I do this funny thing when I shop. If I see something I like, I don’t buy it. I take a picture of it on my phone, and then I consider buying it for about 3 months. (This is not the case with food. If I see a food I like, it’s in the cart, through the check-out lane, and eaten on the drive home.) If I still want it after 3 months, I go back and buy it. As cost-savvy as that may seem, I actually don’t advise that shopping method. Seasons change, and things in retail disappear to mysterious outlets forever and ever.
One instance of a successful 3-month postponed purchase is my Tartine cookbook, the aforementioned cookbook that I've been reading on the beach. I bought it about a year ago when I was living in Atlanta, and proceeded to bake my first pastry, ever. I adventurously chose Fruit Galettes. It took me almost 7 hours. My BFF roommate woke up to a note I’d deliriously written at 3 AM making some terrible Harry Potter joke about house elves. That was a little over a year ago.
I decided to give them another go. We received a shipment of blue velvet apricots at work – designing for a grocery store has its perks. The general consensus was “Blue Velvet Apricot? AKA, a plum?” Yeah, sort of. It looks like a plum, but it tastes almost like a salty apricot. I’m not a fan of apricots because they aren’t very sweet, but the fact that these are slightly salty brings out the subtle sweetness and it is just delectable. (slightly salty subtle sweetness, say that five times fast.)
The Tartine recipe yields a dozen single galettes, or 2 pie-sized galettes OR 1 pie-sized and 6 single. I chose the 6-to-1 combo. I paired the blue velvet apricots with blueberries for the singles. I was really bummed that I ran out of apricots for the last 2, and had only blueberries to fill them with, but this turned out not to be a terrible thing. The larger galette waited patiently in the freezer for the maximum of 3 weeks to be a delicious cinnamon apple galette with hazelnut crumble for July 4th when my favorites came to visit the islands :) Note: It didn't get photographed.
As I said, the blueberry-and-more-blueberry galettes were a supposed let-down. Because of their boringess, I decided to jazz them up with a lemon vanilla cream on top and, oh my holy crap, it was lick-the-plate-clean good. In the end, I was sad to have only two.
Fruit Galettes by Elisabeth M. Prueitt &Chad Robertson in Tartine
For the dough
2 cups Unsalted butter, cubed, very cold
1 cup Water, very cold
1 1/2 tsp. Salt
2 1/3 cups All-Purpose Flour
2 2/3 cups Pastry Flour
Filling
About 6 cups of Fruit, cut-up depending on fruit/size, sauteed if needed
Granulated or brown sugar sprinkled to taste
Lemon juice if desired to add
Egg Wash
2 Large Eggs Yolks
2 Tbsp. Heavy Cream
Granulated Sugar sprinkled
To make the dough, cut the butter into 1 inch cubes, and place them in the freezer. Measure the water, dissolve some salt into it, and put it in the freezer as well. Chill for about 10 minutes.
Measure all of the flour onto your work surface. It is not necessary to mix your flours at this point, as they will become well mixed as the dough is being made. Spread the flour out into a rectangle about 1/3” deep. Scatter the butter cubes over the flour, toss a little bit of the flour over the butter so that your rolling pin won’t stick, and then begin rolling. When the butter begins to flatten into long, thin pieces, use a bench scraper to scoop up and fold the sides of the rectangle so that it is again the size that you started with. Repeat this rolling-scraping 3 or 4 times.
Make a well in the center of your dough. Pour the water into the well and begin to cut it into the dough using the bench scraper – folding the sides into the center and “cutting” the water into the dough. Keep scraping and cutting until the dough is shaggy mass. Shape the dough then into a rectangle about 10” x 14”. Lightly dust the top with flour, roll out the rectangle until it 50% bigger. Fold to reshape to original size, roll out to 50% larger and fold back to size again. Do this 3-4 times until you have a smooth and cohesive dough. You should have a neat rectangle measuring about 10”x14”.
Transfer the dough to a large baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap, and chill well for about an hour.
While the dough is chilling, prepare your fruit. Hull berries, pit peaches and cut, pit apricots and half or quarter, sauté apples or pears, etc.
Remove dough from refrigerator. Divide into 2 equal portions if making pie-sized galettes, or 12 equal portions if making individual galettes. To roll a circle from what is roughly a square, start with the dough positioned as a diamond in front of you, with the handles of the pin at two points of the square. Roll from the center towards each end, flattening the center, but not the two points that are nearest and farthest from you – leave those two points thick. Rotate and repeat with the thick points. You should have a square that has little humps in between the pointy corners. Roll out the thicker areas, and you will begin to see a circle forming. Keep rolling until the dough is a little more than 1/8” thick for large galettes (14” diameter), or a little thinner for individual galettes (6”-7” diameter). To transfer the large galettes to a baking sheet, fold into quarters to ensure that it will not break. Transfer individual circles carefully. Chill until firm, 10 minutes.
Fill the centers of the circles with fruit leaving a 2” diameter on large galettes, or a 1” diameter on individual galettes. Taste the fruit for sweetness to determine how much sugar you should use to sweeten it. Sprinkle sugar, typically 2-4 tbsp. for large or 1-2 tsp. for small. You may also want to add a squeeze of lemon juice to some fruits if you feel it necessary for taste (blueberries, blackberries, apples, pears). Fold in the sides of the circles to partially cover the fruit, being sure not to leave any valleys for fruit juice to leak out. Chill until firm, 10 minutes.
While chilling, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and make the egg wash. To make the egg wash, whisk together the egg yolks and cream. Brush the egg wash over the pastry edges, and sprinkle them with granulated sugar.
You can bake the galettes immediately, hold them unwrapped for a couple of hours in the refrigerator, or you can skip the egg wash/sugar, wrap the galettes air-tight, and freeze them for up to 3 weeks. When ready to bake if previously frozen, remove from freezer, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar and bake immediately.
Bake the galettes until the crust has visibly puffed and baked to a dark brown, and the juice from the fruit is bubbling inside. 45-60 minutes for large galettes, and 40-50 minutes for small galettes. Rotate the baking sheets 180 degrees and switch the baking sheets between racks at the midway point to ensure even browning. If you are baking them straight from the freezer, add 10 minutes to your baking time. If the pastry is browning too quickly, reduce the oven temp to 350 degrees, or place foil over the tops of the galettes. Remove from the oven and serve hot, warm, or room temp.
Thanks for reading, now go bake some galettes!
A