I love grapes and we often have a little box of them in the freezer in the summer. Red or green, I’m not fussy and during the day I’ll turn on the news channel and get a few grapes and take a break. I assume because they’re so cold that each one takes a few bites and that makes them last longer.
I can polish off a bunch of Australian grapes while I’m cooking if they’re sitting in a bowl. I also enjoy grapes with cheese.
John came home yesterday with the best green grapes and said, “What can we do with these other than stuff our faces with grapes and cheese?” First of all why are grapes called both green and white for the same grape? It’s all about wine, isn’t it? Not for me. I like eating them.
Anyway, my mind went blank and that’s rare. I always have something to say, even if it makes no sense. Then it started up with grape ice cream? grape granita? roasted grapes in a reduced moscato sauce? grape flaugnarde?
I said that last one again and he looked at me with a confident stare and said, “Yeah, that sounds good!”
“What’s a flow nard?”
From my earliest memories, my grandmother would make clafoutis with cherries for us on very special occasions. She would always tell us in her best half English half French that it should be made with the best black cherries you could find. Living in Maine, cherries of any sort weren’t easy to come by so she made do by putting all sorts of fruit in the almost flan-like batter surrounding the fruit on days that weren’t special occasions. The rule is, if it’s not cherries, you don’t call it clafoutis, it’s called a flaugnarde. (Any Francophiles are invited to correct me if I’m wrong – I’m just going on what my memere told me.)
Remember the post I did with the carrots, grapes and pomegranate as a savoury grape dish for the Australian Grape Board? They also asked for a recipe using green grapes and when John asked what I was going to do with the grapes he brought home, it reminded me that I had another post to create for them in February. I wanted to wait for the Valentine’s Day rush to be over so everyone would pay attention to this really easy and delicious dessert.
This white grape flaugnarde takes about an hour to make from go to whoa and the grapes turned out beautifully soft and delicious and were softly hugged by the soft batter.
- 1½ teaspoons softened butter for greasing the baking dish
- 250 grams Australian green seedless grapes, washed, dried and stemmed
- 2 teaspoons demerara sugar for sprinkling on top before baking.
- Icing sugar, for dusting before serving
- 60 grams flour, sifted
- ½ tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 3 eggs
- 70 grams sugar
- 300 ml full cream milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
- Mix all the batter ingredients blender or food processor until totally smooth, then set aside for 20–30 minutes.
- Grease a 25 cm round baking dish with the softened butter.
- Pour the batter in the baking dish and place the grapes into the batter. Sprinkle with demerara sugar.
- Place in the oven to bake for about 30–35 minutes, or until puffy and golden.
- Shake some icing sugar over the flaugnarde before serving. It's lovely served warm.
Thanks to Australian Grapes for sponsoring this post. For more inspiring recipes using Australian grapes, check out their Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages.