pear clafoutis

i have to tell you, this is not really clafoutis as such despite being billed as such. traditional clafoutis are light, with soft fruit bleeding juice into the batter and the crunch of caster sugar on top. this, on the other hand, is more of a custardy pie with fruit - but no less nice for that. serve it while warm when it's at its best - though i ate the rest cold for breakfast.

like all low carb desserts, this is seriously easy to make. just as well, really, because my previous experiences of making clafoutis have been a bit of a disaster. i once tried making it in a tart tin with a removable bottom, with the predictable result that it leaked all over the oven. we were scraping sweet batter off baking trays for days afterwards. the original recipe, from elana's pantry (another food porn website, and one that doesn't cease to amaze me with its inventiveness and quality), uses two mixing bowls for wet and dry ingredients but i am willing to bet that the whole thing would work if you just bung it all in and mix. i'll try it out one of these days. i omitted all the agave nectar from her recipe too - i find the pears sweet enough and it didn't seem to spoil the texture.
www.elanaspantry.com

PEAR CLAFOUTIS

4 large eggs
½ double cream
½ cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup almond flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large pears, peeled, cored and sliced

butter a 9in cake tin - ceramic looks nice but i only have metal. be generous. preheat the oven to 170C.

in one bowl, combine the eggs, cream, butter and vanilla. in another bowl, mix the almond flour, cinnamon and salt. stir dry ingredients into the wet ones and mix thoroughly.

arrange the pears in a circular patters at the bottom of the tin - i ended up with two layers. use the smaller bits to fill in gaps, unless you are very fussed about it looking neat. pour the mixture over the top and bake for 50 or so minutes.

the pears start off at the bottom but as the clafoutis cooks, they rise to the top, which is how you end up with a cake that looks like the one on the photo.