Blackberry & Pear Clafoutis

by Liz Child

Clafoutis is a classic French cake which is actually more like a pudding. Traditionally made with cherries, it’s best served scooped out of the flan dish whilst still slightly warm, with whipped cream or natural yoghurt – I recommend plant based versions of those of course! It is also delicious served like a cake – cold, in slices – but doesn’t stay fresh much longer than 2 days. If you plan to serve it cold, then I recommend baking it in a lined or loose-bottomed cake tin so that it can be turned out onto a plate in one piece. Otherwise bake it in a flan dish or baking tray for the pudding version. This is one of those cakes that can easily be made gluten free by doing a straight substitute with gluten free flour. I always add a little extra liquid when using gluten free flour as it tends to need more hydration than regular wheat flour, so up the oat milk a little if you make it gluten free.

If you’ve not baked with aquafaba before, it’s a bit of a revelation! Aquafaba is the viscous liquid result of boiling beans or chickpeas. You can get it by draining a tin of white beans or chickpeas over your mixing bowl. Aquafaba is a really useful product which is normally washed down the sink. It’s an egg white replacement and with a little effort can even whisk up into meringue. I usually make sure I get the unsalted tins of beans/chickpeas for baking cakes, but the salted version also works absolutely fine. Salt actually enhances the flavours of fruit and sweet dishes, but I usually just use a pinch. So if you are using the aquafaba from a salted can of beans/chickpeas, then leave out the recommended pinch of salt and just taste the batter and see if it could do with a little extra sugar before you bake. I make a savoury version of this recipe too which I will share another day, think cherry tomato or asparagus clafoutis…perfect for summer lunches with salads.

The pears from the farm are so delicious and in season right now. So I’ve made this seasonal variation of my cherry clafoutis (recipe illustration from my book below) with pear slices and frozen blackberries. You can use any fruit you like of course. In Spring I love making a rhubarb version where I drench the raw rhubarb chunks in elderflower cordial and then sprinkle some flaked almonds on top of the batter before baking. Raspberry clafoutis has got to be my kids favourite. What fruity combinations will you try?

💚 Liz

Did you make this recipe? Let us know how it went in the comments below and share it with your friends. If you like this recipe, you’ll love my book. Add it to your usual order at Green Earth Organics.

Illustration from my cookbook, Cook Draw Feed – available to add to your next order here.

Ingredients (serves 8)

  • Pears – 3 or 4 ripe
  • Blackberries – frozen or fresh – a couple of handfuls
  • Aquafaba – from 1 tin of white beans/chickpeas, normally around 150ml
  • Caster sugar – 100g
  • Plain flour – 200g
  • Baking powder – 2 tsp
  • Salt – pinch (leave out if using aquafaba from a salted tin of beans
  • Oat milk – 3 tbsp
  • Olive oil or Rapeseed oil – 4 tbsp
  • Vanilla – 1 tsp
  • Icing sugar – 1 tsp or so for dusting
  • Whipping cream or Yoghurt to serve

Method

This pudding is really simple to put together. Core and slice your pears and arrange them in a flan dish or baking tray. Sprinkle over some frozen or fresh blackberries. Then make the batter, all in one mixing bowl. You’ll need an electric whisk and a mug to use as a measuring device.

Drain the aquafaba from a tin of white beans or chickpeas into a mixing bowl. Use an electric whisk and fluff up the aquafaba by whisking on high for a few minutes..

Add half a mug of caster sugar (the cane sugar from our shop works too) and whisk again until creamy. This recipe, like most of my recipes, is very forgiving. I usually don’t bother weighing the ingredients. The aquafaba from a regular tin of beans/chickpeas is normally around 150ml but it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit over or under that. For the sugar, I just half fill a mug and tip it in…but you can weigh 100g if you like.

Then fold in a mug (or around 200g) of plain flour, 2 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt. It doesn’t have to be fully incorporated at this stage. You’ll be adding the liquid next and that will help bring it all together. The trick to a tender cake crumb is not over-mixing the batter, so just gently fold the dry ingredients in.

Then add the 3 tbsp oat milk, 4 tbsp oil and 1 tsp vanilla and gently stir until you have a fairly smooth batter. I used a gorgeous, cold pressed rapeseed oil this time and it gave the batter a beautiful golden hue and was delicious!

Pour the batter over the fruit and gently smooth it out using the back of the spoon. It will spread and rise in the oven so don’t worry if there are any small gaps around the sides of the dish.

Bake the clafoutis at 175C for 20 minutes or until browned on top and the batter is set. A larger dish will make a shallower cake which will only take 20 minutes, a smaller dish will make a deeper cake which will take longer – just keep an eye on it.

Dust with icing sugar and serve warm as a pudding, or cold in slices as a fruity cake. Enjoy!

Waterlogged but Never Wavering

by Kenneth Keavey

When it rains look for rainbows, when it’s dark look for stars.

