Easy clafoutis

For ➏-➑

30 g unsalted butter*

400 g cherries, pitted**

75 g wheat flour***

1 pinch of salt

65 g white caster sugar****

3 medium eggs

30 cl whole milk*****

2 tbs powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 190 °C. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. Grease the cake tin (Ø 24 cm) with some extra (not melted) butter. Sprinkle with some flour.

If necessary, pit the cherries and divide them over the cake tin. Sift the flour into a bowl and mix in the salt and sugar. Beat in the eggs, followed by the milk and melted butter, until no lumps remain.

Pour the batter over the cherries. Bake the clafoutis in the center of the oven for 30 m until done and golden brown. 

Remove the mold from the oven and sprinkle the clafoutis with the icing sugar. 

Serve warm.

*replace with vegetable butter or oil

**Unpitted cherries release less moisture

***Replace 25 g with almond flour

**** Replace with sugar substitute

***** Replace if necessary. by lactose-free milk or vegetable variant

Twin Peaks cherry pie

For ➑
crust:
125 g flour
125 g butter
10 cl ice water
filling:
75 cl pitted sour cherries
25 cl water
250 g sugar
4 tbs cornstarch
¼ ts salt

Mix flour and butter with fork. Add ice water. Mix with your hands. When blended, roll into ball and refrigerate overnight. To roll out: flour both rolling pin and flat surface, split ball in two, roll out ½ to fit a 32 cm pan and ½ for lattice.

Strain cherries (yields 50 cl juice). Taste for sweetness, more/less sugar may be needed.

Add 25 cl water to make 75 cl juice.

Dissolve cornstarch in 25 cl juice, stir with whip.

Combine 50 cl of juice, 200 g of sugar, add a pinch of salt, and bring to a boil.

Add cornstarch mix, cook until clear, about 5 m. Remove from heat, stir in rest of sugar (blend thoroughly). Pour mixture over cherries, fold with wooden spoon, cool (stir mix while cooling to prevent scum from forming on top).

Pour mix in pie shell. Top completed pie with lattice crust.

Bake at 220°C for 35-40 m.

Serve with a mug of strong black coffee.

Cherry pie was the recurring comfort food in David Lynch's cult television series Twin Peaks' cafe.

Strucolo di ciliege (a Friuli cherries' strudel)

For ➏
350 g flour
warm water or 2 eggs, lightly beaten*
1 ts of vinegar
salt
1 kg cherries, pitted & sliced**
25 g bread crumbs, toasted in a little butter
1 lemon, juiced & zest grated
50 g butter
125 g sugar

Sift the flour on a workplace, make a well in it. Add a pinch of salt, water or eggs, vinegar and knead the mixture well into a smooth dough that does not stick.

Roll the sheet out thinly (1 mm). Let rest for 30 m. Put on a clean kitchen towel and push out the dough into a rectangle.**

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Mix the cherries, bread crumbs, lemon juice, grated zest, butter and sugar together. Spread over the dough. Leave a free border at both side and and on the side close to you.

Lift the end of the towel towards you and gently push the dough to roll up. Use the last border part to seal the package. Seal the left and right borders as well. (Seal with some egg white.)

Put on a sheet of baking paper. Move gently into the oven and bake for 45 m.

Serve slices of the strucolo warm or lukewarm. A good grappa will make excellent company.

*Or just the yolks for a richer dough. Save egg whites for sealing.
**You can use apricots instead: 700 g apricots, pitted, sliced thinly + 80 g sugar + 25 g bread crumbs, browned in a little unsalted butter + 25 g butter. Change the filling to apples (and raisins). Walnuts and raisins with some rum and chocolate will do as well.
***As the dough is not sugared, it can be used for savory filling as well.

