Pear Galette

A sweet galette is one of my favorite desserts to make. Its free form folds of crust encasing a fruit filling looks simply beautiful and rustic the moment it comes out of the oven. The galette is a catch-all term referring to a base of pastry dough that is topped with a sweet or savory filling, and the edges are folded over to create rough pleats that create a golden crust when baked. No need for pie dishes or cake tins for this French dessert. Using your hands to form the crust makes each galette perfectly imperfect.

Several years ago I bought Baking with Julia, a cookbook written by Dorie Greenspan that was based on the television series starring Julia Child. The first recipe I ever made from that book was the berry galette, and I’ve been in love with this French pastry ever since.

One of the great things about a galette is that it’s so adaptable. With the dough as your consistent base, you can fill the galette with a number of seasonal fruits and vegetables to suit your taste. I adapted Dorie’s recipe to make this pear galette, and it’s been our dessert following Sunday suppers for a few weeks now. Apples are another fruit that would work well this time of year.

The last piece of praise I’ll say about this galette before we get to the recipe below is that it’s not overly sweet, and the portions are just right. If you’re like me, and you crave a bite of sweetness after a savory meal, a galette is a great option. This recipe feeds my family of five, so everyone gets a small slice of the pie. It’s not overly sweet either. The natural sugars from the fruit are the primary source of sweetness in this dessert.

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Pear Galette

Yield: 4-5

Author: Julia Darling

Ingredients

Galette Dough

• 3 tablespoons buttermilk
• 1/3 ice cold water
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• Zest from one lemon
• 7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

Pear Galette

• 1/2 galette dough, chilled
• 2 tablespoons apricot preserves
• 1 1/2 cups Anjou pears, peeled and cut into small pieces
• 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions

Prepare the Dough

1. Pour the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and lemon zest in a large bowl and stir with a fork to combine. Drop the butter pieces into the bowl and toss them around to coat them with flour. Using a pastry blender (or your hands), work the butter into the flour until they form small pieces - about the size of peas and bread crumbs.
2. Pour the buttermilk over the flour mixture a little at a time, using one hand to toss it around and evenly distribute it. Try not to overwork the dough when incorporating the buttermilk. After you’ve added all of the buttermilk, the dough should be moist and sticky.
3. Use your hands to shape the dough into a ball. Turn the dough out onto the counter and divide in half. Press each half of dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap.
4. Refrigerator for 2 hours or more.

Making the Galette

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
3. Put the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll out into a circle, about 11 inches wide and 1/8 inch thick. Because the dough is sticky, you’ll need to lift the dough every now and then to apply more flour underneath. Also lightly coat your rolling pin in flour, so it doesn’t stick to the dough. Once you have your circle of dough ready, roll it around your rolling pin and transfer it to the baking sheet.
4. Warm up the 2 tablespoons of apricot preserves in the microwave (about 15-20 seconds) so it softens into more of a liquid. Pour it over the chopped pears and toss to coat. Pour the pears into the center of the dough, leaving a border of 2-3 inches. Take the cubes of butter and scatter them on top of the pears. Fold the uncovered dough up and over the fruit filling, letting the dough naturally fall into pleats as you go around and fold the edges. With a pastry brush, give the edges of the dough a light coating with water. Sprinkle the crust with the teaspoon of sugar.
5. Bake the galette for 30-40 minutes until the pastry is golden and crisp on top. Mine usually takes 30 minutes. Some of the fruit juice likely will leak out during baking. That’s ok. That’s why the parchment paper is there. Take the baking sheet out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Carefully slip a wide spatula under the galette and transfer it onto a wire rack to cool. You can serve it warm or at room temperature. I use a pizza wheel to cut it into small slices. One galette feeds my family of 5.