Oscar Wilde

I came out of my office last week, I had no inspiration, I didn’t have anything to write about, I definitely wasn’t in the right space and I was getting frustrated.

I decided to see what was going on out on the farm and I bumped into Emmanuel and shared my woes. Write about “Muck and rain, and mud, and clay and rain, and water because that about sums up the week just past” he said.

That was it, he had hit the nail on the head, it was wet.

Some places in the fields the water is a foot deep. The beds we planted on in the summer are submerged, the plants with waterlogged roots struggle to breath. It is ok for a few days but if there is prolonged water, then they die.

Walking up a sticky, muddy field with a bag of kale on your back must be one of the very best work outs you can get. If you have ever had a young child wrap themselves around your foot and not let you go, well that is what the field does.

I got the impression last week that even our poor tractor was not happy.

The ruts from the tractor wheeling’s are deep and although Joe (My seven year old son loves them, in fact he would actually disappear into some of them) it does not make for easy navigation when it comes to driving with a tonne of parsnips on the front of the tractor.

In the cold wet weather, you often find yourself with three or four layers of clothes on and waterproofs and wellies and sweating even though it is freezing and wet. This I think is one of my least favourite ways to pass the time.

But the sun is always there, we may not always be able to see it, but it is always up there over the clouds. It is only because of the clouds and the rain that you see the most beautiful skylines, the most stunning sunrises, and the most fantastic evening sunsets. These skyscapes are more striking at this time of the year that in high summer by a long way.

Then of course there is the food.

We are doing, I think, our bit for the planet. We are growing sustainable food on a scale that supports thousands of people each week. When I first wrote this, I thought it could not be true, but then I did the maths. If we do an average of 1500 deliveries per week and each household has an average of 3 people then that is 4500 people, that is a lot of mouths to feed, that is a large responsibility to do things right. That is a lot of trust put in us by you.

I shocked myself with that revelation, a far cry from the first 26 deliveries we did in May 2006.

So, we will get stuck in again on Monday, harvest more food, deal with the mud and the rain, do our bit for sustainable food, do our bit for climate change, because we have to.

Can you sustain a path such as this without being either clinically insane (and that could be the case) or having a belief in something bigger? For us I like to think it is the latter (but who is to say really). Our big “WHY” is the planet, nature, biodiversity, and every living creature we share this earth with deserving a chance. This is what drives us on. Have a look at our 5 Pledges for the Planet to see our promises as a business.

As always thanks for your support, it’s what keeps us going.

Kenneth

PS Don’t forget to place your order for next week here.

Liz Child

by Liz Child

Kenneth has asked me to share my recipes, illustrations and writing on Green Earth Organics brand new blog and I am thrilled and honoured to be trusted with this task. I am new to this beautiful part of the world so I thought I should introduce myself. I’ll be adding more bios to this section of the blog soon so keep an eye out for those, but someone has to go first.

My name is Liz Child and I am a chef, illustrator, writer and a wannabe food forest farmer. I grew up in Zimbabwe and moved to the UK with my family in ‘99 when I was 14. At 22, after completing my degree in Fine Art, I started a vegetarian cafe in Canterbury called The Veg Box Cafe with my husband Adam. We had a bit of a rollercoaster of a time during our 12 years of running the cafe, as is the way in the food industry, but we stuck with it and learned so much along the way. We sold the business in March 2020 so I could focus on my writing and illustrating and to follow our dream of moving to Ireland to start a mini food forest. The dream is to have a go at living as low impact a life as possible. As I write this we are still in the very early stages of trying to make that happen so watch this space to see how it unfolds.

I also wrote, illustrated and self published a cookbook last year based on the 12 years of honing my own brand of relaxed, instinctive cooking at the cafe. The book focuses on celebrating seasonal vegetables and is packed full of easy ways to make vibrant, wholesome meals from humble ingredients. It is a unique book, full of hand drawn recipes and is such a useful accompaniment to a veg box delivery scheme. You can add a copy to your delivery here if you like. I’ll be sharing recipes from the book as well as lots of new ones here on the recipe section of the blog too so look out for those. I’m particularly obsessed with fermenting every vegetable under the sun, so expect lots of funky ideas on how to make the most out of your brilliant veg boxes from Green Earth Organics.

At present I live in County Galway with my husband, 2 children and our scruffy spaniel, Rey. I split my time between looking after the kids, recipe development, flogging my cookbook, illustration jobs and managing the blog, and I try get away from the desk to get outside as much as possible. In my spare time I love walking, foraging and planting and dreaming about our future food forest retreat. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook @cook.draw.feed for a behind the scenes view of the freelance cheffing/illustrating/writing/parenting mayhem that is my life.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Over to you. Tell me about yourself in the comments. What are your dreams? What kind of recipes would you like me to work on for you? Are there particular ingredients you feel stumped with?

Liz x