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Dessert

Clafoutis Aux Cerises

A French dessert of cherries baked in a sweet batter of flour, milk, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Clafoutis Aux Cerises

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a deep pie dish.

  3. Add the pitted cherries to the dish.

  4. Sprinkle sugar over the cherries.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, and half-melted butter.

  2. Add milk to the mixture.

  3. Add beaten egg yolks to the mixture.

  4. Add sugar to the mixture.

  5. Stir the mixture well.

  6. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  7. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter over the cherries in the pie dish.

  2. Bake the dish in the oven for 30 minutes, stirring gently during the first half to prevent the flour from settling.

  3. Serve warm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooking cherries
Provide the fruit filling that bakes within the custard-like batter.
All-purpose flour
Gives the batter body so it sets into a tender, sliceable custard.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that, with the eggs, forms the custard structure.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and flavour to the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the cherries.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the clafoutis stays light rather than deflating into a dense layer.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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