Fruit Galette

With summer in full swing, indulging in the sumer fruit bounty is an absolute joy. Beautiful stone fruit, colourful berries and that all too short season of cherries abound at markets, supermarkets and street vendors. This Fruit Galette hopes to capture all that summer in a delicious mouthful.

I’ve been trying to make the most of the season and in between all the eating have been freezing piles of fruit. My favourite has been to freeze cherries and enjoying them as an ice cold snack during the hot weather we have been experiencing. Of course the fruit is as delicious roasted, or baked in a pie.

I’m not one for fussy pies. Actually working with pastry intimidates me most of the time. And I seem to be far too heavy handed to get a pastry shell into a pie dish without breaking it and having to fill the tears with lumps of more pastry. So making a galette is an obvious choice. It’s not fussy and the whole idea of the pie is to be quite rustic and free-form.

Any stone fruit, berries or cherries work wonderfully in a galette. I find the fruit usually sweet enough so you do not have to add loads of extra sugar – rather keep that delicious tart sweetness of the fruit and sweeten the pie with a good ice cream when serving. I would perhaps sprinkle extra sugar if using very tart apricots. The base of ground almonds sucks up the moisture of the fruit and helps that you do not have a soggy base. I have seen a recipe where more juicy fruit  is mixed with a tablespoon or so of cornstarch, I tried it with cherries but have to say I am not sure if it was really necessary. I found the cornstarch faded the colour of the fruit when baking. I prefer to add a dash of almond extract to the pastry for that extra almondy flavour but this is entirely optional. You could also sprinkle the fruit with a few splashes of Amaretto or a fruit liquour before baking.

Fruit Galette

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Ingredients

  

• Dough
• 2 cups flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp almond extract optional
• 170 g cold butter cut into small cubes
• 3 tbsp ice cold water
• Filling
• 120 ml ground almonds
• 120 ml sugar
• about 500g ripe fruit ie apple apricot, nectarines, cherries, stoned and sliced if necessary
• Few tbsp sugar for sprinkling if the fruit is quite tart like apricots
• Egg wash 1 egg lightly beaten

Instructions

 

• Place the flour and salt in a food processor
• Lightly beat the egg and stir in the almond extract if used.
• Add butter to flour mixture and pulse until the mixture resembles bread crumbs (do not over process)
• Add the egg mixture and 2 tbsp of the water to the mixture and pulse until the dough just starts to come together. Add a sprinkle of more water if needed.
• Put the dough on lightly floured surface and gently pat it together.
• Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill for about 2 hours
• Remove the dough from the fridge and let it soften a bit to make it easier to roll out
• Roll the dough into a rough circle the size of 30cm in diameter and place onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper
• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C
• Mix the almonds and sugar together and sprinkle onto the rolled out circle leaving a 2cm edge
• Arrange the fruit onto the pastry
• While rotating the tart, fold the border of exposed dough up and inwards, crimping and pushing it up against the fruit.
• Make sure there are no breaks that will let juices leak but if it does it lends itself to the rustic look of the tart
• Sprinkle the fruit with some sugar if needed (optional)
• Brush the border with the egg wash
• Bake for 45 minutes until the crust is well browned
• Remove from the oven, gently remove the baking paper and place onto a cooling rack to prevent the bottom of going soggy
• Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Our next Food Photograph Workshop is on the 21st of February and we still have a few spots open. You can get more details here and do let me know if you would like to book your spot for a fun and creative day out of the city. If you want to get more comfortable with your camera and learn how to take better photos, then this is the perfect chance to do it.

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