Julia Child’s Pear Clafoutis Recipe – An Easy Traditional Dessert Worth Making

Julia Child. A famous chef, author, and television personality that made French cuisine accessible to American audiences and was one of the first women to host her own cooking show, most notably, The French Chef in 1963.

Her influence had brought many French classics to the American dinner table, and the pear clafoutis is one among the 524 recipes in her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking which she co-wrote with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle in hopes to inspire Americans to try out French dishes easily and simply in their own American home kitchens.

I remember the first time I had a clafoutis. During our last visit to Adrien’s grandparent’s house, grandma Angélique made a traditional cherry clafoutis on one of our last couple of days in Clessy, France.

Many months after having my first clafoutis, I would catch myself thinking about that dish from time to time. Eventually, we got the recipe from Adrien’s grandmother and tried it out for ourselves and found it surprisingly easy to make. 

Because it had been wintertime that I got a hold of the recipe, I decided it would be a good idea to swap out the cherries with an in-season fruit here in British Columbia, which happens to be Anjou pears in the month of December.

So we hit up the local farmer’s market on a Saturday morning and gathered all of our ingredients.

Since it was my first time making a pear clafoutis, I was worried that the chemistry of the pears would take differently from the recipe grandma Angélique gave us for her Cherry clafoutis.

So, I decided to try out Julia Child’s pear clafoutis recipe, which requires a *few* more steps than grandma Angélique’s, but I trust Julia that it’s probably for good reasons.

And if you’re bummed that I’m not revealing grandma Angélique’s recipe, don’t fret! I’ll post that clafoutis variation in a separate blog post. 

What is a pear clafoutis?

A pear clafoutis is a traditional French dessert in a flan-like batter. The traditional clafoutis is originally made with black cherries but modern recipes may include other variations of fruits.

The texture is similar to a sturdy custard and can be a little rubbery – which is what it’s supposed to feel like.

The clafoutis is quite similar to the flaugnarde or German baked pancakes. 

Versatile Twists to a Traditional French Dessert

What I like about making this pear clafoutis is that it doesn’t require a ton of sugar like other desserts, you could even get away with reducing the amount of sugar called for in this recipe if you find that the fruit you’re using is already sweet enough.

It’s probably one of the easiest recipes I have learned recently and one that I’ll probably re-use often. 

What I love about this traditional French dessert recipe is that all components of this dessert are easily modifiable to your liking.

Not a fan of the traditional cherries or pears?
Great, swap them out for another fruit of your choosing. 

Too sweet? Or, it needs to be sweeter?
Add more sugar.

Not a fan of the copious amount of butter used in most French desserts?
This recipe calls for almost no butter… You’ll need some to butter your dish before baking and that’s about it!

Hate following a million steps in recipes?
Great. This easy French dessert can be done with your eyes closed. But we don’t recommend it.

All these reasons make this recipe so modifiable that even my health-conscious Asian mother has taken a strong liking to this traditional French dessert and that’s saying A LOT since she does not indulge in ANY sweets at all.

Needless to say, she’s a big fan of this easy French dessert.

Julia Child’s Pear Clafoutis Recipe

May

A traditional French dessert originating in the Limousin during the cherry season is peasant cooking for family meals, and about as simple as a dessert to make as you can imagine: a pancake batter poured over fruit in a fireproof dish, then baked in the oven. It looks like a tart, and is usually eaten warm.

5 from 2 votes

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Prep Time 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Equipment

• Blender or hand mixer
• A 7- to 8-cup lightly buttered, fireproof baking dish or pyrex pie plate about 1 ½ inches deep

Ingredients

  

Pear Mixture

• ¼ cup sweet white wine, kirsch, or cognac
• 3 cups peeled, cored, and sliced ripe pears (1 ¼ to 1 ½ lbs. pears)
• ⅓ cup cup granulated sugar

Clafoutis Batter

• 1 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• ⅛ tsp salt
• ⅔ cup sifted all-purpose flour
• 1-2 tbsp powdered sugar

Instructions

 

• Combine pears with wine, kirsch, or cognac and sugar.

  Substitute this liquid for part of the milk called for in the batter.
• Preheat the oven to 350°

  Combine milk, eggs, vanilla extract, salt, flour and mix until smooth.
• Pour a ¼ inch layer of batter in the baking dish or pie plate. Set over moderate heat for a minute or two until a film of batter has set in the bottom of the dish. Remove from heat.
• Spread the pear pieces over the batter and pour on the rest of the batter and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon
• Place in the middle position of the preheated oven and bake for about an hour. The clafouti is done when it has puffed and browned, and needle or knife plunged into its centre comes out clean.
• Sprinkle top of clafouti with powdered sugar just before bringing it to the table. (The clafouti need not be served hot, but should still be warm. It will sink down slightly as it cools.)

Keyword Clafoutis, Easy French Dessert, French Dessert