A healthy, light, French dessert

I served this with some oven roasted chicken, the light fettucini alfredo from a few posts ago, and some steamed broccoli. Needless to say, the meal was a hit.

Raspberry Clafoutis

This recipe was a pure experiment. I’ve grown comfortable with some basic substitutions for making slightly healthier desserts that are lower in fat and sugar. I’ll start with the original recipe then explain my low-fat, low-sugar substitutions.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt

3 extra-large eggs
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
1/2 tsp almond extract

2 cups raspberries
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Here are my substitutions. Rather than 3 tbsp butter, I used 1 tbsp melted butter mixed with 2 tbsp nonfat greek yogurt. Rather than the sugar, I actually used a blend of 1 tbsp splenda brown sugar, 1 tbsp fructose sugar, and 3 tbsp splenda granular. This is a complicated yet tasty mix, but I imagine using only regular splenda granular would produce solid results here as well. Now back to the directions…

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Butter a 9-inch gratin dish or cake pan.

In a bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, and salt. In another bowl beat the eggs, butter, almond extract, and lemon zest until smooth. Add the milk to the liquid mixture, and mix until incorporated. Pour the liquid mixture over the dry mixture until light and very smooth, about 3 minutes. Pour the batter into the gratin/pie dish, and top with the raspberries.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the clafoutis is set and golden in color. Let it cool slightly then dust with confectioners’ sugar, cut into wedges, and serve with some ice cream.



The dessert is great, but the raspberries were just a wee bit tart. Up next, a Lemon Wedding Cake, and eventually I want to be cooking "en papilotte" (french(?) for in pouches)...