° F.
2. Butter a 10” round or 13×9” baking dish.
3. Whisk together eggs, butter and coconut milk or cream until frothy.
4. Mix in the stuff* and spices and pour into baking dish.
5. Bake. Start paying attention at 30 min. It might be up to 45 min, depending on the ingredients you’re using and your baking dish. The golden brown, puffy top is a good indicator.

*Stuff: Whatever combination you decide to make. On the savory side, you can try chicken, shrimp, sausage or any kind of fish, alone or combined with a green —e.g., spinach, broccoli or leeks, or some kind of herb plus salt and pepper, and perhaps other spices. Keep in mind that most of the ingredients would need to be cooked to a degree, because they won’t reach the ideal cooking temperature in the clafouti. Anything that you’d put on a frittata or a quiche works here .  The last one I made had curried fish and spinach (that’s what’s in the pic above). It was delicious.

On the sweet side, clafouti is very frequently done with pit fruits: peaches, plums, cherries, etc., or berries: raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, etc. I’ve seen recipes with apples, pears, clementines and banana too. Any fruit you’d use in a pie, works here. As for the sweetener, what I use is a combination of powdered stevia and a little maple syrup. Of course you can use any kind of sugar. Traditional recipes have about 1 cup of sugar per recipe. To me that’s excessive, since baked fruit is already pretty sweet. I just put enough sweetener to lightly sweeten the “batter” and I also add powdered cinnamon, vanilla extract, ground cloves, and/or nutmeg.

What are you putting in yours?

Tagged as: coconut milk recipes, egg recipes, flourless cakes, gluten free recipes