This weekend I was in Hobart. With two of my oldest, dearest friends. We walked, we talked... we ate. And returned to our respective mainland capitals with our bags stuffed with cherries. The markets were overflowing with them - fat and juicy, sweet, dark and freshly picked. When I got home I tumbled them into an ovenproof dish, poured over a quickly whisked batter and thirty minutes later a creamy, pillowy flan formed around the fruit. Clafoutis (clah-fou-tee) is a traditional French dessert. It's simple (you don't even have to pit the cherries), sweet (in both senses of the word) and every spoonful back in Sydney reminds me of my friends, how we met (studying French at university) and a wonderful Tasmanian weekend.
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Side note: to any readers who are reading this via Bloglovin' - for some reason, last week's post did not show up there, so if you don't want to miss out on the seriously delicious Persian love cake, click here to read all about it.
My friend Amy and I have known each other since we were babies. We grew up with mothers who were excellent cooks, and sandwiches in our lunchboxes made with wholemeal - and often homemade - bread, so naturally our form of rebellion was not so much cigarettes or binge drinking as Sara Lee frozen desserts. Which is why it's so hilarious that I found myself making pie at her place last weekend. And not once but twice - as the first time I mistook the sugar for salt and vice versa, resulting in a dough that would - if my error had not been spotted - have derailed forever our homemade efforts. To be honest, I've always been a little afraid of pie dough. Somehow it always seemed like science, and that's never been a strong suit of mine. To minimise risk, I'd always made it in the food processor and the first batch I made - more play doh than pie dough - I did that way. But when it became clear that a second batch was needed, the food processor was under suds in the sink and the clock was ticking (Amy's four year old, who'd enthusiastically assisted in the mixing of the fruit filling, was expecting THE WORLD'S BEST PIE - no pressure there - before bed) so I hastily threw flour and chilled butter into a bowl, along with some sugar and salt (in the correct proportions) and ice-cold water and did what all the books and blogs tell you to do. Don't handle it too much. Leave big streaks of butter. Don't worry if it seems dry. And you know what? It worked. Pastry that was flaky, beautifully browned and buttery. Though I love cherries, it's not a flavour of pie I'm usually drawn to as they've a tendency to be gloopy. Not this one. We demolished it as soon as it was out of the oven, and not just because there was a four year old up way past her bedtime.
At the risk of sounding downright un-Australian, I'm not crazy about summer. The three months from December to February are a bit of an endurance test for me - a marathon of sweat and sunscreen. It's not all bad though. This time of year offers up many wonders as well, so sublime they make you forget all about the 42 degree (that's 109 Fahrenheit) day Sydney served up last week. In no particular order here are my top five: swimming in ocean pools, daylight saving, good movies (a brilliant excuse to get into some air-conditioning), the cricket and, last but certainly not least... stone fruit. Nectarines, plums, peaches, apricots, cherries... summer fruit is the best. Before this weekend, I'd
never made jam, but the idea of sealing up my favourite fruit in a jar
for me to enjoy on a future cold, dark winter's morning spread on a piece of
toast was hugely appealing.
So on a bright, hot and blustery mid-January's day, I headed down the Hume Highway to a friend's beautiful, new, air-conditioned house. I found a recipe. She found some jars. We split the cost of a bag of cherries. I pitted, she chopped, we took turns stirring, and a couple of hours later we had jam that was darkly delicious, sighingly sweet, and bursting with the flavour of the season.
