Leora the Sane

I made this galette for our Labor day mini-feast. It was quite a hit! Light and delightful. The pears really stand up on their own in this one, and the rest of the ingredients are just support. I ended up with much less sugar and what-not in the galette, so it tasted of fruit and not syrup. Our guest went back for seconds!

The pears were from our CSA share last week, but they were about the same size as a standard Bartlett from the store. They were still a bit firm, not quite eating ripe unless you like your pears really crisp, but they baked up perfectly because of that. Pears are normally so delicate that they needed that head-start. If they have been perfectly ripe when I sliced into them, they would have turned into mush in the oven (and that’s not good eats ).

The Recipe

• one 9 inch pie crust (again I used a store bought crust, but use whatever feels right to you, be it homemade or no)
• three pears, sliced about 1/8 inch thick
• one tbsp orange juice (you could use lemon juice here if you don’t have orange around the house)
• 1/2 cup turbinado sugar (although you could substitute white sugar, brown sugar, or even splenda, as you please)
• one tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• one tsp butter
• one egg plus one tbsp water to eggwash the crust
• a few pinches of turbinado sugar to dust the crust before baking

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Prepare a baking sheet. This time I baked the galette on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and had no problems with sticking or anything. It’s what I recommend. But you could butter a baking sheet or butter tin foil if you don’t have parchment paper around.

Put juice in a medium mixing bowl. As you slice the pears, toss them in the juice. This will help prevent browning. Once you have sliced all of the pears, add the sugar, cornstarch, spices, and almond extract to the bowl and mix until combined.

Roll out your crust onto your baking sheet, making sure that it has no weak/thin spots that may break during baking. Place filling in the center of your crust, leaving about 2 inches (maybe a little more) around the edges.If you want to be fancy, you can lay your slices out in circles. But I like the rustic look, so I let it be a little more chaotic.

Starting anywhere you like, fold the edge up and around the filling. As you pull each new bit of edge up, fold it gently over, to make a tucked crust. Once the crust is fully folded over, whisk the one egg with one tbsp of water and brush over the outer crust. Then sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Right before baking, crumble one tsp of butter over the filling of the galette.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden, brown and delicious! Makes eight cute-as-a-button slices of galette, perfect for serving after a full dinner, or perfect with ice cream (maybe next time…).

Enjoy!

September 12, 2009 at 7:14 pm | Category: Cooking | Leave a comment

A little late but here nevertheless…

A recipe for blueberry galette, from one found on epicurious:

• one refrigerated pie crust (although a homemade pie crust would probably be even better )
• 3 cups of blueberries, rinsed
• one half cup of ginger sugar. We used the sugar left over from dusting the cystallized ginger we made for my birthday party, which made it ever so lightly ginger flavored. Absent such a stash of gingery goodness, normal sugar and a tsp or so of fresh or ground ginger (to taste) would probably approximate what we were after.
• one tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp corn starch
• 2 tbsp orange juice. The recipe called for lemon juice, but we were all out. The orange was delightful.
• one egg to egg wash the crust (see below)
• a small amount of turbinado sugar (sugar-in-the-raw) to sprinkle on the crust

Put the blueberries, sugar, cinnamon, corn starch, and juice in a bowl and mix until just combined. Place the crust on a buttered baking sheet or buttered tin foil on a baking sheet. Put filling in the center of the crust and spread around, leaving about 2 inches (maybe a little more) around the edges.

Starting anywhere you like, fold the edge up and around the filling. As you pull each new bit of edge up, fold it over, to make a pretty tucked crust. Be sure to fold gently to avoid the crust breaking during baking (My galette split right at the bottom edge and spilled a bit of filling out, so I know I wasn’t quite gentle enough.). Once the crust is fully folded over, whisk the one egg with one tbsp of water and brush over the outer crust. Then sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees F for about 25 minutes or until the crust is golden, brown, and delicious.

September 5, 2009 at 5:34 pm | Category: Cooking | Comments (1)

Having finally gotten somewhat recovered from the cold-of-doom I contracted at camp, I spent the weekend cooking and baking with my darling wife. Together we made our first batch of crackers (easy and oh-so-tasty, plus no high-fructose corn syrup!). And using the starter from camp, we made our first loaf of sourdough bread. I also got to have my first real cooking-Friday of the year (what with it being dark, our being at camp, and my getting deathly-ill, I haven’t been all that interested in spending quality time cooking since about… well, sometime in October).

I’m currently tossing around the idea of joining an author team at a group blog right now, where I would spend more time writing about my cooking, so I’m going to save my rambling about our cooking/baking. But I will share a photo. This is our bread. Isn’t it pretty?

We’ll be making more over the coming weeks/months. So if you know me in real life, you can probably count on eating some of this lovely bread (different loaf, mind you; we’re keeping this one for ourselves) at our upcoming vernal equinox celebration and at probably just about every dinner party we throw this year.

March 1, 2009 at 8:10 pm | Category: Cooking | Comments (2)