Cherry Clafoutis (#Vegan, #Glutenfree, #LowGL)

So the weather this year in London has been warm, and when I say warm I mean for London so not special temperatures but just not cold and we have had so much rain there was one point I thought it would never stop. Well it hasn’t actually, it is raining as we speak. The result of this is that the cherries came really early, about a month earlier than this year and it was still raining. This made climbing the tree, which I have to do to get the cherries almost impossible.

I left it a couple of days for the rain to die down a little bit to make it easier to get in the tree. When I did it was very disappointing as they were all either half eaten or just past their best. So all I got was about 500g on my first picking day on the low hanging branches and this is what I made with them.

Just a quick bit on other news, I am going away on my yoga teacher training course on Friday morning and will be away for 2 weeks. Where I am going does have WiFi but I am going to have virtually no time at all and so I might not be able to post. I will do a special post tomorrow about it all but this is just a quick heads up.

This recipe is one I have wanted to try for a while and the first thing to say is that Clafoutis is just a posh word for what could quite easily be described as a baked pancake. If you are making it for someone then calling it a clafoutis makes it sound special and like something people do not have that often!

I normal clafoutis is made with  white flour, milk, eggs, and sugar which are basically all things that I never eat which effectively makes this dessert a complete no-no. There are quite a few substitutions in this recipe, the eggs and milk are easy, as I just used vegan versions of them and for the flour I thought that as I was doing it differently I would go for buckwheat flour, just because it is yummy. Then there is the sugar which when I say I never eat it I think it is fair to say almost never. In this recipe I have used xylitol which helps to reduce the effect it will have on your blood sugar.

The result of all the substitutions in this dessert is that you have something that is vegan, gluten free and actually low GL. I have to be fair split it into 6 portions when this could easily be 4 but as with everything moderation is the best course of action and if you have this will either some oat cream or some sweetened coconut cream it will be a fantastic dessert.

Cherry Clafoutis

Serves 6

Prep Time: 30 mins (includes time for batter to stand)

Cook Time: 30- 35 mins

Total Time: 60- 65 mins

Ingredients

300g/2 cups Cherries, stoned

60g/1/2 Cup Buckwheat Flour

1/2 tsp Baking powder

3 Flax Eggs

60g/6 tbs Xylitol

300ml/1 1/4 Cups Almond Milk

1/2 tsp Ground Vanilla

1/2 tbs Coconut Oil

Insturctions

1. In a blender mix together the flour, baking powder, flax eggs, xylitol, milk, vanilla and a pinch of salt until completely smooth and then set aside for 30 minutes.

2. Once you have mixed the batter and while you are resting it preheat the over to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and grease a 23x18cm/9x7in baking dish.

3. Sprinkle base of dish with a little bit of xylitol and then spread cherries over base.

4. Pour batter over cherries and bake in oven for 30-35 mins or until puffy and golden.

5. Dust with powdered agave (or sugar if you cannot get it) and serve warm.

Nutrition

This is a dessert so I am not going to say to you it is great just go for it but as far as desserts go this one is not that bad for you so if you do want to treat yourself this is a great option.

The highlights of this recipe are:

• Approximate GI of 35
• Estimated GL of 6 per portion
• No cholesterol
• High in dietary fiber