Pear Clafouti from Ina Garten

I started watching the "Barefoot Contessa" because my 12 year old niece is obsessed with the show. She just had a birthday in December and the theme of the party was The Barefoot Contessa and it was a cooking party. She and her guests prepared a few of Ina's recipes from her show on the Food Network. We got her a cookbook for her birthday and she seriously screamed with joy when she opened her gift. It was her obsession with the show that got me watching it. I wanted to be able to talk to her and relate to her when spending time together over the Christmas break.

After watching a few episodes of The Barefoot Contessa I can see why she likes the show. I watched Ina Garten prepare a pear clafouti step by step and I just had to try making it myself. It looked so easy and yet so impressive.

So what's a clafouti you ask? It's sort of like a custardy pie without a crust. The fruit is the star of the dish of course, and the custard is deceptively light. It's made with eggs, heavy cream and flour. With those three main ingredients it's not very light in my book, but the custard just sort of wraps around the fruit. You can make this dish with all sorts of other fruits too, do some google searches and you'll find all sorts of recipes.


Here is my clafouti before baking -



and here it is after baking -

It was super easy to make. The hardest part was slicing the pears somewhat uniformly.

This first time I made this dish Q enjoyed it so much he literally ate the entire dish in two days. He ate most of it the night I made it, and then finished the little bit that was left for breakfast the next morning. I had one serving and I was lucky to get that with Q hoarding it all to himself.

The dish was such a hit that I made it again for a brunch at a friends house over the weekend. They all loved it too!

If you want to try it, you can find the recipe by clicking here.