Around My French Table (86 page)

This creation is so unlike what we know as cheesecake in America that I hesitate to use the name for fear of misleading you. Unlike just about everything in the American cheesecake family, the
tourteau
is not soft, creamy, moist, or even rich. Instead, it's a fairly dry cake (it's most like a sponge cake) that you cut into wedges and eat out of hand.

It turns out that a
tourteau de chèvre
is easily within the grasp of us ordinary mortals. We can't get the spherical shape, and the
noir
top doesn't seem possible in our ovens, but what we can make is so good, and the joy of making it at home so great, that the other stuff seems unimportant. I offer it here as a dessert, but I'm urging you to also give it a try with drinks before dinner.

About the goat cheese: You want to use a soft goat cheese without a crust. If you've got a very fresh cheese with a lot of moisture, it's best to put it in a strainer and allow it to drain for a few hours before you start making the
tourteau.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Generously butter an 8-inch springform pan. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a circle that's about 10½ inches in diameter. Fit the dough into the springform pan, pressing it against the bottom and up the sides. It will pleat and fold in on itself as it climbs the sides—do the best you can to straighten it out, but don't worry about it, since perfection is impossible here and not really important. If the dough is uneven, you can trim it, but again, that's not crucial. (Once baked, the crust seems to melt into the cake, so you never really see the edges.) Put the springform in the fridge while you make the filling.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, whip the egg whites with the salt until they start to form soft peaks. Still whipping, gradually add 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and beat until the whites hold firm but still glossy peaks. If the whites are in the bowl of your stand mixer, transfer them gingerly to another bowl.

With the mixer—use the paddle attachment now, if you've got one—beat the egg yolks, goat cheese, the remaining ½ cup sugar, the cornstarch, and flavoring, if you're using any, until very smooth and creamy, about a minute or two. Switch to a rubber spatula and stir one quarter of the whites into the mixture to lighten it, then gently fold in the rest of the whites. Scrape the batter into the crust and put the springform pan on the lined baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees F. Continue to bake for about 35 minutes more, or until the top, which will have cracked, is dark brown and firm; a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let the
tourteau
rest for 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the sides of the springform. Cool the cake to room temperature before serving. The cake will deflate as it cools.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

SERVING
Try the
tourteau
with white wine as an aperitif, in the afternoon with tea, with coffee in the morning, anytime as a snack, or as dessert, in which case it's nice with a drizzle of honey and some fresh fruit.

STORING
The
tourteau,
which is not moist to begin with, can be covered tightly and kept at room temperature for a day or two.

O
NCE WHILE TRAVELING IN FRANCE
, I fell into conversation with a woman about how she makes clafoutis (cla-foo-
tee
), the most famous dessert from her own region, the Limousin. "I always use whole cherries," she said, "it's the tradition." I'd been told this before and had read it many times—the theory is that the cherries retain more of their flavor (and, of course, their juice) if you keep the pits, but I'd never had the chance to ask a native from the land of clafoutis the polite and proper way to dispose of those pits. "You put them in the pit bowl," she declared. And what is the pit bowl? "It's the bowl my great-grandmother used for pits. It goes in the center of the table, and everyone deposits the pits in it." I'd only just met the woman, so I didn't think it was right to quiz her on how the pits got from the clafoutis eater's mouth to the bowl. I'm sure they were conveyed on a dessert spoon, but isn't it easy to imagine kids having a little fun shortcutting the spoon?

Technically clafoutis is considered a cake, but as you'll see, it's more like a pudding, a firm, eggy, flour-based pudding that, when cut into wedges, stands up straight on the plate. This is not at all what I was told a clafoutis should be when I took my first class from a French pastry chef. Then I was taught to make the clafoutis sans flour, like a rich, jiggly custard, and to bake it in a tart crust. I love that style of clafoutis and continue to make it often (see Bonne Idée), but it's not the true clafoutis, the one that caused so much is-it-cake-or-is-it-pudding fuss that the question went to the lofty Académie Française, the keeper of the French language, for arbitration. (That's how the clafoutis was finally deemed a cake.)

This recipe would meet Académie Française standards. It uses whole cherries, is made without a crust, and is baked until firm. However, since everyone outside the Limousin plays around with the sweet, you can too. You can replace the fresh cherries with frozen (don't thaw them before baking) or
griottes
(sour cherries in syrup; drain before baking); you can use a mix of berries—blueberries and raspberries are particularly good; or you can use dried fruit—prunes soaked in Armagnac make a terrific clafoutis.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan (or another baking pan with a 2-quart capacity).

