Serves 6
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 45 min; 30 min to cool

Ingredients
300ml whipping cream (or 150ml single cream and 150ml full fat milk, or 300ml full fat milk)
½ vanilla pod or equivalent concentrate
500g large, dark British cherries
2 tbsp amaretto
Knob of soft butter
4 organic, free-range eggs
50g golden caster sugar
25g plain flour
Pinch of salt

Method
Place the cream, the cream and milk or just the milk and the vanilla pod in a milk pan and bring to the boil.

Remove from the heat. Give the vanilla pod a bash or two with a wooden spoon to release the seeds. Stir and cover — to prevent a skin forming on the surface — and leave for at least 30 min.

Use an olive/cherry stoner to remove the stones. If, like me, you don’t own this inexpensive but rarely used kitchen tool, you will also get excellent results with a pointed swivel potato peeler. Remove the stalk then stab and twist the peeler and pull out the stone. Toss the cherries with the amaretto. Leave for 30 min.

Choose a 1 litre, 5cm deep gratin dish; mine was white and oval. Smear the inside lavishly with butter. Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl, add the sugar and whisk for a couple of minutes until the mixture becomes creamy and the sugar has dissolved. Sift the flour, with the salt, into the egg gradually, whisking the mixture as you go to make a smooth batter.

Heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Discard the vanilla pod and stir the cream into the eggs. Strain the amaretto into the batter and mix it again. Tip the cherries into the buttered dish, then pour the batter over the fruit.

Place on the middle shelf of the oven for 30-45 min, until the egg has puffed and risen between the cherries. The egg should feel bouncy to the flat of your hand, yet it will have a slight wobble in the centre. Remove the dish from the oven and leave it for up to 30 min before serving. The finished clafoutis will have deflated slightly, but the flavours will have intensified.

It is also quite wonderful eaten cold and it is one of the finest summer breakfasts I know of. But it is so tempting that it rarely hangs around that long.

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