Custard lovers and pie lovers alike: Clafoutis is the dessert you need in your life. The name may sound fancy (it's French, after all), but it’s actually one of the easiest, most forgiving desserts I know. It's got oozy baked fruit like you'd find in a pie, and the creamy eggy jiggle of a custard. But it's easier than both pie and custard. And best of all, it’s adaptable: You can bake it in any kind of heatproof vessel with almost any kind of fruit you want.

I make a lot of clafoutis every summer. I make it because I love it, but also because it doesn't require any special equipment, so when I'm away at someone else's house for the weekend, or at a vacation rental with a poorly equipped kitchen, I can still whip together a good dessert with whatever fruit is available. Here's how to make clafoutis all summer long:

1. Pick Your Fruit

Cherry clafoutis is the classic version—and with good reason; it's delicious—but almost any berry or fruit can be used instead. Since it's just the beginning of stone fruit season right now, I've been alternating between cherries and apricots. In my recipe, the batter holds 2 cups of sliced fruit or berries. (Pit and slice the fruit before you measure the volume.) As the season progresses, try plums or peaches instead of apricots or cherries, or try a colorful medley of stone fruits. You can use your favorite berries instead and it'll be great, but be warned that berries will leak their juices into the custard more than stone fruit will. This is not a bad thing—just a little different. You can use sliced apples or pears too, but because they're firmer-fleshed, you'll want to cook them a bit before putting them in your clafoutis. Just slice them up and sauté them in a little butter until they're tender, then let them cool and proceed with the recipe.

2. Make Your Batter

If you've ever made a Dutch baby, you'll recognize clafoutis batter: It's a liquidy mixture of eggs, milk, sugar, and flour that seems like it couldn't possibly turn into anything solid. But it does. The batter benefits from aeration before baking, and the easiest way to mix and aerate all at once is to make it in the blender. No blender? Don't let that stop you! Just whisk it until frothy in a bowl instead.

To make my batter gluten-free, I swap in all-purpose gluten-free flour mix or almond flour. To make it dairy-free, I swap in a favorite alt milk and use coconut oil for the baking dish instead of butter. Sometimes I flavor it with lemon zest and vanilla, sometimes just one or the other. Sometimes a splash of whiskey is all I have on hand. The only ingredient that can't be swapped is the eggs—they're what makes the sliceable custard magic happen.

Batter goes into a hot buttered pan or dish first, then fruit. Photo by Joseph De Leo

3. Heat Up Any Baking Vessel

To help my clafoutis puff faster, prevent it from sticking to the baking dish, and get some nice fat flavor in the mix, I add some butter to whatever 2 or 3 qt. baking vessel or 10-inch ovenproof skillet I have available, then stick the pan in the oven while it preheats. This isn't just to melt the butter—it's also to heat up the vessel itself, which in turn makes the batter puff faster. The vessel should be hot enough that the batter sort of starts to set as soon as you've poured it in.