Melissa Clark’s clafouti recipe is a light and custardy dessert (like a baked pancake) with juicy raspberries and a hint of lavender. Elegant clafoutis is one of the easiest desserts to make, and it’s all about the quick and light batter! Serve it for dessert or brunch!
This recipe is from Melissa Clark’s latest cookbook Dinner in French (affiliate link).
From French baked eggs to Moroccan vegetable tagine and ratatouille sheet-pan chicken, Melissa Clark’s latest book Dinner in French (affiliate link) has won my heart! It offers the comfort and big flavors of French cooking in a way someone like me, a home cook, can follow.
And with Melissa’s permission, I’m excited to share one simple recipe from the cookbook that’s perfect for dessert or brunch: Raspberry-Lavendar Clafouti!
What Is Clafoutis?
Clafouti, pronounced klah-foo-TEE, is a delicate French dessert that’s made of fruit and a custardy batter. Think of it as an elegant baked pancake. It’s a few steps above your homey cobbler or crisp, but couldn’t be easier to make.
Cherries are the typical fruit used in clafoutis, and they’re usually stirred into the batter unpitted, offering a bit of a bitter almondy flavor (I like cherries fine, but I’d prefer them pitted).
But Melissa Clark’s recipe here uses raspberries, which are softer than the cherries, and juicier, too. And I love the addition of lavender, fragrant in a very subtle way (if you don’t have lavender buds, you can still make this raspberry clafoutis without any issues. For me, I wanted even more of it)!
How to make clafouti?
Clafoutis is one of the easiest things to make. Once you understand the batter, you can use up almost any fruit you have on hand to make this light and custardy cake. Here are the key steps to making clafouti (complete print-friendly recipe below):
- Prepare your fruit. In this recipe, the raspberries are tossed with a tablespoon of sugar to help sweeten them and allow them to release their juices.
- Place the fruit in a buttered ceramic baking dish.
- Whip up the batter. Traditionally, you would prepare the batter by hand, but to make it quick, this recipe uses a blender or a food processor. First the sugar and lavender (if using), then add the wet ingredients (milk, creme fraiche, and eggs) plus pinch salt. Once you run the blender to combine these ingredients together, add in the flour and pulse just briefly until incorporated.
- Pour the batter over the fruit.
- Bake
That’s all there is to it! (And don’t worry, the entire printable recipe is below)
A few tips for this clafoutis recipe
- Add the flour last to the batter and only pulse briefly until incorporated. You’ll notice that the sugar is blended first with the wet ingredients (milk, creme fraiche and eggs), before adding the flour. Flour comes in last and gets a couple pulses just until combined. This is the secret to delicate, tender clafouti.
- Clafoutis is ready when the cake is golden and the center springs back when lightly touched. The texture of your baked claufoti should be like a sturdy custard.
- Use a ceramic baking dish, a 2-quart gratin dish, or a 9-inch cake pan. You can likely use individual sized ramekins. Avoid thin metal baking pans because you don’t want the edges to burn too quickly before the clafouti sets.
- Clafouti is best served within an hour of baking, while it’s still soft and warm. But it’s quite good still after 6 hours of baking (Melissa recommends to keep it at room temperature).
- Leftover clafoutis should be refrigerated (covered) and used within 24 hours.
What other fruit to use?
Next time I make this clafouti recipe, I may mix in some blueberries or halved strawberries, or try a peach clafouti to use up some of my ripe Georgia peaches. You can also try other stone fruit as long as it’s pitted and chopped up.
Serve it for Dessert or Brunch!
You decide if you want to serve this clafoutis recipe as a simple dessert or an elegant centerpiece for your next brunch!
As I said earlier, it’s best consumed nice and warm just a few minutes after you take it out of the oven. I love adding more fruit and a bowl of Greek yogurt to the side, especially if serving it for brunch!
More Recipes to Try
Banana Walnut Bread with Dates and Honey
Sheet Pan Baked Eggs and Vegetables
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Raspberry Clafoutis Recipe
Equipment
- Ceramic Baking Dish
Ingredients
- Unsalted butter for baking dish
- 3 cups (350 grams) raspberries
- 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar divided
- 1 teaspoon dried lavender buds (optional)
- 1/2 cup (120 millilitres) whole milk
- 1/2 cup (114 grams) crème fraiche, more for serving (optional)
- 4 large eggs
- Pinch salt
- 1/3 cup (43 grams) all-purpose flour
- Confectioners’ sugar for serving
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch ceramic baking dish, or a 2-quart gratin dish, or a 9-inch cake pan.
- In a medium bowl, toss the raspberries with 1 tbsp sugar. Let them sit while you prepare the remaining ingredients
- In a food processor or blender, combine the remaining ½ cup sugar with the lavender; process until the lavender is mostly ground, about 2 minutes. Then pour the milk, crème fraiche, eggs, and salt, and process to combine. Add the flour and pulse just to combine.
