use real butter

Recipe: peach-raspberry galette

Peaches were on sale at the local Safeway when I passed through on Sunday. These aren’t the kind of peaches that are juicy and make a mess down your shirt when you bite into one, but they looked good enough for some fruity ideas.

peachy

I hadn’t made a galette in years, yet they are so beautiful and simple that I figured now was a good time with the outside air crisping and cooling. Our aspens are beginning to blaze their lovely gold and rare oranges and reds on the hillslopes. Breckenridge got a dusting of snow the other night and from my living room this morning, I can see 13,294 foot James Peak has a dusting of snow. Nice! I added raspberries to sweeten the deal since Jeremy isn’t a fan of drupes (peaches, plums, etc.), but loves berries.

fruit is ready

The dough rolls out easily enough, although I think I overprocessed it a tad when adding butter (I was simultaneously making ice cream – more on that tomorrow). It turned out fine, but just in case you don’t know – keeping the butter chunky makes for flakier pastry and everyone loves flaky pastry!

set the fruit on the pastry and sprinkle sugar

fold up the edges for that classic effect

add butter before folding (i forgot)

I think the simplicity of the construction and presentation is really quite elegant. The flavors are also pure fruity goodness with a little pastry to round it out. Best served the day of with perhaps a dollop of a creamy something. My ice cream wasn’t set yet – darn.

baked

dig in

Peach-Raspberry Galette
[print recipe]
adapted from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan – contributed by Flo Braker
makes two 8-inch galettes

galette dough
3 tbsps sour cream
1/3 cup ice water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
7 tbsps cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 to 8 pieces

filling
2 cups peaches, pitted, peeled, and sliced
1 cup raspberries
2 tbsps sugar
2 tsps turbinado sugar
water for brushing the dough
2 tbsps cold unsalted butter

Make the dough: The recipe gives instructions for making the dough by hand or by food processor. I used the food processor because it’s faster. [It basically requires putting all of the dry ingredients into the work bowl, then pulsing in the butter a half dozen times to resemble little peas. Mix the sour cream and water together and pour into the work bowl while pulsing until it becomes soft moist curds. Then follow the rest of the “by hand” method.] By hand, the process goes as follows: Mix the sour cream and water together in a small bowl and set aside. Put the flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix with a fork. Drop butter pieces into bowl and coat with flour. Work the butter into the flour with a pastry blender until the butter pieces resemble crumbs to small peas. Sprinkle the cold sour cream mixture over the dough, 1 tbsp at a time, tossing with fork to distribute. When done, the dough should be moist enough to hold together when pressed. Add more water if necessary. Gather together into 2 discs and cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 2 days.

Make the galette: Position rack in lower third of oven and preheat to 400°F. Line a baking sheet (or two, if you are making both galettes) with parchment paper. Put dough on lightly floured surface and roll out to an 11-inch circle at 1/8th inch thickness. Add flour as necessary to prevent stickage. Roll the dough around your rolling pin and transfer to the parchment paper. Spread half the fruit over each dough round, leaving a 2-3 inch border of dough. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar over each pile of fruit and scatter thin slices of the butter on top. Fold the border of the dough up over the filling. It will pleat as you fold – that’s good. Brush the crust lightly with water and sprinkle the turbinado sugar on top. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until pastry is golden and crisp. Transfer to a cooling rack and let rest for 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Best eaten the day it is made.

September 18th, 2007: 9:59 am
filed under baking, dessert, fruit, pastries, recipes, sweet