This week’s recipe for Cook the Book Fridays comes from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook, Everyday Dorie.
A flognarde (flow-nyard) is a custardy French dessert of fruit — plums, prunes, pears or berries — baked in a batter that most resembles the mix you’d use to make crepes. No matter what fruit you use, you’ll enjoy the way it softens and sweetens as it bakes for almost an hour. Tender fruits, like plums and berries, become almost jammy in the oven, the perfect consistency for the cake, which is soft and custardy — almost like a chubby pancake.
I admit I approached this with a bit of hesitancy because though I love a good clafoutis (a similar dessert made with whole cherries), I often can’t get the texture right, and rather than “soft and custardy”, I sometimes get a more rubbery texture than I like.
For this version, I used some not quite ripe plums which were perfect (sometimes ripe fruit in this type of dessert releases too much liquid and the resulting dessert is watery) and I made 1/3 of the recipe for a small dish serving 2 people. This came out actually more like a cake with a tiny part in the centre that was “custardy” and I LOVED it!
I’ll definitely be making this again – works with many different fruits (plums, pears, I’d say apricots and berries would work too!) – and playing around with my own clafoutis recipe to see if I can’t just make it into a flognarde too!
Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s Flognarde with Plums from Everyday Dorie on page 291 of Everyday Dorie or here.
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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Everyday Dorie” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions 100% my own.
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Well flognarde is certainly a new word for me! And yes, this was lovely – I know what you mean re a clafoutis sometimes having that slight “rubbery” texture…though I’ve never turned one away, LOL. 🙂
This was delightful, and perfect texture.
Yes- not rubbery! I really liked this, too, and want to play around with more fruits because it’s so quick to make.
I feel like mine was more rubbery now that you mention it 😂…it still got eaten.
When you come down under next, you can make us one. Looks wonderful.
Mine did not turn out cake-like at all. I wonder what I did wrong. It was was more custardy to me. Yours looks beautiful.
Yes, my preference is for a more custardy, rather than rubbery, clafoutis which turns up sometimes. I believe it has to do with the amount of all-purpose flour. But I haven’t figured out exactly how much.
Yours looks so tasty…I especially like those almonds on the top as yours look so plump and crunchy, I would love that! I used blackberries and they were delicious in it. Cake or custard…not sure, a bit of each in mine…whatever it was, it was delicious.