In our last report about our settler house, you saw the cherry trees still in full blossom, now within one blink of the eye cherries were hanging in bright red from the trees. We did not expect to harvest any, as everyone was warning us about the starlings. They would come in a whole swarm to settle in the trees and nourish themselves with the sweet fruits, until nothing would be left behind. Even if one of the main reasons why we decided to move out on the countryside, was the harvest of fruits and vegetables, this imagination was a bit of a relieve for us. As we do not have time to collect kilo over kilo of cherries and to use all of them. There is still too much construction going on. Apart from that, the crowns of the cherry trees are in unreachable hights. We will definitely not get up to these places.
This year though, the starlings did not come. Only a very few were pecking on the cherries. We were able to pick a first batch of 9 kilo. Already this is a huge amount, but on the four trees is hanging maybe ten times as much. We cooked the first kilos and prepared our chocolate cherry clafoutis. It taste best while it is still warm, when the chocolate is still melted. Then, the clafoutis can not get cut into pieces and must be eaten with the spoon, but the dough is super juicy.
Since a few days we were not able to harvest more. Maybe the sweet fragrance will be attracting the starlings, or the wasps. If not, we would love to go back on the ladder with a bucket. And to experiment with the cherries. We want to prepare some in salt. Some in vinegar. Dried cherries, jam, crumble cake, cherry-juice. Ideas are blossoming in our minds!

Preheat the oven to 180°C (conventional mode, not fan-assisted). Pit the cherries. Ground the almonds and mix with cocoa, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl.
With a whisk, stir eggs into cream. Add the egg/cream mixture to your dry almond mixture and stir to make a smooth cake batter.
Chop the chocolate and stir in the batter. Melt butter in an oven-pan or baking dish (approx. 24 cm in diameter). Add the cake batter to the pan and spread evenly. Spread cherries evenly on the batter and bake in the oven for 35 – 40 minutes.
We like to decorate the Clafoutis with fresh cherries and chopped chocolate.

For 2 Servings

60 g ground almonds

25 g cacao

1 pinch of salt

80 g whole cane sugar

3 organic eggs (size M)

250 ml cream

180 g dark chocolate

1 tsp butter

350 g sweet cherries