bird's nest soup

no knead bread.

I want to make this. 
 

clafouti on my own.

My neighbor is a marvelous cook. I am not. It's laziness more than skill, I tell myself. Regardless of what's really true, I just don't spend much time in the kitchen. But thanks to my wonderful neighbor, I'm learning a couple of recipes that I hope to master. That way I don't have to be a total dork every time we're invited to a potluck or dinner party, and we show up with a store bought bagette or bottle of wine.

One of my favorite desserts in all the world is clafouti. And luckily, my neighbor knows how to make a mean one. So a couple of weeks, she kindly shadowed me on my first attempt at making one myself and happily, it turned out great. Inspired by my first successful clafouti creation, I'm winging it on my own today. What I love about clafouti is that you can use all sorts of fruit to create a wide variety of iterations from the original recipe. Today it's fresh peaches (and also eggs) from the farmer's market and raspberries picked from my garden yesterday. I'm hopeful that my use of the freshest ingredients will ensure that the eggy, creamy, fruity delight will be as successful the second time around.

To try this lovely, sublime dessert yourself, here's my neighbor's recipe for clafouti:

ingredients:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter to grease the pan
1/2 cup of sugar, + a handful to dust the pan
4 eggs
1/3 cup of flour
3/4 cup of heavy cream
3/4 cup 1% milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
confection sugar for the top
sliced, peeled fruit: peaches, pears, apples and/or berries: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries etc.

instructions:
Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2" deep 9 x 5" pie pan with the butter and then dust with enough sugar to cover the entire pan. Lay the fruit in the pan in some decorative way that will impress your friends. Then set aside the pan while you prepare the egg batter. Beat the eggs until they are foamy. Add the 1/2 cup sugar and continue to beat until the batter is thick and foamy. Add the flour while you are still beating the batter, adding smaller amounts at a time to ensure that the flour is totally mixed into the batter without clumps. Once the batter has the flour mixed in and is thick and creamy, add the cream, milk, vanilla and salt and mix thoroughly. Then pour the batter over the fruit in the pan slowly. Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. If all goes well and it comes out browned and custardy like it's supposed to, then sprinkle the confectioners sugar on the top and let cool. Serve cold with fresh whipped cream if you want to experience clafouti as a total fat extravaganza.

That's it. So delicious, so easy and so fun. Yum, yum.

8/26/06