Put the cherries in the pie pan—they should fit in a single layer.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until they're foamy, then add the sugar and whisk for a minute or so. Whisk in the salt and vanilla. Add the flour and whisk vigorously—usually you should be gentle when incorporating flour, but this is an exception—until the batter is smooth. Still whisking (less energetically), gradually pour in the milk and cream and whisk until well blended. Rap the bowl against the counter to knock out any bubbles and pour the batter over the cherries.

Bake the clafoutis for 35 to 45 minutes, or until it's puffed and lightly browned and, most important, a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the clafoutis to a cooling rack and allow it to cool until it's only the least bit warm, or until it comes to room temperature.

Dust the clafoutis with confectioners' sugar right before you bring it to the table.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

SERVING
Serve with spoons and a warning about the pits (and bowls for them)—it really doesn't need anything else.

STORING
Like most pudding-ish sweets, this one's best the day it is made. If you've got leftovers, cover and chill them and have them the next day. The cold clafoutis will be different but still good.

BONNE IDÉE
Clafoutis Tart.
When you make clafoutis as a tart, you don't use any flour in the mixture. Once baked, the clafoutis is most like a creamy custard. Have ready a 9- to 9½-inch partially baked tart shell, made with Sweet Tart Dough (
[>]
), on a lined baking sheet. To make the batter, whisk together 3 large eggs, ¾ cup sugar, a pinch of salt, 1 cup heavy cream, and 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract in a bowl, adding the ingredients in order and whisking each until blended. Cover the bottom of the tart shell with ¾ pound cherries (or other fruit; see headnote) and pour in the custard. You may have too much, in which case, just pour in enough to reach almost to the top of the crust. Bake in a 400-degree-F oven for 10 minutes. Then, if you have extra batter, pour in as much of it as you can. Continue to bake until the custard is just set in the center, another 15 minutes or so. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature, dusted with confectioners' sugar.

W
HILE FINANCIERS ARE A TREAT ALL OVER FRANCE
, they are Paris born and bred. The small cakes were invented at Patisserie Lasne, which was a favorite of the stockbrokers who worked at the nearby Bourse. The brokers,
financiers,
would rush in every day in search of a sweet and rush out, brushing little bits of it off their suits as they went. It was Lasne's genius to realize that what his clients needed was "fast food": a pastry that the hurried brokers could eat without knife, fork, or fear of telltale crumbs. What he created was a gold ingot—shaped cake that could be eaten on the run. That it was as rich as the brokers he made it for might have been done for his own amusement, but it's part of what has sustained the financier's place in the pastry hall of fame for well over 100 years.

What makes the small cakes rich is butter—lots of it—cooked until it's lightly browned, and ground nuts. The most usual nut for the job is almond, but hazelnuts make perfect financiers as well. (I've also had pistachio financiers that were delicious, but they were made with pistachio paste, an expensive ingredient more easily found by professionals.) And because the batter is made with (unwhipped) egg whites, it has a tight crumb and a light spring that is especially appealing.

The best way to make financiers is to prepare the batter one day and bake it the next; however, if you're in as much of a rush to get your sweet as the Parisian stockbrokers were, you can do everything at once, only stopping for an hour to let the warm batter chill.

The classic pan for a financier is a shallow rectangle with slightly flared sides (mine are 3¾ × 2 × ⅝ inches and each holds 3 tablespoons), but a mini-muffin tin will give you delicious tea cakes.

This recipe is based on one Jean-Luc Poujauran taught me. Jean-Luc once had Paris's cutest pastry shop. The shop remains (it's on the rue Jean Nicot), but Jean-Luc is no longer there—he's in a nearby bakery making bread for some of the city's best restaurants.

BE PREPARED:
The batter needs to chill for at least an hour.

Financiers can be made with "normal" melted butter, but if you follow tradition and brown the butter, you'll give the cakes an extra layer of flavor. To make
beurre noisette
(hazelnut butter), cut the butter into pieces, toss it into a small saucepan, and bring it to a gentle boil over medium heat. Once the butter boils, keep a close eye on it—you want it to turn a golden brown. If you get a deeper color, you'll get more flavor, but you have to be careful not to let the butter go black—something that can happen quickly. When you've got the color you want (and perhaps the fragrance of hazelnuts), pull the pan from the heat and set it aside in a warm place.

Put the sugar and almond flour in a medium saucepan and stir to mix. Add the egg whites, stir, and place the pan over low heat. Again, never leaving the pan unattended, stir with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is slightly white, runny, and hot to the touch. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the all-purpose flour, then gradually blend in the melted butter.

Scrape the batter into a heatproof bowl and press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the batter. Chill the batter for at least 1 hour, or, better yet, overnight.
(You can keep the batter in the fridge for up to 3 days.)