Friday, August 8, 2008

This is not about clafoutis

Once upon a time, I went to a French Immersion school. We were taught, besides the irregular verbs, such essential French skills as how to use a period in place of a comma and how to yell "OUBLEK!" at the top of our lungs when the phone rang (Why "oublek"? What does it even mean? I suspect I'll never know). We were also taught, come 8th grade, essential French cooking. Vegetarian that I am (was?), I turned up my nose at the snails in classroom-prepared butter sauce. In fact, I was a bit of a snob about the whole thing. I didn't really like cooking, and I was very, very picky about my food.
One of the dishes we made was clafoutis, a French dish which Epicurious described, in one of those perfectly apt, wish-I'd-thought-that-up descriptions, as "a cross between a pancake and a custard".
I was a rather substandard child, in terms of tastebuds. You know those tiny wee children, only two or three years old, who just can't get enough of things like kale and whole-grain mustard? I love hearing about them, and hope my imaginary future children will be of that type but, no, that was not me. Not anywhere close to being me. When I wanted cake, I wanted it right then, in large quantities, and in standard cake form. Do I even need to explain how much clafoutis disappointed me? No frosting, no artless sweetness, more of an internal custard than a crumb.
Well, I've grown up a bit. I smear my dijon mustard on everything from bread to sausage, and I'm growing kale in my garden. I still haven't gotten around to making a clafoutis, but while I'm waiting on that, I've made a kind of compromise. It's French and it's a cake. It's simple, too, and it includes cherries like the ones I pitted for that original clafoutis. At the same time, it's a cake-cake, the kind that rises. You're not wondering secretly, somewhere in a hidden corner of your mind, whether you've accidentally gone and stuck fruit into an omelette recipe. I think it might even please my younger self, but more importantly, it really, really pleases the current me.



Brown Sugar Yogurt Cake
I love yogurt and brown sugar. Given my choice, I could probably eat plain yogurt and muscovado sugar for dessert every night for the rest of my life. If I got to include fresh fruit, I would definitely, definitely be set. Other people might get bored though. I have a feeling that a food blog which said "Dump brown sugar over yogurt. Eat." every day would get old quickly, also. So, doing the next best thing, I made a cake.
I based this on a selection of French yogurt cake recipes. This kind of yogurt cake is traditionally a French country food, but. I made it with plain brown sugar, but I think that if one made this with muscovado, it would probably transcend any stereotypes about "plain and simple" peasant food.

1 c. whole yogurt
1 c. brown sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 c. almonds, ground
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 c. canola oil
enough cherries

-Grease and flour an 8-inch round pan. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
-Wash and pit cherries. Cover the bottom of your pan with them.
-Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Attempt to sift in the ground almonds, too, but don't actually succeed because they're really not that finely ground.
-Combine the yogurt, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a bowl, whisk until combined.
-Whisk in dry ingredients. Fold oil in with a rubber spatula.
-Pour the batter over the cherries in your pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, or a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Uh, I remember why we shout oublek when the phone rings. Just sayin.

Also, do you think it would work with low fat yogurt? That's generally what I have around...

looks delicious.. mmm.