Less than a mile from my house is a farm with a “u-pick-it” peach and apple orchard, and while fruit is all well and fine eaten in it’s raw and natural state, there is just so much a person can take before that person has to get out the flour and the sugar and and the butter and make a pie.
A gallette is the pie version of my personality. Rough edges, not so smooth all the time, or too sweet. Everything about it is sort of spilling out, right in the open, a what-you -see-is-what-you-get kind of pie. It’s not delicate or perfect, but it definitely demands your attention and the simple laid-back exterior doesn’t mean it’s not intense and complex on the inside. Because it is.
Those peaches are not just peaches anymore. They are tossed in brandy and Grand Marnier and fresh thyme and sugar and orange zest and have been soaking that up for 30 minutes or so while I made and chilled the dough.
and rolled it out, even though I could not, for the life of me, find my rolling pin. Improvise!
Then I assemble gallette to look like my desk…controlled chaos.
Fold it over with perfect imperfection and paint with some beaten egg for a shiny finish.
I made two of these, one for us and one to give away. Both of them did not make it to nightfall. They were lustily and happily consumed. No excuses were made for having more than one slice at a sitting.
Vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream, or a dollup of sweetened marscapone cheese would make a slice of this even more perfect in it’s imperfection, but I’ll leave those decisions to be made between you and your waistline.
Peach Gallette
pastry dough recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen
INGREDIENTS
For the dough:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
16 oz (2 sticks) cold butter, cut into cubes
1/2 cup sour cream
4 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup ice water
1 egg, lightly beaten to use as an egg wash
For the filling:
2 pounds or so of peaches (about 3-4 large), pitted and sliced into eight or more segments each.
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup (optional)
1 tablespoon brandy
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier (orange liquor, or Triple Sec will do also)
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
PROCEDURE
For the dough:
In the bowl of a food processor combine the flour, salt and sugar by pulsing gently 3-4 pulses. Then add the cold butter and pulse until combined with dry ingredients to make a coarse, pebble-like mixture. Add the sour cream, lemon juice and run processor, slowly adding water as needed until dough comes together into a ball. Do not over work. Stop as soon as it comes together. Scrape the dough together and gently pat it into a ball or disc and wrap in plastic and refrigerate for a minimum of 30 min.
For the filling:
While dough is in the fridge…combine all the filling ingredients in a large bowl, tossing gently to coat the peach segments without breaking them. Allow to mascerate, tossing occassionally to recoat with marinade.
PREHEAT OVEN 375 degrees.
Remove dough from fridge and roll out on a lightly floured surface. Do not over work the dough or allow it to get too warm. Roll to a rough circle or oblong shape. Transfer rolled out dough to a parchment or SiPat lined baking sheet.
Leaving a 2″ wide border of dough all around, place peach segments down around the dough in concentric circles (one circle fitting inside the other) or as close to that as you can get. (see picture in post). When you’ve put in as many peaches as you can fit, fold over the edges of dough to hold in the fruit and create the crust of the gallette.
Paint the crust with a thin but thorough coat of egg wash. You don’t want the egg wash to glop down from the dough on to the sheet pan because this egg will harden during the baking process and can cause the dough to stick to the pan. So if there are gloppy drips of egg wash you may want to wipe them up before placing the gallette in the oven.
Bake the gallette for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is a nice golden brown and the juice from the peaches seems to bubble. Start watching it around 25 minutes to see if it’s done, but don’t rush it..let it get good and browned or else the top will be cooked but the bottom of the dough will be a little raw.
Enjoy!