“Would I blow everyone’s mind if I ate dessert first?” -The adorable Richard Ayoade as Reynholm Industries’ resident socially awkward über-nerd, Moss, on the hysterically funny Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd

No, I did not make up the title of this post after last night’s bender.  A pluot is a real thing.  So is a clafoutis.

I don’t want to shock anyone, though you might want to consider sitting down before I tell you that this is a bona fide, classic French dessert that involves neither heavy cream nor butter.  I know, I know.  There there.  I didn’t believe such a thing existed, either.  It was as mystical a concept to me as a teleportation machine or an Abominable Snowman.  But it’s real, it’s real!  The world becomes more and more awesome all the time.

This is the dessert to fall in love with if you want a really, really good summer fruit pie situation but you don’t want to deal with all the crust and stuff…..you just want the good stuff in the middle.  And I think that if you wanted the “middle” stuff to be the most amazing summer fruit “middle” stuff ever, you would pretty much want to involve custard at that point.  Let’s not stop there.  Let’s soak the fruit in liquor and sugar first to make it taste even better.  And let’s get one last bonus point up on the scoreboard there…..How about having it be sinfully easy to make, too?

You can make this with almost any fruit imaginable, I would assume, so long as minor adjustments are made to fit the specific flavor profile of the fruit being used.  Cherries are the most classic/traditional fruit of choice for a clafoutis, but I’ve seen these made with plums, pears, apples, kiwis, peaches, strawberries…..you name it.  Because pluots are an absolutely delicious cross of plums and apricots that, for me, got the plum-ier end of the stick, I consulted the queen, Julia Child, and followed her recipe for Plum Clafoutis in Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, Volume 1, and just substituted pluots.  Turns out these French people and this Julia Child character really know their stuff, after all.  This was a beautiful, simple dessert that sets the stage perfectly for the loveliest fruits of the summer season.  The lovely, scientific, genetically messed-with fruits of the summer season…..

Ingredients:

4 good-sized pluots, washed, dried, pitted, and sliced into half-moons  (NOTE:  I used a variety of pluot called “Dapple Dandy” – or, as I prefer to call it, “Dinosaur Egg” – for the beautiful striated coloring of the flesh.)

1/4 cup orange-flavored liqueur such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier, or Cognac

1/3 cup sugar

About 1/4 – 3/4 cup milk  (NOTE:  I used 2% and it worked just fine.)

3 large eggs

1 tbsp. high-quality vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Instructions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Place the sliced pluots, liqueur, and sugar in a medium non-reactive bowl and stir gently with a spoon to coat evenly.  Let stand to macerate for 1 hour.

2.  When the hour is up, spray a 10″ pie pan lightly with cooking spray, and arrange the slices of pluot in a spiral pattern around the pie pan, packing the slices as tightly as possible.  (NOTE:  This doesn’t have to look perfect.  It’s going to get a little messed up anyway by the time it goes in the oven.  Plus you get “rustic” points.)

3.  Pour whatever liquid is left in the pluot bowl into a 1 cup measuring cup, and top it off with milk.  Pour this mixture into a blender, followed by the eggs, the vanilla, the salt, and the flour.  Blend at high speed until all of the ingredients are smoothly incorporated, about 1 minute.  Pour the blender mixture gently over the fruit until it’s all used up.

4.  Place the pie pan in the oven and bake for about 1 hour on the middle rack of the oven.  It should look puffed and golden brown on top, and a toothpick or cake tester should come out clean when inserted in the center.

5.  Cool on a wire rack until touchably warm.  (NOTE:  It will deflate slightly in the cooling process.)  Sprinkle lightly with a dusting of powdered sugar and serve just like you would a pie.

Yield: A 10″ disc of French & scientific marvel