I'm not a baker. But this got me into a serious love affair with my oven. Oh, galette. Flakey, buttery, buttery crust. Stone fruits cooked until so deliciously tart and juicy. Beautifully golden, round, and handmade.
How did I get myself in this mess? Well, surprise surprise, my teeny bopper fascination with all things Chez Panisse led me to watch the PBS American Masters documentary
Alice Waters: A Delicious Revolution. I saw pastry cook making galette. Me have to make galette. Copy cat.
The hardest parts are picking the perfect apricots (mine were sweet raw but, after 45-50 minutes of cooking, they turned mouthpuckering tart...even with a whole 1/4 cup of sugar!!) and making that crust. Man. You want the crust to be thin and even and you don't want to overwork it or else it won't turn out flaky enough. And that pretty edge that you twist over to make a rope-like border, that's kind of hard to do with dough that;s like 80% butter (kind of melts at the touch of your fingers and compresses into globs, again, making it less flaky). You really need to practice that technique, practice that good, to develop nimble fingers that twist at the speed of lightning. Yah. I found that it helps to freeze the dough before you let it defrost and roll it out to get that flakiness I've been obsessing about in the last few sentences. And it is very important to refridgerate that rolled-out dough before assembling the galette. In short, keep that dough cool!
And, there you have it. A gorgeous galette that you'd probably pay upwards of $22 for at some fancy patisserie is yours for about half the price (or less) that you made YOURSELF (yes, you can do it).
The following recipes are from
Chez Panisse Fruits by Alice Waters.
Galette Dough
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
7 T ice water
Combine flour, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut 4 T butter into flour mixture with a pastry blender [I used my fingers because I don't have one], mixing unil the dough resembles coarse cornmeal. Cut in remaining 8 T (1 stick) butter with pastry blender, just until the biggest pieces of butter are the size of large peas or a little bigger.
Dribble 7 T of ice water into flour mix in several stages, tossing and mixing between additions, until the dough just holds together. Toss the mix with your hands, letting it fall through your fingers. Do not pinch or squeeze the dough together or you will overwork it, making it tough. Keeping tossing the mixture until it start to pull together; it will look rather ropy, with some dry patches. If it looks like there are more dry patches than ropy parts, add another tablespoon of water and toss the mixture until it comes together. Divide the dough ball in half, firmly press each half into a ball, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap, pressing down to flatten each ball into a 4" disk. Refrigerate at least 30 mins before rolling out (keeps in freeze a few weeks).
When you're reading to roll out dough, take disk from fridge one at a time. Let it soften slightly so that it is malleable but still cold. Unwrap the dough and press the edges of the disk so that there are no cracks. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the disk into a 14" circle about 1/8" thick. Brush off excess flour from both sides with a dry pastry brush. Transfer the dough to a parchment-lined baking sheet and refrigerate at least 1/2 hour before using (rolled out circles can be frozen and used the next day).
Makes about 20 ounces, enough for 2 open galettes or tarts or 1 covered tart.
Apricot Galette10 oz. galette dough, rolled into a 14" circle and chilled
1/4 cup almond-amaretti powder [okay, this involves making almond macaroons, extracting noyaux from apricot pits, and then mixing this stuff with flour, almond meal, and sugar, i.e. way too labor-intensive and time-consuming for me. I cheated by making a crumbly mixture of flour, powdered sugar, regular sugar, almond extract, and vanilla extract and it worked just fine. I mean, the purpose of this powder to absord the excess juices emitted from the fruit as it cooks, so the bottom of the crust doesn't get sopping wet, and I think my alternative does that job just fine and I'm not sure I've noticed a huge difference in taste/texture]
1 1/2 pounds ripe apricots
1/4 cup plus 2T sugar
1 T melted unsalted butter
Preheat oven to 400F. If you have a pizza stone, place it on the lower rack.
Remove prerolled dough from fridge/freezer and place on buttered or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Evenly sprinkle almond-amaretti powder over pastry, leaving 1 1/2 in border unsprinkled.
Cut apricots in half (or quarters, if large), removing pits. Arrange, skin side down, in concentric circles on the dusted dough, making a single layer of snugly touching apricot pieces and leaving the border bare. [You can, as I did, add halved, pitted cherries too.] Evenly sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over fruit.
While rotating the tart, fold bolder of exposed dough up and over itself at regular intervals, crimping and pushing it up against the outer circle of the fruit, creating a containing rim that resembles a length of rope. Pinch of excess dough. This rim acts as a dam, preventing juices from escaping while cooking, so make sure there are no folds or wrinkles that would allow such a breach [I've had juices leak out and burn but it's not big deal because usually it doesn't stick to the dough, it just ends up on the baking sheet or oven]. Brush border gently with melted butter and sprinkle with 2 T of sugar.
Bake in lower third of oven (preferably on pizza stone) 45-50 minutes, until crust is well-browned & edges slightly caramelized [the edges of the of the fruit should also be caramelized]. As soon as galette is out of oven, use a large metal spatula to slide it off the baking sheet or parchment paper and let sit 20 minutes on cooling rack to prevent the base from steaming and getting soggy.
Serve with vanilla ice-cream.
