I live in Ticino, which is the Italian-speaking part in Switzerland, but I grew up near Zurich. In other words, my culinary heritage is shaped by German-speaking Switzerland. At home, we used butter instead of olive oil, which wasn’t very well known in Switzerland back then. There was no trace of Mediterranean cuisine, much was refined with a sauce. Potatoes were preferred to pasta. For dinner, we often had a sweet meal, like birchermüesli, semolina porridge with fruit, rice pudding or rich sweet pies. And coffee with milk – awful for every Ticinese.

I have been living in Ticino for almost thirty years now, and of course, have adopted a certain Ticino mentality – and food culture. But sometimes I can’t deny my origins and my preference for a heavier meal is strong. Especially concerning desserts. I don’t love eating just fruit for dessert, there needs to be something richer to it – cream for example. That’s why I change most fruit dessert recipes, which my husband doesn’t always like, however, he simply has to go through it?.

Rich fruit desserts

I particularly like fruit pies in swiss german style because of their creamy, soft filling. The “filling” is the sauce that is poured on the dough topped with fruit. This pie recipe will be in a different post.

Clafoutis – pie without bottom

Recently I discovered the clafoutis. They are like pies without bottom. Only fruit and sauce – a pleasure.

Originally the clafoutis came from France and cherries were used. Gradually other kinds of fruit started to be used in this recipe. For example plums, prunes, apricots or peaches. You can choose according to your own preferences. I like peaches or apricots and for today’s recipe I have chosen apricots.

A faster variation

If you’re in a hurry, you can also use frozen fruit. However, they give off more juice and the dough becomes wetter. It is better to defrost the fruit and pour off the juice. You can drink it or use it for a smoothie.

Here is my recipe for Clafoutis – creamy and rich ?

Clafouti

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Prep Time 15

Cook Time 30

Total Time 45

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine French

Servings 1 form 32 x 24 cm

Ingredients

20 - 30 Apricots
1 tbsp almond chopped
4 dl cream for a lighter version 2 dl cream/2 dl milk
3 eggs
100 g sugar
Vanilla seeds of half a bean
or 100 g vanilla sugar instead of sugar and vanilla seeds
70 g flour

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 °C
Grease the casserole dish with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Wash the apricots, halve them, eliminate the stone and place them in the casserole dish with the cut surface facing upwards.
Sprinkle the almonds over the apricots.
Whisk cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla seed (or vanilla sugar and flour well together and pour carefully over the apricots.
Bake in the oven at 180 °C for about 30 minutes. The clafoutis should be golden on the surface.