Clafoutis aux prunes - Limousin batter pudding with plums. Gluten-free version.

A clafoutis [pr. klafuti] is essentially a fruit tart without pastry, which comes from the Limousin region of France, famous for its enamels, porcelain and beef cattle. There are other similar recipe regional desserts and probably as equally well-known is the far breton, which as Brittany is just around the corner from us here, I will be posting soon.

Although often made with cherries, a clafoutis can be made with a wide variety of fruits and also as a savoury dish. In the following recipe I'll be making a gluten-free version with some 'quetsch', which are large damson-like plums, these are from a friend's tree.  I will also shortly be posting a savoury version of this recipe and one for small individual tarts. I will be making the latter with all purpose flour/plain flour but which obviously could also be made by following my gluten free recipe below or with your own favourite gluten-free choice for the flour.

I have eaten clafoutis on a couple of occasions in restaurants and have found it too sweet and heavy. That is because it is often made with non-traditional sweet cherries, in my opinion it needs the 'bite' that tart varieties of fruit can give. I also think it needs a really good whisking up when the milk goes in and I also believe a fine, light flour such as arrowroot helps to lift the batter. In addition, I thought the mix needed some 'fat' with which to carry the the flavours, although using raw Normandie dairy, helps a lot.

Ingredients

Plum halves to cover the bottom of dish

80g (3oz) of potato flour

20g ( ¾oz) of arrowroot

80g (3oz) of sugar

300ml of milk (I use raw local creamy milk from Normandy cows)
2 eggs (or 4 bantam eggs)

1 table spoon of melted coconut oil or butter

50g (1 ¾oz) of ground almonds

Optional - Rapadura (raw cane sugar) for sprinkling on the plums.

Cooking times

30 to 40 mins or until the top is well set and golden at 180°C or 350°F

Method

Butter your pie dish generously and place upon it, cut face downwards, the halves of plums with the stone removed. Use enough plums to cover the dish, I'm using a 25cm or 10" square, with an internal depth of 25mm or 1". 

(Optional) Sprinkle with a little rapadura (raw cane sugar). This will give a little caramel touch to the plums, which are quite tart and I'm using less sugar in the batter than would be used traditionally.

Place all your dry ingredients in a bowl but keep back a little sugar for sprinkling on the clafoutis when it comes from the oven. Mix well.

Add the melted coconut oil (or butter) and mix again.

Make a well in the mix and add eggs, incorporate by bringing the dry ingredients gradually in towards the centre. You can do this by hand or with a beater if you wish. Beat well to obtain a smooth paste.

Add milk slowly, whisking all the time to obtain an homogeneous batter. This is a thin batter - do not worry!

Pour over plums and put immediately into the oven

When cooked the clafoutis will 'spring back' when you touch it with your finger tips and it will also be a beautiful golden brown.






The clafoutis can then be sprinkled with the remaining sugar just to give it a little crunch and extra texture. You can eat it straight from the oven, but I usually have some left over for the next day. I just store it on the window ledge, I do not have a fridge and I think it might go soggy if you were to put it in one, so a pantry or cool place would be best.

Hope you enjoy this dish, it is simple and yet an ode to the fine organic ingredients and succulent seasonal fruit.


Please feel free to comment, ask questions and share.

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from an old farmhouse in Normandie,

Sue

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© 2014 Sue Cross

Organic Courgette Zucchini Cake Recipe with Raw Cream Chantilly and Nasturtiums

This time of year you are probably either snowed under with Summer squash from your own garden or fending off friends and neighbours as they proffer armfuls of their own. We even have one person who flits about the village leaving them on doorsteps or posting them through car windows. It's a shame to undervalue them in a glut because they are nutritious, have anti-oxidant properties and can be eaten in so many different ways. One of our favourites is raw in salads, using both fruit and flowers but below is perhaps a more unusual one, a delicious moist cake.

I first made this some years ago for a village supper and asked everyone to guess what was in it - they could all taste the home-grown ginger but the subtle green colour and hint of some other more elusive ingredient, had them baffled. Since then it's become a regular favourite with so many, so happy to have found another use for the ubiquitous courgette.

The recipe is based upon my favourite Carrot Cake one given to me by my sister and I have used it since to create other cakes with a variety of root vegetables, including beetroot, parsnip and turmeric. In fact I am about to make a marble cake so will post it here in the blog when I have done so.

