Apple Clafouti

Well, I bought two steaks today, faithfully remembering that I live with a man and men must have meat. I love cooking for him every night. I feel appreciated and creative and like I'm making a positive use of my time. These last two nights the man's been at work at its amazing for me to see how quickly I'm reverting back to old habits. Its just not as fun to cook for just me. I even tried to convince a friend to come over for tea tonight, but alas, she couldn't.

i thought it was my turn tonight. i am sad. left here, in the refrigerator. unrealised potential.

So, while the steaks sit in the fridge, I'm making apple clafouti and nibbling on roast chicken leftovers and olives straight from the jar.

For the Clafouti, I'm vaguely referencing this recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Apple-Clafouti , though lately I've become more comfortable with measuring by eye or hand, and I've always been okay with modifying recipes depending on what I've got in the house.

I made this recipe with Bramley apples, which is the type of apple I most often use in cooking. I'm giving this one a try after falling a tiny bit out of love with my pudding standard, recipe to be found here: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/easy-batter-fruit-cobbler/Detail.aspx I've loved this recipe, and had success with it in the past using (I think) peaches, in a high sided dish (its heart-shaped, so lovely).

But recently, when smashing out simple, no-fuss puddings with apple, I've never been able to get it fully cooked in the centre before the top became burnt. Even with all sorts of messing with it, I haven't been able to get it to work. So I've decided to try this clafouti, as it's a very similar recipe, bar the addition of eggs.

Lovely apples cooking down a bit on the stove (a variant from the batter cobbler recipe):



Mixing up the batter:



If you make this you will look at your batter at this point and go OH CRAP. Because it will have gotten LUMPY. Which obviously means bad kitchen chemistry, DISEASE and CONTAMINATION.
But don't worry. Its just the butter hardening back up into lumps as it mixes with the cold egg and milk. Its a good thing. Do not worry.

This is the Clafouti when its two-thirds ready.



Half of the batter goes on the bottom of the hot pan, then on go all the apples, and then you pour the rest of the batter on top.

!DISCLAIMER! George Bush was just on the television and I have gone temporarily insane. !DISCLAIMER!

Here is the Clafouti just before it was popped into a hothot oven:



That's cinnamon and demerrara sugar on top.

...

Clafouti, I am not pleased with you. 30mins in the oven, maybe a few minutes more - why, then WHY are you not DONE? But also why are you BURNT in someplaces and seemingly RAW in others? I shake you, you jiggle nicely like egg things should but you are still PALE AND UNDELICIOUS LOOKING. I shall PUT YOU UNDER THE GRILL and you BETTER COOK UP NICE.

see how it is BURNT but also RAW in some places?

...


Well, I put the Clafouti under the broiler and it did wonders. First it looked like this:



THEN, it looked like this:



Nice work, Clafouti.

I have a feeling it will deflate quite a lot. But that's okay.



Yes, it has fallen. But here it is in my bowl and it is DELISH. Very nice.






But I am sad. All my puddings are just a vehicle for custard, which I had in the fridge but then when I took the custard out of the fridge it had GONE BAD. But worse, it hadn't completely GONE BAD, but was just kind of funny smelling but NOT IN A BAD WAY. I even scraped the weird globby-bit off the top and tasted the under-layer. This was better but STILL NOT OKAY. I need to have more guts about my food. Probably the custard would have been great and I would have been so in love with my pudding that I'd be gobbling it down right now instead of writing this post with my uneaten pudding resting on my knees mourning over lost custard.