- Arrange the sugared berries in the prepared baking dish, then pour the egg mixture over them. Bake until the cake is golden and the center springs back when lightly touched, about 35 minutes.
- Transfer the baking dish to a wire rack and let the cake cook for at least 15 minutes before serving. Then dust it with confectioners’ sugar, slice it, and serve it with a dollop of whipped crème fraiche if you like (I used Greek yogurt to serve along).
Notes
- Recipe from Melissa Clark’s cookbook Dinner in French (affiliate link)
- Clafouti is best served within an hour of baking, while it’s still soft and warm; but it is still quite good within 6 hours of baking (keep it at room temperature).
- If you do not have lavender buds, you can still make this recipe without them. It is very subtle in this recipe, and for me, I will likely add a little bit more next time
- A ceramic dish is best for baking clafouti. Avoid using metal baking pans which can burn the edges before the clafouti set.
- Leftovers: store in the fridge, covered, overnight for a great breakfast topped with Greek yogurt and more berries! It’s recommended to use up leftover clafoutis within 24 hours.
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Can frozen raspberries be used? If so, any guidance or instructions will be appreciated. Thanks!
Hi, Karen. A few of our other readers have had success using frozen berries with this recipe. We’ve never officially it, though. If you want to give it a try, I would thaw over a colander and make sure you get rid of excess juice then follow the recipe from there.
So annoying to have edited this so poorly? US cups? And no translation for sugar? Some ingredients given in both metric and imperial? It’s a delicious recipe but infuriating to have to go back and forth to find equivalent measurements?
Hi, Camilla — I’m Summer and I work here with Suzy at The Mediterranean Dish. I’m glad to know you thought the recipe was delicious. I’m sorry you found the method frustrating. The Mediterranean Dish is 10 years old, and this is one of the earlier recipes Suzy put on the site, when she was just figuring things out. We have it on our list to update so it’s easier to use.
Would this be good without lavender?
Absolutely! Hope you give it a try!
Definitely.
Great desert!… I used 1/2 and 1/2 instead of milk… 2 cups of raspberry and 1 cup of blackberry….OUTSTANDING…. and my new favorite desert.
Yay! Thanks, Greg!
This was creamy and delicate yet perfectly set at 30 minutes. The raspberries completely covered the bottom of the dish and provided beautiful bursts of tart and sweet in every bite. I used lower fat crème fraîche and nonfat milk, added 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla instead of the lavender, and it had plenty of flavor and richness. I took it to a neighborhood brunch and it disappeared in a matter of minutes. Excellent recipe!
Because of my medical condition I can’t use AP flour. Is there a substitute flour I can use?
Hi, Sharon. A 1:1 gluten free flour works well here! You can give that a try if that’s safe for you to consume.
Hi! From France 🇫🇷 try soaking prunes in brandy, rum and heat gently. Leave to soak up alcohol. Pour the custard on top and bake.
This is Far Bretton from Brittany, very popular and favourite in France, hot or cold in slabs.
Try the brandy or rum soaked prunes warm with ice cream! Yum 😋
That sounds amazing! I have to try it 🙂
Of course I’d give it 5 stars as raspberries are my favorite of the berries. I used Cup4Cup GF flour as my son is gluten intolerant. I’ve made the cherry almond clafoutis quite often for a lady I was taking care of and she loved it. But I’d never even heard of making it with unpitted cherries! I’m sorry, I can only give this recipe 5 stars. It sure deserves more!
Thanks, Feisty Granny!
We’ve done this with fresh fruit and also frozen fruit and it always comes out delicious! I’ve also used either sour cream or mascarpone for the creme fraiche and it’s still great! The lavender buds make it spectacular and we bumped it up to 2 tsp. This is one of the few recipes I regularly make over and over and we always eat the whole thing within one day because it’s sooooo good!
Awesome! Thanks so much!
This is absolutely delicious and so simple! I swapped an alternative sweetener since we don’t use regular sugar in our house and used coconut flour instead of regular flour. It came out beautiful and everyone (even my very picky kids) enjoyed it! It’s so good, I could eat it every day!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing your adaptations, Kit!
Can this batter be mixed by hand instead of in a blender or food processor? What would be the order of adding the ingredients? Can’t wait to try it! Thank you!
Of course. Same order of ingredients. There’s not actually any reason to use a blender for this. Or for most things 😉
I love making this dessert- it’s always a crowd pleaser, and people are always impressed!
Thanks, Katie!
This was so, so good! It i really easy to make and the flavor is amazing!
Thanks so much, Wilhelmina!
This was really good! Everyone at my house really loved it!
Awesome! Thanks, Toni!