Skinny clafoutis

Do you know clafoutis? It's a traditional French dessert ( on the link you'll find the recipe  by Bea , La Tartine Gourmande) made with eggs ,milk ,cream and fruits .The most well known is with cherries  and as it's cherries's time right now I come to you with a different clafouti  , a skinny one . It was a friend of mine that gave me this recipe ,telling that it was one coming from the North of France : I found it was deliciuos but a little bit sticky and too sweet , so I made some  adjustments and now it comes soft and equilibrated (too much sugar covers the taste ). The particularity of this recipe is that is very very easy to do and absolutely low calories . It doesn't contains eggs nor butter (just a litle bit for the mould) ,milk or cream . Is it real ? Yes !! And you can play mixing with differents kinds of flours .

So...here the ingredients you'll need for 6 servings

1 cup of all purpose flour ( I mixed with 'Petit epeautre' that's a typical ancient cereal of Haute Provence and that belongs to the family of spelt )
1 cup of water
1/2 a cup of sugar ( white or you can use raw cane for a stronger taste)
a pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
a pinch of cinnamon
a coffee spoon of bicarbonate
500 gr of cherries
butter for the mould

It will take you no more then 10 minutes to prepare it :
Preheat the oven at 180° or 375 , wash the cherries : I kept the core for it gives so much taste , you'll have to prevent people but I find this way is  like eating raw cherries so...amazing! Butter generously an earthenware mould : it's the only butter you'll put so go with it . Sift the flour or combination of flours with the bicarbonate in a bowl , add the sugar ,salt , cinnamon and the grains of vanilla ( you can also find dried vanilla grains in organic shops that works as well but better not to use the artificial one ) mix together then pour little by little the water mixing with a wisk . You'll obtain a rather liquid dough . Place the cherries into the buttered mould , pour the liquid dough and bake for about 35 min till it thickens and gets golden . You can also scatter some cane sugar on the top before baking to have a crunchy texture . It's delicious served warm with some whipped cream flavored with vanilla and cinnamon.

Italian version

Tarte Tatin at the Castle

Tarte Tatin is a big classic of French desserts . I was not a fan of it really ( I prefered the 'Tarte fine aux pommes' ) it seemed to me too "heavy" but I had many people asking me for it so I had to . And I was surprised : it's so good ! Naturally ....you have to do yourself the dough , otherwise with the industrials ones you can buy it won't be the same, but it's a very easy recipe and it really does take only few minutes to make it ! Just few weeks ago I tought some young "ladies" how to make it ( and others provençal recipes I 'll post ) it's a pity I don't have any photo of the lesson ,as they were staying the Castle of Goult for their holidays , and the place is very charming ! If you click on the link you can even see the kitchen where we had the cooking-class. It's a wonderful place and I live just a few meters from there .

For  6 servings

Short crust pastry

250 gr of plain flour

125 gr of cold unsalted butter diced

1 teaspoon of salt

4/6 tbsp of  cold sparkling water

Place the flour, the salt and the butter in a bowl , mix with your fingertips until the mixture is like breadcrumbs, add 4tbsp of water and stir until the dough comes together, if it seems too dry add some water .Knead the dough lightly into a bal , wrap in cling film and chill for at least 1 hour or overnight .

6/8 apples ( depends on the size)

100 gr of raw cane sugar

A pinch of cinnamon

50 gr of butter

Peel the apples (if you find organic ones you don’t need to peel )and cut them in four pieces , in a saucepan (large enough to contains the apples ) put the butter and the sugar and let cook until it begins to caramelize , then add the apples and continue cooking about 4/5 minutes
Preheat the oven at 80° , fill the bottom of a non-stick cake of 24/26 cm round tin with the apples ,then roll out the dough on a floured surface at about 4mm ,make it a bit larger than the cake-tin  cover the apples with the dough ,reenter the sizes of the dough into the tin to form a border , cook in the oven about 35mn or till the dough is golden . take the tarte off , cover with a bigger plate and turn it upside-down as soon otherwise the caramel will stick .Serve “ nature” or with some whipped cream flavored with cinnamon .