Behold the coconut-milk-based clafoutis. This dessert requires a few minutes of whisking and roughly half an hour of baking.

History of the recipe

At some point when I was a graduate student I wanted to make a coconut custard, but I decided to take a shortcut by cutting it with flour so I wouldn’t need to carefully control temperature^[Yes, to avoid ruining the texture of the custard with lousy temperature control I decided to proceed by ruining the texture by cutting it with flour. Yolo.]. The initial what-if trial was successful, and I decided it would be better with fruit on it. It curiously is also made of entirely ingredients that I would ordinary have.

Buzzkill

It was pointed out shortly after by my then-roommate Royan D’Mello that this dessert already exists: the French call it a clafoutis, and apparently it’s properly made with cherries. So okay, substitute coconut milk for actual dairy. So much for novelty and/or culinary innovation.

Ingredients

Directions

1. Mix coconut milk, sugar, and eggs and vanilla (optional). Add flour slowly last. Fortunately, it’s a liquid so no tools or effort is required. I usually prefer chaokoh coconut milk, but there are rare consistency issues so maybe I shouldn’t recommend. Unfortunately this is a “I know it when I see it”
2. Butter up a baking pan.
3. Add mixture. Cover with layer of fruit. Frozen works fine. Chef’s choice, but mixed berries are shown, and work well. I have a hunch that halved cherries, or sliced stone fruits would be delicious. Consider trace nutmeg.
4. Bake at 350°F until it sets and/or golden. It will puff up. When it cools it deflates. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be okay.
5. Consider eating with ice cream.

I suspect it would look sharp with powdered sugar on it. Adding a small portion of almond flour in addition to regular is tested variant. Actual cooks may consider a crust, but I consider it a massive increase in effort that does not really compliment the simplicity—pass.