Clafouti, Clafouti, Clafouti!

Clafouti. Such a fantastically fun word. Kluh-foo-tea. I love to just say it over and over while I'm baking. Somehow it manages to conjure up visions of light and fluffy buttery goodness before you even know what the word means. When I was first gifted Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" this was the page in the dessert section that leaped out at me. Milk, eggs, fruit, a little flour, a little butter? How simple and amazing is this dessert to enjoy the bounty of summer? Due to the baby man making his appearance and the whole learning how to care for a little human time I missed the fresh cherry window to make the traditional cherry clafouti. Sigh. But...

Nate's parents have two beautiful blueberry bushes and now that summer seems to finally arrived in the Northwest they graced us with a large ziploc bag full of fresh, plump blueberries! Huzzah!

While a blueberry clafouti isn't traditional per say, Julia still includes it in her adaptation section on clafoutis. And while we are a dairy free household while Judah's tummy matures I adapted the recipe even further. I've realized that baking with dairy-substitutes is really difficult. I try to avoid soy milk due to the processing that goes into it and when I use almond or rice milk there is no fat to create that fluffiness necessary in cakes and cookies. (I have found almond milk works really well in baking muffins though, go figure.) Thankfully, God created the coconut and its tasty milk! While coconut milk doesn't have as much fat as whole milk, it still has enough integrity to hold together as a main ingredient in a clafouti. The result is different than a dairy milk clafouti, but is still rich, buttery and holds nuggets of warm blueberry pockets. Yum!

Pre-baking. Don't mind the stains on the cookbook. I had a ratatouille incident a few summers back.

Coconut Clafouti (adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1 1/4 cups coconut milk

2/3 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 T vanilla

1/2 cup flour

3 cups blueberries

1 T butter (or vegan butter if you want to go fully dairy-free)

Blend (either in blender or with immersion blender) coconut milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour until creamy and smooth. Butter a 7-8 cup deep baking dish and pour 1/4" of batter into it. Place in oven until this layer sets. (3-5min or less) Pour berries into the dish and immediately pour the rest of the batter over. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until a knife inserted into the clafouti comes out clean. Allow to cool, but serve warm, sprinkled with powered sugar. (Admittedly I was too excited to eat ours that I forget the powdered sugar)

It doesn't win any beauty contests, but man, oh man is it good!

Baking with Baby: Blackberry Pie

This is the normal view I have when I'm in the kitchen these days:

My little man, hanging out in his bouncy seat wondering why his mama is banging all those shiny things on that big box exuding heat.

I must say it is a lot different to cook and bake with a small human in the apartment. Before he was born, Nate and I had an idea that I would have "so much more time for cooking" since I would be at home full time. Let me just say, ha to the ha! Most days I'm lucky to make myself a smoothie for lunch, eat some fruit for a snack and by the time dinner rolls around I toss the baby at my husband with a "here hold this!" while I throw something together for us to eat. Which we do, normally around 8 or 9 after the baby is asleep. The other night we had tuna sandwiches and pickled things I had made last summer. Gourmet eh?

On the days I do get myself together enough to actually cook, bake or preserve something, I am invariably interrupted by someone waking early from his nap, a digestive issue (not my own) or just simply a cry of "Mama I'm bored now! Play with me!" (The kid is only two and a half months old after all, he can only self-entertain for so long.)

Therefore I've had to learn to plan ahead and do things in stages, which I had never truly done before. I'm not what you would call an organized person. Nate prefers to call it "thinking organically" (this is also known as forgetful, discombobulated or spastic, take your pick.) In order to make this pie I had to work in three stages: crust prep during play time, berry prep during nap time and baking during his lunch time.

My parents live out on the Kitsap Peninsula and as anyone from the Northwest knows, blackberries are basically a weed here. Their neighbor has an empty lot with bushes of berries just begging to be picked. My mum brought a container full of them over the other day and while I had used half of them for other things, the last portion needed to be used ASAP.

I must admit I cheated and used frozen pie dough. I happened to have some Trader Joe's brand in the freezer and I figured waste not, want not. If I was going to make my own from scratch I would use this recipe. I experimented with what I had in the kitchen and figured a little cinnamon and orange zest could kick the flavor up so this wouldn't be just another summer berry pie.

Orange-Blackberry Pie

5-6 cups fresh blackberries

3/4-1 cup sugar + 1T for sprinkling on top

1/4 cup cornstarch

zest from one orange

1-2tsp cinnamon

2-3T lemon juice

pie dough (enough for the bottom and top crust)

Preheat oven to 375*

Roll out half of your pie dough and place in pie plate, allow to chill in fridge while the rest of the preparations are made.

Roll out other half and cut into 3/4" strips, chill as well.

Mix the blackberries, sugar, cornstarch, juice, cinnamon and orange zest in large bowl. Let macerate for 20 minutes or so. Taste juice and adjust seasonings as desired, more cinnamon or sugar here...etc.

Pull pie plate out of fridge and pour berries in.

Arrange lattice strips on top and crimp edges with a fork.

Sprinkle extra sugar on top

Bake on foil-lined cookie sheet for an hour or so until bubbly and crust is browned. Check after 40 minutes to make sure the top isn't getting too brown.

Cool on rack and enjoy!