It was the weekend. I had a punnet of ripe plums and the time restriction of a social engagement in the evening, but I was craving something sweet and delicious. This culinary conundrum echoes that posed to budding chefs on the Ready, Steady Cook television show in which two members of the public hand over a bag of unknown ingredients bought on a budget to the chefs. The chefs must create a meal from the ingredients presented before them within the time limit of the program. For my situation I imagine that you, the reader, are my equivalent to Ainsley Harriott. I am explaining to you my solution, my whimsical bake that can satisfy my ingredients (including a generously stocked kitchen of basic ingredients). Well Ainsley….reader….today I will bake a plum clafoutis!

For those of you unfamiliar with this – it is a French dessert of fruit (traditionally black cherries) baked in a flan like batter with a sprinkling of powdered sugar where ‘flan like batter’ euphemistically means a light, wobbly and lovely custard.

My highly edible plum clafoutis ingredients list

(Serves 4)

• ~400g fresh plums (1 punnet of plums without pips!)
• 75g caster sugar
• 3 tbsp of Crème de cassis
• 20g butter, melted, plus extra to grease
• 2 tbsp cinnamon demerara sugar
• 60g plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• 3 small eggs, beaten
• 270ml whole milk

I de-stoned the plums after washing and cut them into segments about the size of a tangerine segment and added 2 tbsp of caster sugar and the crème de cassis. I tossed them together and left them to macerate for the time it took me to measure out the other ingredients and for the oven to heat up (I used 175°C with a fan oven).

I greased a baking dish that could contain all the plums in a single layer, added a tbsp of the cinnamon demerara sugar to the baking disk and then spun the dish so that the base of the dish and the sides of the baking dish were coated.

I sifted in the flour to a separate mixing bowl, added a pinch of salt and the remaining caster sugar (and a couple more to make sure I satisfied my sweet tooth) before adding in eggs and melted butter. The resulting batter was light and smooth.

I poured this mixture into the baking dish that had been lined with the plum segments and popped it in the oven for about 30 minutes. I took the clafoutis out when the centre looked like it was browning slightly, but retained a slight wobble. Upon taking the bake out it had risen magnificently like a soufflé, but this quickly drops back down as you let the bake cool (this treat should be served warm and not hot). For the final flourish I liberally sprinkled with the remaining cinnamon demerara sugar and brewed a fresh batch of coffee to compliment it. I’d recommend having both with cold cream!

This is a quick and relatively simple bake that is a perfect reward to indulge in after a jog. As it also has relatively high egg content and contains fruit it can perhaps be considered slightly more nutritious treat for an athlete than many other French delights….or at least that’s what I told myself!

I hope your taste buds review this bake as highly as my own did.

Times up! Phew! How did I do Ainsley?