The last few weeks, newly emboldened by a pie crust class at Sister Pie bakery in Detroit, I’ve been making galettes. I’m not alone. Those open-faced tarts, fêted for their rustic-chic appearance, their so-simple-you-don’t-even-need-a-pie-plate construction, their way to make even springing a leak look good, possibly intentional—they’re the star of the show this time of year.
“Every baking project,” writes Samantha Seneviratne in her cookbook The Joys of Baking, “begins with the imagination of pleasure.” Galettes reward you for having a vivid imagination and offer you a path to realizing it as soon as possible. Once you settle into a way you like to make them—a recipe you like, a way that you like to tweak the spices and flavors—then you can go to the grocery store and choose a pound of whatever fruit looks delectable that day, and feel breezily confident that it will all work out.
More than just seasonal fruit, that breeziness makes galettes and summer such a good fit. Somehow, even though I work a 9-5 job without summers off, I can still feel the shapelessness of summer, delight in the feeling of nothing needing to be done, nothing being urgent. Summer gives me liquid days that go until nine o’clock, where I keep the screen door open and read and maybe do a few things around the house, or maybe I don’t.
A galette fits right into my purposeful languidness. I make it with whatever I think will sound good. The reward for following my desires is sweet.
Finding the galette groove
Galettes are (on top of all their other qualities) adaptable. For a base crust recipe that you can start with, Smitten Kitchen has a good one. I use Samantha Seneviratne’s raspberry crostata galette recipe from The Joys of Baking.
To make the galettes my own, I’ve started with the crust. I’ve been putting hazelnut flour in my galettes because I have a bag to use up, but I’m looking forward to playing with rye or spelt flour next. Adding a tablespoon of minced fresh rosemary made a delightful crust—why not thyme or some other herb? A teaspoon of rosewater, like in Sister Pie’s cornmeal rose galette dough?
As for the filling, paging through my favorite cookbooks (or my favorite flavor-matching book, The Flavor Thesaurus, gives me a few ideas:
• Blackberry & peach (with a rye crust)
• Strawberry & basil (with a whole-wheat crust)
• Apricot & rose with pistachio frangipane (Sister Pie’s cornmeal rose galette dough would go great here, I think)
Tips for galette success
Sometimes I’ve seen galettes called easy or lazy, a lazy baker’s fruit pie. I don’t think either is quite accurate—as a novice baker I was so disappointed by my efforts at seemingly “easy” galettes that I put it off for years.
It’s only in the last couple months (and after my pie crust class) that I’ve had repeated success with galettes. Here’s what I’ve learned:
The crust
Most galette recipes tell you to add 3-4 tablespoons of ice cold water to the dough to “bring it all together.” I struggled with this step for years; 3 tablespoons never seemed like enough. I would stir and stir with a spatula or a fork, adding more and more and more water, creating a dough unpleasantly soggy in some places, and yet still dry as dust in others.
The instructors at Sister Pie showed me the fix—ditch the fork, get in there and use your hands. Pick up as much dough from one end of the bowl, and press it down over the rest of the dough, sort of like making a fold (but very messy). Rotate the bowl and then do it again, rotate and fold, until it comes together—in a few rotations or so.
The filling
How to avoid a soggy mess: I like to mix my fruit, sugar, lemon zest, spices (if I’m using), and thickener (cornstarch or tapioca powder) in a bowl. When the fruit is good and covered in the sugar/thickener mixture, I put it in a mesh strainer and set the strainer over the original bowl. Let it sit for 30 minutes to give the sugar time to draw out the juices.
The rollout
Warmth is the enemy here. Roll out your crust on a sheet of parchment paper or a silicone mat (I use this one). That way, if at any time the dough feels hard to work with, if it starts to tear, if it starts to stick, if you can’t lift it off the work surface—you can take the parchment paper or silpat, put it on a baking sheet, and stick the whole thing in the fridge or freezer for ten minutes.
The bake
This is another technique I learned at Sister Pie. Bake the galette on the bottom rack of the oven for 25 minutes at 425* F, and then lower the heat to 350* F and bake for another 20 minutes. Your recipe’s exact timings may differ; the salient point is that you bake it low and hot at the beginning, so the crust will set before the juices run into it and make it soggy.