It's a very simple cake, which really suits organic ingredients which are strong in flavour and need no other additives than their own delicious selves. You could use your own favourite carrot or apple cake recipe to make this too. A word on sugar, I usually halve the sugar requirements as outlined in most old recipes, organic sugar really is sweeter and if you use something like rapadura, has a strong flavour which you do not want to overshadow the rest. As with all cookery, this recipe is about experimentation and you can always add an extra hint of sweetness in the cream Chantilly. 

The ginger (foreground above) we grow and make ourselves and there is a link here as to how crystallise it http://simplyorganicrecipes.blogspot.fr/2013/02/how-to-crystallise-organic-ginger-root.html#.U-pbnP5Du5k. A friend has also made this cake with raw grated root ginger and again it's all about experimentation and preferences, particularly in the balance of sweetness. You could make this simple cake with all sorts of seasonal fruits and vegetables, just let your imagination run wild! Just like our courgette plants in the 5 dollar greenhouse below.

Other than the home-grown organics, I get my certified organic ingredients from my local organic shop, which has a charter to source locally whenever possible. My raw cream comes directly from our local organic dairy farm.

Ingredients

8oz (225g) courgettes
A handful of preserved/crystallised ginger
6oz  (175g) raw butter
6oz (175g) unrefined caster sugar
2 eggs
8oz (225g) plain flour
5g organic raising agent
(we do not have self-raising flour in France)

Oven Temperature 350 °F (180 °C)

 

Firstly, grate the courgette and express the juice by pressing through a sieve or just by squeezing it in the hand.

Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the beaten egg. Slowly incorporate the flour and raising agent, then the crystallised ginger and finally the grated courgette.

Spoon into a buttered and lined loaf tin and bake for one and a quarter hours approximately. To check if cooked insert a cocktail stick into the middle of the cake if it is ready the stick will come out clean.

The cake can be decorated simply with a dusting of icing sugar but we really enjoy it with raw cream, whipped and slightly sweetened to Chantilly and then decorated with edible flowers and leaves from the garden.

As zucchini plants are so prolific and as the fruits keep well if stored in a cool dry place, you can be eating this cake even as the first frosts begin to bite. A delicious reminder of the changing seasons, brightening up the Winter days with the fragrance and taste of Summer.

..and now if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film:

Thanks for dropping by. All the best and please feel free to comment and share this recipe,

Sue

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© 2014 Sue Cross

Organic Kartoffelpuffer and Home-grown Winter Salad a delicious and inexpensive gluten-free lunch or supper dish.

When I was a child one of our favourite Winter supper dishes was poached egg with potato cakes. Later on when I lived abroad, I discovered a variation on this theme, which has also become a staple, German potato pancakes. Unlike the English version, which are made from mashed potatoes and then baked, kartoffelpuffer are made from grated potatoes and then shallow fried.

For my salad I am using the green leaf vegetables I have growing in the greenhouse; ruby chard, cabbage, oak leaf lettuce and Chinese leaf. I'm only picking them off a leaf at a time and eating them at the 'baby' leaf stage. This has allowed me to continue these plants through from mid Summer to Spring.

The Ingredients

As a general guide you will need to allow one large potato and one small onion and half a beaten egg per person. The salad is dressed with a simple vinaigrette of unpasteurised apple cider vinegar, olive oil and home-grown garlic. I also add anything else on hand, a couple of endive given to me by a fellow organic gardener and a purchased tangerine.

Preparation

Peel and grate the potatoes and onions with a coarse grater.

Using a large sieve held at an angle, over a bowl, squeeze handfuls of the grated vegetables  to express the juice.  The angle allows you to keep the potato mix draining, whilst squeezing further handfuls. Many people use a glass cloth or tea towel to do this but personally I find it less work to do it this way.

Once you have finished, allow the liquid in the bowl to stand until you see the starch separating from it and sinking to the bottom of the bowl. Pour the liquid from the starch. Discard the liquid and add the grated vegetables to the starch in the bowl. 

For this mix, which is enough for two, I use one small bantam egg. My chicks lay eggs in all different sizes, so if the amount is crucial to a recipe, I weigh them.

Season with salt and pepper and incorporate with the egg and grated vegetable. Meanwhile heat a large frying pan with a oil suitable for frying, just a thin layer. 

When the oil is hot enough so it sizzles when you add a test piece of potato, spoon in a tablespoon of the mix and flatten down with the back of the spoon. I like the pancakes very thin, that way they become very crisp and complement the salad really well. Flip the pancakes over, to cook on the other side, when they are golden brown, after approximately 4 minutes of cooking.

