Welcome to summer - aka the best time of year, because the stores and markets are overflowing with juicy, fragrant, perfectly ripe produce. Gorgeous piles of peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, and berries are everywhere and they have never looked fresher, sweeter, or more appealing. The abundance of beautiful fruit always seems to be begging to be made into pie, and I start dreaming of all of the fruity pie goodness ahead.
But if I had to be honest, I have to say that while I truly like eating pie, I don’t enjoy making pie. I’m not pie-averse per se, I think it’s more an issue of laziness, Pie always seems to take so long, has so many steps, and is just so much work.
What I would prefer is to start baking something fruity and delicious around mid-afternoon, and to be enjoying just after dinner a couple of hours later. Pie making doesn’t usually doesn’t fit into this time frame, so I don’t bake very many pies.
But I’ve got a solution to my pie dilemma.
It’s called a galette.
Galettes are pies without all of the fuss
A galette is pie's minimalist counterpart, a rustic free-form single-crust wonder that has the edges impressively folded over a bit of the filling. Galettes can be sweet or savory, making them a great pie option for either dinner or dessert. They are easy to make, even for beginning bakers. And best of all, they together quickly, so you can be eating pie and reveling in compliments in under 90 minutes.
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How to make a galette
The crust of a galette is made with a combination of flour, butter, salt, and cold water, and couldn’t be easier to make.
Cut cold butter into small cubes.
Put flour and salt into a mixing bowl
Add the cubes of butter, then toss the butter in the flour until it’s well coated
Use your fingers to smush the butter into the flour until it’s the consistency of coarse sand
Press it into a round, then knead it a couple of times to bring it together
Roll the dough into a rectangle, then fold it like a book
Roll it out into a roundish circle about ⅛” thick
Add filling to the center of the galette, leaving a 1 ½” border all the way around
Gently fold the border edge up, covering a bit of the filling
Bake your galette
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Some Galette Inspiration~
What to fill your sweet galette with:
Apples, pears and walnuts
Strawberries and rhubarb
Peaches and blueberries
Apricots and raspberries
Pears and cardamom
Plums and blue cheese
Cherries, feta and lime
Figs and Frangipani (almond cream)
Nutella
What to fill your savory galette with:
Mushrooms, sage, goat cheese
Summer squash, onion and ricotta
Sliced potatoes and rosemary
Ricotta and grilled peppers
Spinach and artichoke
Feta, olives, roasted red peppers and lemon zest
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Tips ensure a successful galette
Crust thickness is key - Roll the dough out into a roundish shape about 1/8th” thick. Much thinner than that and the dough may tear and leak fruit juice. Much thicker dough cracks when you fold the sides up.
Filling, not too juicy - The filling for your galette shouldn’t be very wet or the juice will ooze out of the crust while it bakes. If you are using particularly juicy fruit like peaches or plums, toss the cut fruit with a bit of sugar, let it sit for a few minutes, then strain out some of the juice before adding it to your galette. You could also toss the fruit in a bit of cornstarch to thicken the fruit as the galette bakes.
Work with a dry dough - To ensure a tender crust, shoot for a crust that’s a little crumbly. Resist the urge to keep adding water to your dough as a drier dough bakes up flakier than a wetter one.
Don’t overfill your galette - A huge pile of fruit looks great going into the oven but doesn’t bake up evenly, and will ooze juice. Smooth out the filling before you fold up the edges of the crust. Three to four cups of filling is usually enough to fill your galette and still have it look great.
Add a few bits of butter to the fruit before your galette goes in the oven - The butter will keep the fruit from drying out while it bakes.
Egg wash the crusty edges of the galette - The egg wash will give your galette a shiny, golden brown finish. A sprinkle of sugar after the egg wash is also a nice touch.
Bake on a piece of parchment paper and a rimmed baking sheet - The parchment paper makes your galette easy to move. The rimmed baking sheet helps contain any juice.
Or bake your galette in a cast iron skillet - with parchment paper or not, a cast iron skillet is a fantastic galette containment device.
Let it cool - let your galette cool for at least 15 or 20 minutes before cutting into it, to give the fruit juice time to firm up.
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Galettes are delicious all year round, but they are especially great while the summer produce is at it's peak. If you make a galette, please send me a picture. I'd love to see what you create!
Happy Baking -
Chelly
TheGoodFoodProject.co - Lively online culinary workshops, where laughter and kitchen creativity flow freely, for groups of 2-100+
P.S. - I'm teaching a FREE live-streaming galette-making class on Saturday, July 20 at 1:00 pm Central time. If you'd like to join me, use the link below to sign up. I'll send you the list of ingredients and supplies and a Zoom link so you can cook along.
This is the best pie crust recipe I've ever found. It's from Stella Parks of BraveTart, by way of Food52 Genius Recipes. This makes one 9-10 inch galette, or one 9” pie crust. Feel free to double it to make more than one galette or a double-crust pie. The dough freezes beautifully!
Ingredients
3/4 cup (4 ounces/112g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
4 ounces (113g/1 sticks) very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch (1.3cm) cubes
1/4 cup (60ml) very cold water
Directions
To make the dough: Before your hands get messy, gather all your ingredients, plus a medium bowl, a whisk, a rubber spatula, a rolling pin, parchment paper, maybe a cast iron skillet, and a bench scraper or offset spatula (or other thin spatula-like thing).
Whisk the flour, sugar, and salt together in a medium bowl, then add the butter. Toss the butter cubes in the flour, separating any stuck-together cubes with your fingers, then pinch each cube flat with your fingers, to about 1/4-inch (6mm) thick—don’t work the butter in more!
Stir in the cold water with a rubber spatula and press and knead together until the dough comes together in a ball. Dump the ball onto a heavily floured work surface, sprinkle the top with more flour, and use a rolling pin to roll out a rectangle that’s roughly 10x16, adding as much flour as you need along the way to keep it from sticking. (If your kitchen is very warm or, at any point, the butter gets melty and sticky, gather the dough onto a baking sheet and pop it into the fridge till it firms up a little, 15 minutes or so.)
Slide an offset spatula under the dough to loosen it from the counter, then fold each 10-inch (25cm) side toward the middle so the edges meet, then close the packet like a book. Fold the book in half, top to bottom (If it’s warmer than 72°F (22°C) in your kitchen, you might want to refrigerate the dough for 15 to 20 minutes before proceeding.)
Roll the dough out 1/8-inch (3mm) thick, into a 14-inch (36cm) round. Feel for sticky patches on top and underneath as you go, smoothing flour over them if needed. Brush off any excess flour, then move the dough to a piece of parchment paper.
Add your filling, leaving a 1 ½ inch border all the way around, then fold the edges up covering a bit of the filling.
Make an egg wash by combining an egg with 1 tablespoon of water. Use a fork to break up the yolk and mix in the water. Brush on the exposed edges of the galette.
Optionally, a few small bits of butter randomly across the filling and sprinkle the egg-washed area with sugar.
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C) with a rack positioned in the lower-middle of the oven. Bake the galette until the crust is golden brown, about 45-50 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.
