Yom Kippur Clafoutis

When atonement looks like a French raspberry cake, baked with an old friend

I am not a religious Jew, but every year of my childhood, my family attended two religious services: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That these services were held in a borrowed Korean church with a giant cross overhead we will choose to ignore. The point is: the songs were great, they hit all those moving minor key notes, and with the exception of all those itchy dresses and uncomfortable footwear, I do no look back unfondly on those days.

For those unfamiliar with these two holidays, the first is a gleeful celebration of the new year, replete with apples dipped in honey. The second—its bookend, which always falls ten days later—is a day of atonement, when you apologize to those you’ve wronged, take stock of your sins, and don’t eat apples, honey, or a goddamned thing. Like nothing. Not even water, if you’re doing it correctly. (Kids under 13, pregnant/nursing mothers, and those who are ill get a free pass.)

I’m a big fan of Yom Kippur, especially of the Kol Nidre services the night prior, with their ancient and moving chants of self-castigation. (Tell me to beat my chest, I will beat it!) I also believe that, no matter one’s religious beliefs or practices, it’s important, both from a mental health perspective and for keeping on good terms with those we love, to take stock of what we’ve done wrong, to acknowledge our missteps, and to both say and contemplate how we might do better.

This year, while “attending” Kol Nidre services—I use the term loosely, as I streamed them on my computer from the comfort of my living room couch, where I reclined shoeless and pajama-clad—the familiar music, however flattened through my hearing aids, unleashed the kind of tearful release I’d been needing for many months but from which, for whatever reason, I’d been blocked from shedding. (I’m a big fan of tears, too. Mourning takes all forms and can encompass all kinds of loss, including hearing, love, and dashed hopes. And no, I will not be linking to those dashed hopes or writing about them. You’ve probably had a few of your own, so you can probably imagine, and though I might seem like I lay it all out there, I do not. Some pain and loss are best recalled and processed privately.)

Yom Kippur 5783 (aka 2022) ©Deborah Copaken

But while I’m an admitted fan of the emotional release and theories of Yom Kippur, I’m not a fan of fasting. In fact, I rarely make it past 3:00 pm before I succumb to a banana. The other issue is that the break fast I normally attend after Yom Kippur is a dessert pot luck, so part of my day of fasting always includes baking, which I find both difficult, while trying not to eat, and terrifying. I’m more of a wing-it kind of cook, where you take the vague outline of a recipe and use it as a gentle suggestion rather than as a strict, step-by-step guide: cooking as improv, not chemistry.

Alas baking, like love, is all about chemistry.

Which is why when my old friend Aleksandra Crapanzano offered to come over and help me bake a clafoutis from scratch for my Yom Kippur break fast later that night, I was thrilled. For one, clafoutis, a typical French dessert, always reminds me of Paris, where I lived for four years and where Aleksandra also lived. For another, Aleksandra just published a book of easy-to-bake French cakes called Gateau, and I was charmed by their seeming simplicity. (Could they really be that simple? Could I…make one?) But also, I had not seen her in a long time, and I felt bad about being an absent friend. Spending time together baking a cake that would remind us of both our long years of friendship and a city we loved could, I reasoned, be a way of atoning for that absence. I also once served her a clafoutis years ago that I’m still embarrassed about serving, as I stupidly poured the batter into a springform pan, and most of it dripped out all over the stove. What was left was a flattened mess.

This is the adorable cover of Aleksandra’s new book.

Moreover, as I told Aleksandra in the video below, when my dad was dying of pancreatic cancer years ago, and I offered to come spend Yom Kippur with him back home, my gee-whiz, golly-gee, Midwest-raised father—from whose lips a curse word had never once exploded, at least in my presence—said, “Fuck Yom Kippur. My fate has already been sealed. I’m going to the beach.”

Ever since, I’ve tried to honor Dad’s dying audacity with my own form of yearly rebellion. Yes, I will atone. Yes, I will apologize and listen to the minor chords and try my best to cry. But also, I will take charge of my life and my destiny, as Yom Kippur compels us to do, and make the holiday my own. Which this year included a warm raspberry cake and some much needed laughter with an old friend.

For the recipe itself, please scroll down below. (And yes, this requires a paid subscription, because I work hard on this, and have you seen your grocery bills lately? Sheesh! But if you, too, are a single parent, and you can’t afford the monthly fee, just hit reply to this email, let me know, and I will comp you a free paid subscription in perpetuity.)