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Berry Flognarde | Everyday Dorie

The term berry flognarde throws me off, but you don’t have to. As Dorie Greenspan explains: 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 for crepes or pancakes. There is another twist. A flognarde is a flognarde…. unless it has cherries, in which case it’s a clafoutis (cla-foo-tee). For someone who loves baking and serving a cherry clafoutis, it’s like finding a cousin you’ve not known before. After a brief introduction, you both feel at home and connected at the hip.

To say that I’m excited about making a berry flognarde is an understatement. Ever since I acquired Everyday Dorie, I have been eyeing the recipe, bookmarked it and wrote notes all over the page. Surprised that I haven’t baked one yet. When plums are in season, I’d certainly try my hand on a plum flognarde. A third of the recipe amount (highlighted below) will land you a fruit flognarde, perfect for one!

Much like preparing a pancake batter, the process is quite straightforward. Starting with the wet ingredients, beat melted butter (19g) with sugar (33g) and gradually adding the eggs (1) one at a time. Simply blend the wet with the dry ingredients (23g of all-purpose flour, a pinch of baking powder and cinnamon). Then stir in the milk (80ml) or cream to get a pourable batter. As you can see, the required ingredients (other than the fruits) are pantry staples, making the flognarde highly accessible at a moment’s notice.

There are a few things to keep in mind when you bake the berry flognarde or the cherry clafoutis. Dorie’s recipe calls for a 9-inch porcelain quiche pan.

My preference is to use single serve porcelain dishes that go from oven to table. A smaller dish has the added advantage of taking less time to bake.
It’s important to butter the pan so that the batter could rise without sticking to the sides of the dish.
Toss the fruits in the baking dish and spread them in a single layer. Lastly, pour batter over them.
Flavor the fruits with vanilla, and the traditional alcohol, such as kirsch or Grand Marnier.
To bake, put a baking sheet under the dish since the fruit juice will be bubbling.

Print Recipe

Flognarde with Plums or Berries or Pears

By Dorie Greenspan – Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 lb small plums (about 4), not too ripe or juicy
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp ground star anise or a pinch of ground allspice
Pinch of fine sea salt
4 tbsp unsalted butter
½ cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 tbsp cognac, or other brandy (see headnote)
1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup milk
About ¼ cup sliced almonds, for topping (optional)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)

Instructions

FOR PLUM FLOGNARDE:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees F. Choose a 9-inch pie plate, a porcelain quiche pan or another ovenproof pan (preferably not metal) with a capacity of 1 quart. Butter the pan and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Cut the plums in half, remove the pits and cut each half into 8 slices. Toss the slices into the pie plate and jiggle them around so that you get an even layer.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, spice and salt.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the sugar. When the mixture is homogeneous, beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the liquor and vanilla. Whisk in the dry ingredients. The mixture will be thick, so get it as well blended as you can without beating it, and then start stirring in the milk, which will thin the batter considerably. You’ll have a pourable batter that might have a few lumps — ignore them. Pour the batter over the plums and scatter over the almonds, if using.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until the flognarde is puffed all the way to the center, feels firm to the touch and is golden and cracked across the surface; the juice from the plums might be bubbling — so much the better. A skewer inserted into the center will come out clean. Transfer the flognarde, on the baking sheet, to a rack and let cool to room temperature.

Dust the flognarde with confectioners’ sugar, if you’d like, slice and serve.

FOR BERRY FLOGNARDE:

Because strawberries can be watery and tend to become even more so when baked, it’s best to use blueberries, raspberries and/or blackberries for a berry flognarde.

Figure on about 1 pint berries — you want them to loosely fill the pie plate. While you can still use brandy or cognac, berries are lovely with kirsch (a floral cherry liqueur), Grand Marnier or (in lesser quantities, say 1 tablespoon) a nut liqueur like amaretto or Frangelico. Skip the star anise and go for a pinch of cinnamon or a few scrapings of fresh ginger instead.

FOR PRUNE AND PEAR (OR APPLE) FLOGNARDE:

Snip 15 pitted prunes into bite-size pieces and soak them in hot (or boiling) water for 3 minutes; drain and pat dry. Peel and core 1 large or 2 small pears and cut into chunks about 1½ inches on a side. Put the fruit in the buttered pie plate. Make the batter and bake as above. If you’d like, use apples instead of pears and raisins or dried cranberries instead of prunes. Do that, and I’d opt for Calvados as the booze.

FOR CHERRY CLAFOUTIS:

How you want to treat the cherries — you’ll need about 1 pound — is up to you. Your choices are: Do nothing to them except remove the stems (but warn your guests about the pits); pit the cherries and leave them whole (you can do this with a cherry-pitter or a chopstick); or halve and pit the cherries. You can also use 1 pound frozen cherries; just be certain to drain and dry them as thoroughly as possible. For the spice, you can keep the star anise or choose cinnamon, ginger or even coriander. As for the liqueur, kirsch is a smart choice, since it’s made from cherries, but cognac or another brandy is good too. If you’d like, use 1 teaspoon vanilla extract plus ½ teaspoon almond extract.