Alaska

Blueberry Adventures

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Thanks to our cool, rainy summer, it looks as though we’re going to have a banner blueberry season.

The bushes around the house are loaded with fat green berries. I am on a mission to use the remaining 2009 blueberries in the freezer–a surprisingly large quantity, imagine that–to justify hours and hours of picking next month.

Yesterday, Stitch Bitch Anna posted a list of fruit cobbler-ish desserts with brief descriptions explaining their differences.

  • clafouti
  • flaugnarde
  • crumble
  • cobbler
  • buckle
  • Betty
  • slump
  • grunt
  • pandowdies

If you want the descriptions, you’ll have to visit Anna’s post.

Eureka!

I’m committed to making each and every one of these, one after the other, repeating as needed until the 2009 berries are finished.

Think I’m kidding? I started last night with clafouti; although according to Anna’s description, which I don’t doubt is accurate, since I used blueberries instead of cherries, I made flaugnarde instead of clafouti.

The recipe I used, however, was called “Blueberry Clafouti,” which makes perfect sense when you consider that’s the phrase I Googled. I’m interested to see what I get when I search “blueberry flaugnarde.”

If I have to repeat the list–uh…yeah, I like to pick berries–I’ll try different recipes.

I’ve never had clafouti before. I’m having a hard time pronouncing it; the accent’s on the last syllable. It reminds Mike of an old family recipe they call “Apfel Danche.” I don’t think it will ever be a favorite for me, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And way-yonder better than brussel sprouts and lima beans.

This is going to be fun!

Categories: Alaska

4 replies »

  1. You know, Kathryn commented, and I tend to agree, that clafouti (or flaugnarde) is kind of like an eggy pancake. I think that’s much more accurate than the “flan” description a lot of sites had. Is Apfel Danche like a German apple pancake? That would make sense to me.

  2. “Eggy pancake” is precisely how my mother-in-law describes Apfel Danche, and how Mike described the clafouti.

    I’ve only ever had the Apfel Danche once (ahem…Thea?), but, if memory serves, yes, German apple pancake is an apt description.

    Company coming today. I’m making a crumble. I rather wish I were making cobbler, but crumble comes first on The List.

    I’m sending a buckle (a regular in my baking repertoire) south to friends on Monday. I could be through the frozen blueberries before I pick a single one this year. Cool!

  4. Becca, I used this recipe for the clafouti:

    http://tinyurl.com/28suuyf

    And I just used this recipe for the crumble:

    http://tinyurl.com/2g6jljf

    It’s still in the oven. I used fresh-squeezed orange juice instead of cider. I have a crisp recipe that I use all the time, and the quantity of topping here is much greater. Strictly speaking, I’ve never made a crumble until today. At least, not that I recall.