A charming 100 year old farmhouse outside of Bozeman Montana provided the beautiful location. Guests were arriving at 6:30 for dinner and Paul was in charge of the food, that’s how we like it. Wine? Check. Beautiful table? Thanks, Susan! Dessert? That’s my department. After a day spent outdoors on the gorgeous land, nothing felt right except making a down-home dessert. Something using what we had on hand in the kitchen which, lucky for me, happened to include a bucket of freshly picked cherries from caretaker, Jim, a bag of Gold Medal flour tucked back in the pantry, sugar, and butter. A wine bottle served as my rolling pin. (Edited August 27, 2021.)
Cherry Galette
3 8-inch galettes (serves 8 – 12 people)
the pastry:
2 1/2 cups flour
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, straight from the refrigerator, cut into approximate tablespoon chunks
1/2 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
a glass of ice water, you will use 6 – 8 tablespoons, as needed
1/2 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
a glass of ice water, you will use 6 – 8 tablespoons, as needed
the filling:
fresh fruit (cherries, berries, peaches, plums, or nectarines are nice in summer)
sugar
lemon juice
butter
cream or egg wash for pastry
1. Make the pastry. Place flour, salt and butter in bowl. Using two knives (or a pastry blender, if you happen to have one), cut the shortening into the flour. Keep at it and you will have a crumbly, fairly uniformly coarse mixture in a few minutes.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Cut the disk into three pieces, and flatten and round each into a disk approximately one inch thick. Wrap each in plastic and let rest in the fridge for at least 45 minutes before rolling.
5. Form the galettes. Once pastry is chilled, preheat oven to 400 degrees F and roll out each pastry disk into a thin, round-ish shape approximately 12 inches in diameter — the shape doesn’t matter, the more rustic, the better for galettes. Place pastry on 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 little pat of butter. Fold edges of pastry up over the outside edges of the fruit. Brush milk or cream or beaten egg on the pastry and sprinkle with sugar.
6. Bake until golden brown, approximately 30 minutes. Let cool on rack and enjoy with whipped cream or ice cream.