Wash any dust from the salad leaves, spin off excess water and add the vinaigrette. There is something so satisfying about being able to provide fresh, green leaves for the table in Winter.

A quick, delicious, organic and gluten-free meal, which can also double as a pudding, when served with apple sauce and sprinkled with a little sugar and cinnamon. At one large potato per person you will get two large pancakes, so enough for a main course and a sweet!

The dish below is a Summer version, with garden vegetables, nasturtium flowers and figs and purchased organic ham.

GARDENING TIP - Last year we had the best garlic harvest ever through following the traditional French way of planting them on the shortest day and harvesting on the longest. I then dried them in the spare bedroom on a wooden clothes dryer, after having lifted them with their stalks still and dried them initially in the greenhouse.

Please feel free to share this recipe and comment or ask questions.

Thanks for dropping by and hope to see you again, Sue.
 
Some ideas for cookware and utensils:

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© 2014 Sue Cross

Organic Marmalade Recipe - Seville Oranges, sweet oranges, lemons, clementines, grapefruit and pomelo with a touch of crystallised ginger.

Brought from the wondrous gardens of Persia, celebrated in verse and prized for their virtues in Medicine and Perfumery, the first citrus aurantium trees were planted in Spain by the Moors in the fertile land of Andalucia. 

Legend has it that a ship laden with these fruit and en route from Seville was forced by storms into the safe harbour of Dundee. The captain, afraid the oranges would spoil, sold them off cheaply to a local grocer, one James Keiller, who had mistaken them for a sweet orange variety. His canny wife, substituted the bitter oranges for the usual quinces and made the traditional paste known as marmalade, (from ‘marmelo’ the Portuguese word for quince). By the end of the 18th century this new sweetmeat had become so popular that the Keiller family had established a factory making the breakfast preserve still known as ‘Dundee Seville Orange Marmalade’.

To make a manageable batch of marmalade, I use 3 kilos (just over 6½lbs)  of citrus fruit (with a majority of Seville Oranges) plus half their weight in raw cane sugar. As this preserve contains only one third sugar and traditional marmalades are half sugar, I jar some for use and freeze the rest in reasonable quantities to boil up and jar as needed.

My recipe is made of a mixture of citrus fruits including pink grapefruit as well as the traditional Seville bitter oranges. I always like to minimise the sugar to fruit ratio in my preserves. Organic sugar by weight is much sweeter than the non organic kind and tempering its content, lessens the risk of overpowering the bitter sweetness of the fruit. Marmalade is traditionally seasonal, made for a very limited period in the Winter months, when Seville oranges ripen. It is also eminently suitable as an organic recipe as its unique taste comes in part from the peels of the fruit which in organic agriculture are untreated and unwaxed. 

Begin by washing the fruit to remove any dust. Remove peel. My marmalade recipe initially requires the peel and pulp to be dealt with separately. I've found this makes the peel more digestible. 

I employ a method for preparing the peels, which I found in a family copy of Mrs. Beeton's Household Management from 1861. This removes the bitterness without impairing the taste. Start by adding all the peels to a saucepan, cover with cold water, put on lid and bring to the boil. As soon as you have a rolling boil, remove from heat, drain and rinse. Repeat this process three times in total. Then taking a sharp knife, remove as much pith as possible from the peel, which is then cut into strips. This is the same cooking method I use for making candied peel and can be found here: http://simplyorganicrecipes.blogspot.fr/2013/02/how-to-make-organic-candied-citrus-peels.html

Concurrently, chop the bitter oranges into small pieces and remove as many pips as possible. Place all the fruit pulp in another saucepan, add sugar and stir over gentle heat until dissolved.

You can now add the peel, cover the pan and heat gently.  After about an hour and a half the fruit should be well enough cooked to be liquidised. 


I have a wood cooker so I leave mine for a couple of hours on the side of the cooker top just off the hot plate. Mrs. Beeton suggests that the longer marmalade cooks the better the flavour.

GARDENING TIP 
Ginger is quite easy to grow in the house or greenhouse. Chinese ginger seems the best for colder climates. I bought a root at our local organic shop and left it out in the kitchen until a bud appeared. I then suspended the root in water, with the bud partly submerged. Within a few days roots appeared and I then transferred it to a planter filled with a soil and compost mix.


