Reine Claude, the Queen of Plums

While poking around my local market earlier this week, hoping for some inspiration, my eyes were drawn to a mountain of little oval gems the colour of sage.  I only had to approach within two feet of the stand to be struck by their honey-sweet perfume.  Looking up at the hand-scrawled sign suspended above the pile, I read Reine Claudes €3,50/Kilo.  The vendor, noticing my curiosity, handed me one to taste (I love all the free tasting that goes on at French markets).  One bite and I was hooked.  Golden juice dribbled down my hand as I sank my teeth into what could only be described as a little bit of heaven.  Soft and yielding, the flesh had an almost caramel quality to it.  I bought a brown paper bag-full and headed home with the lot, popping a few in my mouth along the way.

Reine Claude is a variety of plum not so readily available outside of France.  Known as Greengage plums in English, they couldn't be more different from the hard, round, dusty purple fruits I remember from my school lunch box.

I could have eaten the whole bag myself, but I thought better of it and so shared a few with my daughter.  The rest of the afternoon was spent listening to her chanting "More plums?  More plums?  More plums, please?"  I searched through my collection of French cookbooks for some fabulous dessert that would do justice to these little beauties, but all I found were recipes for jams.  While I'm sure Reine Claude jam, sticky and velvety green and spread on a warm slice of brioche, could quickly become my second most favorite way to wake up on a Saturday morning, I wasn't in the mood for making jam.  That, and I'm not so well equipped as to have dozens of jam jars and pound upon pound of sugar sitting about in my tiny Parisian kitchen.  So I improvised.

Here's my recipe for Reine Claude Clafoutis.  It was such a hit that I made it all over again a few days later for a dinner party.  Sweet, custardy goodness!

Reine Claude Clafoutis

Serves 6 (or a greedy 3)

Ingredients

500 g Reine Claude (Greengage) plums
3 eggs
500 ml milk
100 ml heavy cream
1 vanilla bean
50 g softened butter
100 g sugar
125 g all purpose flour
butter and sugar for the cake pan

Directions

Preheat oven to 190°C.  Butter a 24cm round cake pan and generously sprinkle the bottom and sides with sugar.

Gently heat milk and add the vanilla bean.  Take off heat when steam begins to rise off the milk.  Set aside and let the vanilla bean soften in the warmed milk.

Meanwhile, wash and dry the plums.  Cut them in half and remove the stones.  Line the cake pan with the halved plums, cut-side down.

Remove the bean from the milk.  With a sharp knife, split the bean lengthwise, open it with your fingers, and scrape out the black vanilla seeds with the edge of the knife.  Add them to the milk and either discard the bean pod or save for making vanilla sugar.

Beat the eggs, milk, cream butter and sugar.  Add the flour and beat until combined.

Pour the egg mixture over the plums in the cake pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Remove from oven and let cool before serving.