Until the end of the First World War, the Goriza province of the Alpine Friuli stayed a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The other provinces of the Carso plateau were already turned over to Italy in 1866, but stayed more central European than the rest of Italy. It has developed a cuisine that's close to Austrian and German cuisine.
This struciolo seems a variation of the classic Austrian Apfelstrudel, made with apples. This one, with cherries, is called Weichselstrudel in German. It goes well with the Trieste goulash (Gulyas alla Triestina) or Friuli winter salad for a hearty winter meal.
The strudel is a variation to the Ottoman cuisine baklava, made with flaky phyllo dough (which some cooks use as a replacement), and may have been developed in the Byzantine era. During Turkish occupation of central Europe in the 16th and 17th century, baklava shifted in some of these areas to a filling with apples, and a high gluten dough. From the former Turkish territories Croatia and Bosnia, close enough to Friuli to have a been a direct influence, and Hungary, it came to Austria, and became popular in the whole former Habsburg Empire and Germany. By immigration from central Europe, it spread to the United States, Israel and Brazil.

Sour-cherry lambic sorbet

For ➏
100 g sugar
50 g honey
15 cl water
300 g pitted black sour cherries
25 cl good kriek lambic like Lindemans

Heat the sugar, honey, and water in a small saucepan just until the sugar is completely dissolved. Cool the syrup completely.

Purée the cherries in the blender until smooth. Mix in the syrup and the lambic.

Pour the sorbet base slowly into your actively churning ice cream maker. After about 30 m, it would be thoroughly mixed.

Pack the sorbet into the chilled container. Freeze until firm, about 4 h.

Belgian kriek-beer is created by adding sour cherries to gueuze or unblended lambic. Avoid cheaper and sweeter brands. Read the anglerfish in gueuze recipe for more information on gueuze.
The sour cherries used in the beer are typical for the borough of Schaarbeek, near Brussels, where a feast of the cherry is organised every year.
Belgian lambic is available with several different fruits added, you could use raspberry lambic with real raspberries, as a variation.

Clafoutis aux cerises (French cherry custard)

For ➏
500 g fresh cherries, pitted*
1 tbs + 50 g sugar**
1 ts cornstarch
50 g flour
50 g almonds, toasted***
4 large eggs
pinch of salt
20 cl milk
50 g unsalted butter, melted
1 ts grated lemon peel
1 ts vanilla extract
½ ts almond extract
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 160°C.
Butter shallow glass baking dish. Combine cherries, 1 tbs sugar and cornstarch in bowl. Toss to coat.
Arrange cherries in bottom of prepared dish.
Blend flour and almonds in processor until nuts are finely chopped. Whisk eggs, salt and remaining sugar in large bow. Whisk in flour mixture. Add milk, butter, lemon peel, and vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk until smooth. Pour custard over cherries.
Bake clafoutis until golden on top, about 55 m. Cool slightly.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm.

*Use bottled or frozen unsweetened pitted dark sweet cherries, thawed, drained. Always use dark, rather sour cherries, never the sweet variety. When using cherries on syrup, use less sugar.
**Use 100 g to make it sweeter.
***Use hazelnuts for an even nuttier taste.

Originally from the French Limousin region, this custard-like dessert spread all over France in the 19th century. The name comes from the Occitan verb for 'filling up', and that is exactly what happened with the recipe, which gradually was made with other fruits than cherries, called flognarde then, and even with cherry tomatoes. The original recipe is made with unpitted cherries, making it a little bit less sweet and adding a nutty flavour, but rather uncomfortable to eat. In this recipe, almonds are added to have this effect.

Ballekes met krieken (Flemish meat patties with sour cherries)

For ➍
800 g minced meat*
1 slice white bread, crumbled
1 egg yolk
500 g sour cherries** with 30 cl juice, bottled or canned
40 cl meat stock
100 g butter
a small glass of jenever/gin***
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 200°C. Moisten the bread crumbs with a tbs of cherry juice. Drain and mix with meat and egg yolk. Avoid that the mix becomes too wet. Roll into 8 balls and flatten to patties.

Butter an oven dish, large enough to fit the patties. Put in oven and bake for 5 m. Pour in the stock and the cherry juice. Cook for about 45 m. Remove patties and keep warm. Pour cooking liquids in a pan and reduce until halved. Put in the cherries and heat for 5 m. Add the patties and reheat. (Add salt & pepper, if necessary).

Serve with mashed potatoes.

* A mix of pork and veal. (Add an exotic flavour by using spicy lamb's meat from merguez.)
**Tart cherries, canned or bottled
***Obviously, this should be good Belgian jenever, but a drop of good gin will do. Or you could omit it ;-).

Read tip on minced meat & salt Or a tip on replacing a part of the meat with mushrooms.