Long John Prune Plums - solved!

If you google "Long John Prume Plums" you're not going to come up with so many options of what to do with these cooking plums... So, when these plums arrived last Tuesday, we were baffled. I tried to eat them just raw (ignoring the notice that these were "cooking plums") but the skin is a bit sweeter than regular plums, making them a little too sweet to eat uncooked. I searched and searched for what to do with them and finally decided to make a clafouti. What's a clafouti you ask? According to wikipedia, it's a french dessert that has baked fruit mixed in with a batter that is a cross between pancake batter and custard. It's more of a cake, but we made it in a pie dish. I had no idea how the clafouti was going to turn out- I've never even tasted a clafouti before and don't think I ever had a baked plum dessert... But, I just took it out of the oven and had a taste and it's delicious!! It's super simple to make so I hope you're not thrown off by the name... here you go, give it a try!

Plum Clafouti
Ingredients:
5 Long John Prune Plums (pitted and halved)
1/4 cup plus for sprinkling sugar
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 cup flour
dribble of vanilla
dash salt
sprinkle of cinnamon
dab butter

--> Oven to 350 F. Rub a dab of butter on the bottom and sides of your pie plate. Sprinkle sugar on the bottom of the pan. Arrange the plum halves cut side down to cover the bottom of the pie plate. Sprinkle a little more sugar over the plums.

--> Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl (milk, eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt). It might be a little lumpy, try your best to get rid of the lumps - mush with the back of your spoon or a fork or whatever you think works best. When done mixing, pour the batter over the plums.

--> Bake for ~40 min or so at 350 F. Check every so often to make sure you don't overcook. Remove from oven when done.

Note: I used a somewhat smaller-sized disposable pie dish - if your pie dish is bigger, you're going to need more plums and more batter, so improvise as needed. It'll also probably take another 10 min or so to cook through.

Another Note: So - one thing I left out is that actual clafouti recipes do call for you to blend all of the ingredients together (in step 2) in a blender. I'm a little lazy when it comes to washing dishes, so if you're not as lazy, use a blender and avoid having to mash up the clumps!