I might be a summer baby, born on the 30th of July, but I’m not a lover of 95˚ F degree temperatures with dew points that make it feel like it’s 104˚ F. Basically all I want to do once the mercury goes up is… well… nothing. Seriously. I just want to sit and lounge in a cool, comfortable spot, drink frozen adult beverages and get fanned with palm fronds (preferably with Henry Cavill, Alexander Skårsgard and Brad Pitt doing the fanning) and I’d look something like this…
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You know, impossibly fresh-looking and relaxed, all my makeup in place, with not a drop of sweat to be found. But that isn’t always practical, as you probably well know. That’s a total dream sequence. I still have to work, and do gardening, and cleaning, and eating, and living. And you do too!
And since you’ve still gotta eat, no matter how hot it is, you probably still want dessert too. I know dessert is a must around here. Crazy enough, when you’re known for your baking and you have a blog where you showcase your baked goods, people actually expect dessert all the time! In the summer, especially these hazy/hot/humid “dog days” of summer, the best kind of desserts to make are the easy ones. Ones that don’t take a lot of time, ones that are made from fresh or in-season ingredients, ones that basically make themselves and ones that you can eat with a dollop of ice cream or fresh whipped cream. But more importantly: ones that still look beautiful (despite the ungodly heat) & make everyone think you slaved for hours.
And a galette is one of those.
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And right about now you may be wondering what the hell a galette is exactly. Well, I’m going to satisfy your curiosity…
Galette is a term used in the French cuisine to designate various types of flat, round or freeform crusty cakes,[1] similar in concept to a Chinese bing. One notable type is the galette des Rois (King cake) eaten on the day of Epiphany. In French Canada, the term galette is usually applied to pastries best described as large cookies.
Galette, or more properly Breton galette (French: Galette bretonne, Breton: Krampouezhenn gwinizh du), is also the name given in most French crêperies to savoury buckwheat flour pancakes, while those made from wheat flour, much smaller in size and mostly served with a sweet filling, are branded crêpes. Galette is a type of thin large pancake mostly associated with the regions of Normandy and Brittany, where it replaced at times bread as basic food, but it is eaten countrywide. Buckwheat was introduced as a crop suitable to impoverished soils and buckwheat pancakes were known in other regions where this crop was cultivated, such as Limousin or Auvergne.
It is frequently garnished with egg, meat, fish, cheese, cut vegetables, apple slices, berries, or similar ingredients. One of the most popular varieties is a galette covered with grated Emmental cheese, a slice of ham and an egg, cooked on the galette.[2] In France, this is known as a galette complète (a complete galette). A hot sausage wrapped in a galette (called galette saucisse, a tradition of Rennes, France) and eaten like a hot dog is becoming increasingly popular as well.[3]
There is a children’s song about galette: “J’aime la galette, savez-vous comment ? Quand elle est bien faite, avec du beurre dedans.” (“I like galette, do you know how? When it is made well, with butter inside.”)
-Wikipedia
My galettes aren’t exactly like the traditional galettes, they’re just puff pastry topped with stone-fruits: sliced plums, peaches & nectarines. But they’re pretty, and they’re pretty easy to make. Okay they’re more than pretty. They’re downright gorgeous. Like jewels laid out on pillows… (was that too cheesy? It sounds very cheesy in my head…)
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Okay, scratch that cheesy crap. This is some hardcore punk rock pastry! Better? No? Alright forget it.
Anyway, all I did was unroll one sheet of frozen puff pasty dough, and cut it into 6 pieces. I placed them evenly on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Then I melted some marmalade (I used this one, and heated it just enough so it was more liquidy & easily brushed on) and brushed it onto each piece. I pitted & sliced up some plums, a large peach, and some nectarines and placed them on top of the melted marmalade. I made a different galette for each, but you could make ones that consist of a variety of sliced stone-fruits. I sprinkled them with a little granulated sugar and baked them in a 375° F oven for 40-50 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.
You’re done!
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Remove them from the oven, let them cool for 5-10 minutes on the baking sheet, then remove to a rack unless they’re going to be eaten right then & there. If you leave them on the sheets, they’ll get soggy. Serve them plain, or like I said above: with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and/or fresh whipped cream.
So yes, it requires that you actually put the oven on. And you have to melt the marmalade a little. But really, that’s a small price to pay for a dessert that looks like this. I guarantee you, if you serve these, someone will ask you what bakery you bought them from. Apricot jam works well too, if you don’t have marmalade. And any kind of stone-fruit works; plums, nectarines, peaches, pluots, apricots… whatever! A sprinkling of sliced almonds along with the sugar on top before baking would be a great addition. You could also spread some frangipane on the puff pastry instead of marmalade. And in the fall, the peaches & plums can be replaced with pears and apples, too, maybe with a sprinkling of cinnamon as well as sugar.Hell, I don’t see why you couldn’t use sliced strawberries either.
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Of course you can totally make your own puff pastry dough, too. I opted for frozen because this was a last-minute decision based on some peaches & nectarines that were getting too soft and needed to be used (and a kind of over-abundance of plums). It’s good to have some frozen puff pastry in your fridge, along with some crescent rolls and biscuits. They can be used at the drop of a hat to make an excellent breakfast or dessert.
That’s truthfully how I come up with most of my ideas; when I have fruit or something that needs to be used ASAP, and some kind of frozen pastry or crust, etc. I see what I have, what fresh materials are around, and I work around them. I rarely say, “Hey, this week I’m gonna make a stone-fruit galette so I better stock up on peaches & shit.” Nope. If I have strawberries that need to be used, I incorporate them into something. If I buy cherries because they’re on sale, I figure out what I’m going to make after I have them. That’s how it ought to be- you decide what you’re going to eat based on what’s available, what’s fresh, what’s in season. Eh. I’m not going to preach… I had both a big ass burger from Five Guys & a pizza with garlic knots in the past week.
That said, I’m already imagining this done with a thick layer of peanut butter-chocolate ganache and marshmallows on top. The fun ain’t just for fruit! And marshmallows are always in season.