Lemon Verbena & Pear Clafoutis

an herbal twist on the classic custardy French dessert

Clafoutis is one of my favorite comfort desserts. Light, custardy, and not too sweet it has everything I’m looking for when baking.

I have a bit of nostalgia for clafoutis. (Oh, and it’s pronounced klah-foo-TEE in case you’re not familiar.) The first time I encountered it was at Tassajara when I was apprenticing in their kitchen.

In the morning, just after sitting in meditation and doing temple chores, long baking dishes would arrive on the dining room serving table with warm clafoutis inside.

I remember my favorite thing to do was to spoon some in a bowl then pour in some kind of milk. There was something about the warm clafoutis with the cold milk that I loved and made it more of a hearty breakfast. If that’s even possible for a custard.

After doing a little research on the history of this dish, I found that in France, it’s traditionally made with un-pitted black cherries. Why un-pitted cherries, you ask? Well, the pits when cooked give of a subtle almond flavor that gets infused into the custard which sounds divine.

For this particular version, I tweaked Ina Garten’s recipe as I needed to use up some of the ripe pears from the orchard.

Most fruits will work here, especially for this time of year. The next one I’ll make will be with apples that are dripping from the trees in my yard this time of year. Other options to consider are peaches, figs, blackberries, blueberries, and of course, cherries.

You know I couldn’t just make a plain fruit clafoutis, so for an herbal twist, I added in some fresh lemon verbena from the garden. It seemed like the perfect addition to the pears and adds a really subtle aromatic lemon flavor.

Lemon verbena is an underrated herb in my option. It’s super easy to grow in the garden or in a pot and the smell is just intoxicating when you rub the leaves between your fingers.

It’s a hearty herb, (more like a shrub really) and can be pretty tall if you let it get leggy. I like to cut mine back in the late summer, once I’ve harvested some to dry. It makes a lovely dried herb for tea and to enjoy a fresh flavor in the cooler months.

Besides tasting delightful and being easy to grow, lemon verbena has a host of medicinal properties. Native to South America, it has a long history of use dating back to the Incas.

It’s been used to support digestive health and digestive upset, to ease some symptoms of cold and flu, supports joint health, and encourages a restful night’s sleep. It’s a gentle herb with soothing benefits and a wonderful ally to add to your healing repertoire.

While I added lemon verbena to this recipe more for its lemony taste, enjoying it as a tea is where you’ll get the most medicinal benefit. It’s delicious alone or mixed in with other nourishing herbs like nettle, oat tops, or horsetail for more flavor.

There are a couple of ways you could go about infusing lemon verbena into this recipe. What I did was take the fresh leaves, chopped them up a bit, then pulsed them a few times with the sugar in a blender. The thing to keep in mind here is that you don’t want to make powdered sugar, so pulse until the leaves are just broken down a bit more.

You could also make lemon verbena powdered sugar to dust on top, however, so keep that in mind if you’d like to add an extra step. Another idea would be to infuse it into the cream overnight. You could take a small handful of lemon verbena leaves, bruise them then add to the cream to infuse.

I used fresh leaves, but you could definitely use dried if that’s what you have on hand. Though, I would air on the side of using a bit less since dried herbs tend to be stronger.

You do need either a hand mixer or a stand mixer for this recipe. Though, I imagine you can also whisk it by hand but it would just take a lot longer to get the eggs and sugar nice a fluffy.

For the gluten-free folks out there, I found this Bob’s Redmill recipe that would be worth trying, too.

Lemon Verbena & Pear Clafoutis

1/3 cup organic cane sugar

1/4 - 1/2 cup lightly packed fresh lemon verbena leaves

3 large eggs, room temperature

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups organic heavy cream

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract, optional

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

3-4 firm but ripe Bartlett pears, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced

lemon verbena leaves, for topping

confectioners sugar, optional

Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a 10 x 3 x 1-1⁄2 inch round baking dish with parchment paper or lightly coat the inside in butter. Using a mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy about 3-5 minutes. Slowly add in the flour, heavy cream, vanilla extract, almond extract, and salt until combined then set aside for 10 minutes.

Arrange the sliced pears in an even layer in the dish then pour the batter on top. Arrange a few extra lemon verbena leaves on top for decoration if you’d like then pop into the oven to bake for 30-45 minutes or until the top is golden and the custard is just set. Remove to cool, top with confectioners sugar, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

xx- Sarah Kate