Wednesday Word Going French

clafoutis |klaˈfoōtē|

noun ( pl. same)

a tart made of fruit, typically cherries, baked in a sweet batter.

ORIGIN French, from dialect clafir ‘to stuff.’

Leave it to the French to have a different word for every nuance of cooking and baking. You see, tarts and clafoutis are not the same. Tarts are composed of a baked shell on top of which a batter like frangipane  and fruit is spread and it's baked again.

frangipane |ˈfranjəˌpān; ˌfränjiˈpän|

1noun an almond-flavored cream or paste.

• a pastry filled with this.

2 variant spelling of frangipani .

ORIGIN late 17th cent.: from French, named after the Marquis Muzio Frangipani (see frangipani ). The term originally denoted the frangipani shrub or tree, the perfume of which is said to have been used to flavor the almond cream.

Clafoutis, on the other hand, consists of a batter on top of which fruit is spread, and the whole thing is baked once. No shell. The fruit sinks into the batter during baking.

Technically, the French calls it clafoutis only when it's made with black cherries. They don't pit the cherries, claiming that the pits add an almond like flavor. In my opinion, they're just lazy. It's easy to add almond extract if you desire.

If this dessert is made with any other type of fruit, they call it flaugnarde.

flaugnarde [floɲaʁd]) also known as flagnarde, flognarde or flougnarde

a baked French dessert with fruit arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter.[1] Similar to a clafoutis, which is made with black cherries, a flaugnarde is made with apples, peaches, pears, plums, prunes or other fruits. Resembling a large pancake, the dish is dusted with confectioner's sugar and can be served either warm or cold.

ORIGIN The name is derived from the Occitan words fleunhe[2] and flaunhard,[3] which both translate as "soft" or "downy". The dish is common in the Auvergne, Limousin and Périgord regions of France.

Right. I'll just call this dessert tart. The French can bite me.