A beautiful spring dessert, this rhubarb clafoutis is simple, delicious, and makes the most of that first spring fruit. Made with just 7 ingredients!
Rhubarb Clafoutis for Spring
If you’ve never had a clafoutis, you’re in for a treat. It’s a French pudding dessert that should be made with cherries – this is actually a Flaugnarde as it doesn’t include cherries, but, you know, colloquialisms – made very simply with eggs, milk, sugar, and a bit of flour.
You’re essentially making a custard minus the stovetop cooking. Think a slightly less over the top Dutch baby, which is pretty much an American take on the clafoutis. (Confusing names, we know.)
In this case, spring rhubarb takes the centre stage. Every one of us at BAKED loves rhubarb with a passion. It’s one of the first things to come out in spring, delightfully tart, and that beautiful subtle shade of pink when cooked. Rhubarb does need quite a bit of sugar and so this clafoutis has a bit more than you’d typically see with the classic cherry version.
What’s in this Clafoutis
- Eggs
- Dairy or coconut milk (more on that below)
- Vanilla
- Flour
- Sugar
- A tiny bit of salt
- Rhubarb
- Butter or coconut oil
Making Rhubarb Clafoutis
The rhubarb should be cut and tossed with sugar before the batter is mixed. We’ve used lilac sugar (see below) but plain sugar is good too.
Eggs are whisked until foaming, then mixed with the milk and vanilla. Add the flour, sugar, and salt, mix again, and that’s it. All in one bowl!
Grease a baking dish – the one pictured is 20cm (8in.) in diameter. It needs to be deep enough to allow for about a doubling in size when the custard puffs, so keep that in mind. Pour the custard into the dish, top with the rhubarb in any pattern you like, top with more sugar, and bake.
The clafoutis will probably have puffed up quite significantly in the oven and it will fall when it comes out. That doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, it’s just how this dessert works.
A Note on Rhubarb
As you can see in the pictures, the rhubarb we’ve used is quite vibrantly pink. It’s forced rhubarb, meaning that it was grown undercover and is available before rhubarb grown outdoors. Forced rhubarb tends to be a bit more mild and sweet.
It doesn’t matter what colour your rhubarb is other than for aesthetic purposes. That pale green rhubarb from your garden is going to taste just as good – probably better, if you grew it! – as this pink variety.
Rhubarb is available from mid-January right to August in the northern hemisphere, depending on where you live. It freezes wonderfully so if you have an excess, just cut it up and pop it in the freezer for later use in rhubarb cobbler, jam, and crumble. We’re riding the rhubarb train right now, with this apple rhubarb pie last week and more rhubarb recipes to come.
Lilac Sugar
We made this rhubarb clafoutis with another spring favourite, lilac sugar.
If you want to make your own lilac sugar, simply mix white sugar with lilac blossoms in a jar and gently shake. Shake the jar once per day, and when the flowers show signs of turning brown, sieve them out.
It’s not necessary, of course, but adds a subtle and very pleasant flavour to the clafoutis. And if you really want to impress some people, drop off a clafoutis at their house with a jar of lilac sugar attached!
Since lilacs and rhubarb usually come out at around the same time, it’s a perfect pairing. If you don’t want to worry about making the sugar, you can add a touch of lemon zest, cardamom, or ginger to your clafoutis batter instead. Or leave it plain with vanilla, it’s just as good.
Substitutions
As you can see above in the ingredients, we say either dairy milk or coconut milk can be used for this recipe. A couple of our contributors avoid dairy milk so we usually try to offer recipes with substitutions for milk so we can all make the recipes.
In this case, a can of full-fat coconut milk is perfect for the clafoutis since it’s already 400ml (13.5 oz.). Otherwise, full fat milk is the way to go. If you just have skim milk around, you can mix it with a couple tablespoons of heavy cream or do half coffee cream and half skim milk.
The baking dish needs to be greased before the batter is poured in, and you can use either softened butter or coconut oil for that. In a pinch, use ghee or a mild oil, like avocado.
Any type of granulated sugar can be used here – cane, regular granulated, demerara, even coconut sugar. Light spelt flour can replace all purpose but we haven’t tried using gluten free flour. Here’s a lovely gluten free clafoutis recipe if you need one.
More Spring Desserts
Apple Rhubarb Pie
Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake
Sweet Pea and Pistachio Cake
Strawberry Hand Pies
If you make this recipe, let us know by tagging @baked_theblog + #bakedtheblog on Instagram! We love to feel like we’re in the kitchen with you.
Recipe
Rhubarb Clafoutis
Description
Equipment
- Measuring cups and spoons or a digital kitchen scale
- 8 inch (20 cm) baking dish
- 2 Mixing bowls
- Whisk
- Measuring cups and spoons or a digital kitchen scale
Ingredients
- 2 cups rhubarb, cut into 9 cm (3 inch) pieces
- ½ cup + 3 tablespoons sugar, divided, use raw cane or turbinado sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1-¾ cups full-fat milk, or canned coconut milk*
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 pinch sea salt
- Butter, or coconut oil for greasing the pan
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and grease a 8 inch (20 cm) baking dish with butter or coconut oil.
- Place the rhubarb pieces into a bowl with 2 tablespoons of sugar. Mix to coat the rhubarb in the sugar and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until foamy. Add the milk and vanilla, whisking again to combine, followed by the flour, ½ cup (50 grams) of sugar, and salt. Gently mix until just combined.
- Pour the clafoutis batter into the prepared baking dish and top with the sugared rhubarb.
- Top the clafoutis with the last remaining tablespoon of sugar.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the edges and top of the clafoutis are golden and the middle is just set. It will puff up significantly in the oven and fall when removed, this is normal.
- Cool the clafoutis for 15 minutes before serving. Leftovers will keep for a day or two in a sealed container in the refrigerator.
Carrie says
This was great. I didn’t have lilacs around, but had some dried culinary lavender and made a lime zest lavender sugar for the recipe. Used the can of coconut milk as suggested. Will definitely make this again. Was a big hit.
Margaret Ellis says
You write “The rhubarb should be cut before the batter is mixed and tossed with a bit of sugar.”
So do I cut the rhubarb and then mix the batter and toss the batter with a bit of sugar?
Or do I cut the rhubarb and toss it with a bit of sugar before I mix the batter?
Kelly Neil says
Hi Margaret! Yes, sorry, the sentence isn’t worded clearly. We’ve changed it to say “The rhubarb should be cut and tossed with sugar before the batter is mixed”. Thank you, Kelly.