Add a good handful of the crystallised ginger and at the same time test for flavour and if needed add a little of the excess sugar left from crystallising the ginger. Stir well to incorporate the ginger and then heat to a rolling boil. It's so easy to make the above, so here's the link showing the simple method by which I crystallise the ginger root. http://simplyorganicrecipes.blogspot.fr/2013/02/how-to-crystallise-organic-ginger-root.html

After a few minutes further cooking you can test to see if the marmalade will set by putting a small amount on a cold saucer. Leave it to cool for a few seconds and then lightly skin the surface of the marmalade with the side of your little finger. If the surface wrinkles against your finger the preserve is ready. Prepare some glass jars by sterilising them in boiling water and leaving them to dry and remain hot in the oven. The finished marmalade can then be poured into them. I usually only jar up two lots of marmalade and freeze the rest. If you do not wish to freeze you will have to add more sugar to the mix, normally the same weight as the fruit, or alternatively, make smaller quantities, otherwise you run the risk of the marmalade not keeping.

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One of the first vitamins to be depleted by stress is vitamin C. I didn't know this until I observed the behaviour of one of my bantam cockerels, recovering from cold stress. I could not help noticing, that of all the foodstuffs I had provided to help him combat it, he always chose the citrus first. I then googled it!

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Or if you'd rather, just sit back and watch some dancing fruit:-

If you've enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it and/or comment or ask questions.

I'll wish you bon appétit and hope to see you next time, Sue 

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© 2013 Sue Cross

How to make organic candied orange and chocolate dipped peels.

It is such a shame to compost the peels of any of your organic citrus fruit, when you can cook and candy them so simply. The following method is also the one I use to prepare peels before making marmalade, as it renders them less bitter and to us, more digestible at the breakfast table. They can also be kept for use in cakes and puddings.

Above - Delicious home-made economical sweets from something you might have thrown away or at best flung in the compost bin! You can use a variety of citrus peels for sweets even the Seville, if you you want something as a bitter foil for a sweeter chocolate. The best lemons for sweets are those varieties which have very thick peels - I am lucky enough to have a neighbour who brings me them back every Summer from her mother's tree in Sardinia. They are supposed to be from a root-stock introduced by Alexander the Great and are also brilliant for juicing.

The  peels left have been dried in the oven and will keep for ages in a sealed box. If I want to make softer peels like the ones for the tangerine peel chocolates above I follow the same method but I cook the  peels in the syrup at the end and then just roll them in sugar and air dry them for an hour or so. 

The Method

                                                  

Wash the fruit to rid them of any dust. Remove the peels from the fruit in reasonably sized strips.

You don't have to be as fanciful in peeling your fruit but I was making a film and wanted my citrus to look interesting, 'dancing' in time to the music! (link at end of post)

 


Add all the peel to a saucepan and cover with cold water, bring to the boil and remove from heat, drain and rinse. 

 
Repeat this process three times in total. 




 

Using a sharp filleting knife or similar remove as much pith as possible from the peels. This can then be composted. Cut the peels into strips. The strips are now covered with cold water, brought to the boil and simmered until they  become translucent. This takes approximately ten minutes. Drain but do not rinse put into a a measuring jug, so as to gauge the volume of syrup needed, you will need enough to cover all the peels completely.
 

Make the syrup with equal amounts of raw cane sugar and water. Stir well to dissolve and then leave to boil without stirring until the mixture is golden brown. Pour over the peels, cover and leave for at least an hour. Remove and leave to dry on racks in the bottom of a warm oven. This will make for very dry peels, which will keep well. 

Juicier, softer peels for sweets, decoration and dipping in chocolate

 

If you want softer peels, then you can cook them in the syrup, rather than just cover them with it, where they will plump up. After the syrup thickens you can then let them cool and freeze in containers. Or you can go on to make them into chocolate dipped peel



Below are some I have dried ready for dipping.

I often make these softer peels as I need them, as I did with this mix for my Christmas Pudding below. Link: Victorian Christmas Pudding Recipe with gluten-free option.



Pictured below soft peels drying and lightly dusted with sugar.

Once you have dried your peels and rolled them in sugar take some good quality, high coco solids cooking chocolate and melt it in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. You can then dip one or both ends of your peels into the melted chocolate and put them to dry and cool on a plate





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Dried and candied peels can be used for both cooking, cosmetics and medicines. The main ingredient of the home-made tooth powder which we use everyday, is dried, powdered orange peel. So next time you eat an organic orange, think twice before you consign such a valuable asset  to the compost bin.    
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You can find my toothpaste recipe here 'Snow Caps' old Swiss teeth whitening recipe

If you enjoyed this recipe, please feel free to share it, comment and/or ask questions.

I'll wish you bon appétit and hope to see you next time, Sue 

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© 2013 Sue Cross