Monday, July 4, 2011

Recipe 101: Apricot Clafouti

The challenge: Almond flour. I bought everything I needed for this recipe and thought I had the rest on hand. I must have thought when they said almond flour, they were asking for almond extract. So I didn't look for almond flour at my usual haunts. But the apricots needed to be used and I had planned to make this today, since I was up;-). (Shhh...I've never been a real morning person). I stopped at the local grocer's to check for almond flour, but they did not carry it in the specialty flour section. I thought about it, and decided that almond flour is just finely ground almonds. I was not driving anywhere today to obtain almond flour. I thought about researching it on the internet, but my internet source was in bed. I decided to experiment first, and research if I needed it. This is baking, and while it can get complicated, occasionally, baking is rarely hard.

I went home, having recalled I had slivered almonds already and poured about a cup into a container and blended them on high and puree or liquify until I got finely ground almonds and a coarse flour texture. The coffee grinder might have worked better, but I don't recall having rice in the house to clean it, and did not want to transfer coffee or spice flavors when they weren't intended(this time). Almond flour crisis averted, I began to mix the recipe.

The wet ingredients went together fairly easily, though I have a quarter cup of heavy cream I need something to do with, a half quart of whole milk left to go into my coffee. I thought about re-figuring the amounts in the recipe to work out as evenly as possible for most of the ingredients. I decided I had a day off and shouldn't nuke this. The vanilla bean was not as fresh as I'd like, so it was a bit tougher to scrape out the seeds for this recipe. In the future, I might use my homemade vanilla for flavor and just include a little extra. The bean flavors greatly, but gets a little pricey. If you no longer have to worry about a food budget, by all means, enjoy the vanilla bean;-). I also added butter and a tablespoon of brandy.

The dry ingredients went together even easier than the wet, drop in 1/2-3/4 cups of flours and sugar, add a 1/2 tsp of salt and combine with a fork. Then you add it to the wet mix. I beat it with an electric mixer, and was surprised that the mix did not thicken much, but there was more liquid than dry ingredients, and the texture is supposed to be between a custardy cake and a pancake. I decided not to worry about it.

Next, I pitted six apricots, possibly more, and cut them in half to fill the bottom of the buttered and floured baking dish. I did quarter a couple to fill the spaces better, and I cut one up to add to the batter for the fun of it. The apricots floated to the top of the clafouti. I'm not sure if they were supposed to. By this time, I decided I had to live with it.

Next, I baked it at 350F for 40 minutes. Then I sprinkled the top with some slivered almonds and baked for another 5 minutes. Sadly, I had to wait 10 whole minutes for it to cool before I could try it. I survived, but it was difficult;-).
The texture was close to a custard, but thicker and slightly more like cake, but wet moist cake. Had I baked this in ramekins with a water bath, I would have had apricot custard. It was good. I'm not sure I get the nutty flavor Emeril claims the almond flour is supposed to give it, but I haven't had it any other way at this point.

I will definitely make this recipe again. First I'm going to try it with cherries. Later, I'm going to just have fun with it. It is a fun and easy recipe. Enjoy.
P.S. James thought it was good too.

1 comment:

  1. Also posted on Knitting Paradise, Knitting Tea Party 1st to 3rd July forum.

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