Maple Oatmeal Clafouti... Yes, I Only Got the One Good Picture of It

Introducing another fabulous guest recipe by The Chickenless Chick's mom!

Now I have to warn you- and I doubt I'm embarrassing her by saying this- my mom is no chicken in the kitchen; and this is a far cry from traditional clafouti, which I find quite bland. So if you're looking for an exemplary clafouti, then I'm sorry I wrote the word clafouti on this page so many times that the search engine picked it up... clafouti clafouti clafouti. (Meh, I'm not that sorry... I'll take hits where I can get 'em.)

Maple Oatmeal Clafouti

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups old fashioned oats (uncooked)

¾ cups brown sugar

¾ cup dried cherries or cranberries

¾ cup walnuts (optional)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ tsp maple extract (or 1 tbs vanilla if you don’t have maple)

1 ½ tsp apple cider vinegar

2 cups milk

2 eggs (whipped)

1 large tart apple, like Granny Smith, diced

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil or grease 13 x9 casserole dish. (Filippo Berio extra light olive oil comes in a nice little spray pump now if you don’t have your own sprayer.)

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, whip eggs. Stir in milk, vanilla, maple, and vinegar. Add to dry ingredients, and mix together. Stir in apple. (It will look watery and gloppy. Don’t panic!)

Pour into casserole dish. Spread the solids around evenly throughout the wet mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees, 50 minutes. Test with toothpick for doneness.

Cool slightly and cut into twelve squares.

Top with homemade applesauce, plain or vanilla yogurt, and drizzle with grade B maple syrup (for a more intense maple flavor).

Simple Applesauce

Ingredients

3-4 apples (I like to mix sweet and tart – like 2 MacIntosh and 1 Granny Smith, for instance.)

3 T. brown sugar (optional)

1 T. lightly salted butter (optional)

2 T. water

Directions

Chop apples, add to pan with water. Bring to boil on medium heat, stirring often.

Add butter and sugar, turn heat down and simmer 10-15 minutes depending how chunky you like your applesauce.

Thank you, Chickenless Chick's Mom, for indulging my blog addiction and letting me share your recipe with my food nerd friends!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.