Spring is great and I know I will never have enough time to make the most of all the greens available out there, but these days I am craving for juicy big Burlat cherries! Picking cherries as a summer job is a very bad idea, but picking cherries from the tree to eat straight away is the best thing ever. We used to hang upside down from a branch with my sister with our mouth full of chewed cherries and their juices would come up to our nose to mimic a nose bleed. An activity that of course never impressed my mum who got very scared the first time she saw us walking back with blood all over our faces.

The Burlat variety of cherry is a big, deep dark red, juicy and very sweet type of cherry and it is one of the most common table cherry in France. Eating them the way they are when fresh is absolute heaven, but their firm and juicy flesh is also perfect in a clafoutis. My grandma makes loads every year and freezes them, so we can always have a taste of summer if we missed the season. Buying cherries at the beginning of April is something I would never consider, especially since I never bought cherries in my whole life. Well that’s a lie, I tried once at the Borough Market in London, thinking that paying an arm for shiny looking cherries might mean they taste of something, of course they didn’t. I usually gorged myself with proper cherries when I go back to my mum’s during the summer.

I am going on about all this to make you understand that I am very hard to please and most importantly, I found something that could replace the cherries in my clafoutis: Globe grapes! They are the biggest grapes I have ever seen, and so sweet and juicy. They are at the end of their winter season now but they will be back in the summer! Their skin held perfectly while cooking, and allowed a slow release of juice in the batter of the clafoutis which is very similar to what a cherry would do.

Clafoutis are so easy to do and it is delicious when served slightly warm, as dessert or anytime during the day!