photo by Samantha Lord
Nothing says homemade like a fresh fruit pie, but making one requires planning and concentration, and sometimes, I don’t want to think that hard. Enter the rustic galette. It’s got pastry, it’s got fruit, it’s a great partner for ice cream, and it’s fun to make! So fun, you don’t even have to use a recipe once you have the pastry made. Simply roll it out, aiming for “round-ish” (but anything goes), add berries, halved cherries, sliced peaches, nectarines, apricots, or plums, fold the edges up and over the filling, and you’ve got pie! (Edited August 27, 2021)
Thank you to Kurtis Bagley for teaching me his Pâte Brisée (shortcrust pastry) recipe.
Pastry for Fruit Galettes
makes pastry for 3 8-inch galettes; recipe adapted from Kurtis Bagley
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 8 ounces unsalted butter (two sticks, refrigerator cold and cut into tablespoon sized chunks)
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt or Kosher salt
- glass of ice water, you will use 6-8 tablespoons
Instructions
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Place flour, salt and butter in bowl. Using two knives (or a pastry blender or your fingers), cut the butter into the flour. Keep at it and you will have a crumbly, fairly uniformly coarse mixture in a few minutes, pea-sized chunks of butter are desirable.
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From glass of ice water, measure out 4 tablespoons and sprinkle over the crumbly dough. Toss and stir with a fork. If mixture seems dry, add the remaining 2-4 tablespoons ice water. Your mixture will still look crumbly, but when you pinch a small amount, it will clump together.
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Dump crumbly mixture onto counter and push and pat together into a thick round disk. If the dough isn’t coming together, sprinkle on a tiny bit more ice water (like 1 tablespoon) and keep at it. Cut the disk into three pieces and flatten and round each into a disk approximately 1-inch thick. Wrap each in plastic and let rest in the fridge for at least 45 minutes before rolling.
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Once pastry is chilled, preheat oven to 400° F and roll out each pastry disk into a thin, round-ish shape approximately 12-inches in diameter—the more rustic, the better for galettes. Place pastry on a parchment or silpat-lined baking sheet, top with fruit (leaving a couple inches of pastry as a border), a sprinkling of sugar, a few drops of lemon juice and a pat of butter cut into bits (about 1 tablespoon total). Fold edges of pastry up over the outside edges of the fruit. Brush milk or cream on the pastry and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden brown, approximately 30 minutes. Let cool on rack then enjoy with whipped cream or ice cream.
Amy’s Kitchen Coach Tips
- If your pastry is hard and cracks when you press on it with a rolling pin, stop and let it warm up a bit before continuing. About 15 minutes out of the fridge and the pastry should behave better.
- Wheat free, gluten free? This recipe works great with my flour mix, no other modifications or ingredients required.
- Unlike most pies, you’re in control of added sugar with a galette—add none or maybe a tablespoon sprinkled over the fruit before baking
- Easy serving? Cut galette with a pizza wheel!
- Serve galette slices with a scoop of ice cream, whipped cream, crème fraîche, or mascarpone
- Make in advance: put the plastic wrapped pastry rounds in a freezer bag for up to 3 months. Before using, set in fridge overnight to defrost.
- My original post: Cherry Galette
