Chocolate and Pear Clafoutis with Caramel Sauce

A clafoutis is a typical French tart, made with a liquid batter of eggs, flour, milk, butter and sugar. The most traditional clafoutis is the cherry one, which used to be baked with the cherries whole and with the pit. But you can make a clafoutis with any fruit! I personally love the strawberry clafoutis (we have it on the blog, here), and today we put a twist on the recipe by making a clafoutis base with cocoa —the chocolate flavor pairs perfectly with pear, which we'll use to top today's clafoutis.

Yes, this Pear Clafoutis with a touch of chocolate recipe is delicious, and if we finish it with a little salted caramel, the final contrast is wonderful. Will you try making it?

I recommend baking this tart in a ceramic dish —since it’s a very moist tart, baking in ceramic works great for it —we used the Le Creuset ceramic dish, although here you'll see all the ones we have. Also, a clafoutis is tricky to unmold: the ideal is to cut and serve, so it's definitely recommended to bake it in a piece you can cut the tart directly in (without damaging the surface, as would happen with a nonstick tin), such as a ceramic pan.

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 100g sugar
• 150g flour
• A pinch of salt
• 3 tbsp of cocoa powder
• 100g melted butter
• 200ml milk
• 3 ripe pears

For the caramel sauce*:

• 200g cane sugar
• 2 tsp of water
• 200ml whipping cream
• 1 tsp of salt

*If you prefer not to make it yourself, you can use the Tiptree salted caramel sauce, it’s delicious and will also work for spreading on any piece of bread or toast at breakfast or snack time.

Preparation

1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar. Add the flour, salt and cocoa and stir well until everything is well combined. Then add the melted butter and finish the mixture by adding the milk. Set aside, you now have the clafoutis base ready!
2. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
3. Peel and core the pears, and cut them in half.
4. Grease the Le Creuset Heritage rectangular ceramic dish with butter and then dust with a little flour. Pour the clafoutis batter into the dish and spread the pears on top. Put into the preheated oven and bake for 40 minutes.
5. While the tart is baking, make the caramel sauce (that is, if you don’t want to use the Tiptree caramel sauce). Mix the sugar and water in a small saucepan. When you obtain the golden, intense color of the caramel, remove from the heat and carefully add the cream. It will evaporate quickly, so use a silicone spatula to stir. Finish by adding the salt and leave to cool aside in a container.

Notes

Save any leftover caramel! You can store the leftover caramel sauce in an airtight jar, in a dry place, for when you want to pour it over a good piece of bread or, even better, when you want to pour it, warm, over a crepe or some apples.