Recipes celebrate annual Peach Festival

The annual Marysville Peach Festival is going to be celebrated Friday and Saturday.

To honor the occasion, I am sharing a peach clafoutis recipe, which is a classic French dessert.

Often clafoutis is baked with seasonal fruit, ranging from cherries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, boysenberries, cranberries, peaches, apricots or plums. All you need to do is to adjust the sugar content according to the sweetness of the selected fruit.

I also developed a homemade peach ice cream to complement the peach clafoutis.

This dessert is quite versatile, for it can also be served for breakfast or brunch.

PEACH CLAFOUTIS

1 cup milk

1⁄2 cup half-and-half

3 farm-fresh eggs

1⁄2 cup flour

1⁄4 cup blackberry honey

1⁄3 cup organic sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon almond extract

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

4 ripe peaches, sliced and soaked in 1 cup of brandy

1⁄3 cup powdered sugar

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Using a blender, combine all ingredients except for the peaches and powdered sugar. Add 1⁄4 cup of the brandy used to soak the peaches and process until the batter is soft and smooth. (Reserve the rest of the brandy for the ice cream recipe.)

Butter 6 to 8 ramekins or a 9- by 9-inch baking dish.

Pour 1⁄4 inch of the batter into the ramekins or baking dish. Bake for three to five minutes, or until a thin crust is formed. Remove the ramekins or baking dish from the oven and spread the peach slices evenly over the crust. Sprinkle with the powdered sugar and pour the rest of the batter evenly over the peaches.

Bake for one hour, or until the top is light golden brown.

Serve the peach clafoutis warm with a scoop of homemade peach ice cream (recipe follows).

HOMEMADE PEACH ICE CREAM

1 cup half-and-half

2 cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

1⁄4 cup raw organic sugar

1⁄4 cup local honey

1 peach, peeled and diced

Reserved brandy from the peach clafoutis recipe

Preparation

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients together and whisk until well blended.

I use a Cuisinart ice cream maker. Pour the mixture into the pre-frozen bowl of your ice cream maker and process until thickened, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove the ice cream from the bowl of the machine, transfer to an airtight plastic container and put it in the freezer until ready to serve. Remove ice cream from the freezer about 10 minutes prior to serving to soften slightly.

Salim Ben Mami is head chef and owner of Café Collage restaurant in Oregon House, Calif. Contact him at 530-692-2555 or ccollage@succeed.net. His website is cafecollage.net.