Two Summer Fruit Galettes: Cherry Ricotta and Plum with Almond Paste
Some bloggers plan their posts down to the final punctuation mark. I am not one of these people.
This time was different. I had a vision of four fruit galettes, beautifully arranged and photographed, their fillings warmly aglow.
You get the idea.
Of course, my vision failed to manifest. There is fantasy, and there is reality. And reality is…well, I’d originally compared reality to John Travolta whirling me about the dance floor in a lovely evening gown while Stevie Wonder sang “Isn’t She Lovely.” Then, in an even uglier dose of reality, this morning’s paper carried news of actress Kelly Preston’s death from cancer. Preston was John Travolta’s wife of many years; they had three children together. Their eldest son, Jett, died of a seizure at age sixteen. Were this not bad enough, Travolta lost another partner to cancer, an actress named Diana Hyland.
Just in case you thought you were having a bad day. Not to say you aren’t. But everything is relative.
Returning to galettes.
A word about pie crusts. I use Smitten Kitchen’s All Butter, Flaky Pie Crust Recipe. If you have favorite pie crust recipe, go ahead and use it.
If you are new to pie crust, and live in America, an inexpensive scale that toggles between metric and imperial is a useful investment. Make sure your butter is cold–frozen is ideal. Should your butter warm up as you’re preparing the crust, slip it back into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes and let it cool down.
Nobody will ever look at my work and think: “So good with her hands!”
Roll the dough into a rough oblong and trim it a bit, saving scraps to patch any tears. Meaning if your dough does tear, don’t freak out. (See above remarks.)
There are plenty of better things to freak out over at the moment.
The galettes were plum with almond paste and cherry with ricotta. Intrepid types can make almond paste and ricotta at home. I am not an intrepid type–well, truthfully, I am just too exhausted these days. So I bought both products. The almond paste comes from the chiller cabinet of my market’s deli section. Almond paste in tubes is fine, too. Avoid marzipan, which is meant for molding holiday sweets and not what we want here.
My ricotta was fairly dry and didn’t require much draining. Yours may need up to 24 hours; test it to make sure.
Both galettes were lightly sugared. How much sugar a question of how sweet your fruit is and personal preference.
Liqueurs are optional; the plum galette is flavored with Amaretto. The cherry galette got a few drops of vanilla. Did I mess up and pour the limoncello back into the Cointreau? Do you need to ask?
—
As I write, Coronavirus rates are soaring. Berkeleyside, a local paper, reported several Berkeley Bowl employees have fallen ill with the virus. Details are scant. Then again, given the huge numbers of people in and out of both stores (there are two Bowls), it’s no surprise people are getting sick. Nor are they the only Bay Area market to report ailing employees.
It’s impossible to avoid exposure to Covid. I mean, we have to eat. I can’t hide in a bunker. All I can do is take every precaution. Am I frightened? Of course. Less for myself than for John.
We are both weary of staying home. But we see no other choice.
Berkeley Bowl West, April 2020
—
The soaring virus rate means there’s ample time, like it or not, to stay home and bake.
Below are recipes for the cherry ricotta and plum almond paste galettes. As noted, I used Deb Perelman’s All Butter, Flaky Pie Crust Recipe, which is appears in her first cookbook and on her blog.
If you need a final note of encouragement, consider this: galettes are easier to make than sourdough.
Two Summer Fruit Galettes
Cherry Ricotta
And
Plum with Almond Paste
You will need a generous 8 ounces/215 grams of galette dough to bake both galettes.
The link to Smitten Kitchen’s recipe is here, or use your favorite pie crust recipe.
Cherry ricotta galette
yield: 1 galette, about 8 slices
prep time: the ricotta cheese may need draining time; 1-24 hours. Pastry needs to be chilled if not made ahead of time. Cherries need pitting. Baking time is 40 minutes.
Please read notes before baking.
about 4 ounces/113 grams galette dough
1/4 cup ricotta cheese/7 grams, well drained
1 cup/130 g cherries, pitted
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons sugar (to taste)
egg wash, for the top of galette
flour, for the countertop and rolling pin
Preheat the oven to 425F/220C. Line a large baking sheet, or round pizza pan, should you have one, with baking parchment or a silicon mat.
Lightly scatter flour over your clean worktop. Lightly flour your rolling pin. Now roll out your pastry from the center. If it fights you, give it a moment to find itself and try again. If the pastry sticks to your work surface, get under it with a large spatula, fish slice, or whatever you have that’s thin and ideally metal to work it free. Be patient.
Aim for a circular, or at least oblong shape, about 10-12 inches/23-25cm. Add a bit more flour if you must, but try not to.
If the pastry rips, press it together with the pin or your fingers. Try to handle it as little as possible.
Using a small, sharp knife, trim your pastry and save the trimmings to patch any tears or holes .
Using your fish slice, or spatula, move what is now your crust to your baking sheet.
Leaving a good 2 inch/5 cm border, spread the drained ricotta on dough. You can lightly sugar, or not, then layer your pitted cherries, being as artistic or haphazard as you wish.
Begin folding the border over by pinching it, a little like making a rumpled bed. I do it in roughly 2inch/5 cm pieces, folding as I go. My folds are not very neat, but remember, galettes are rustic. Now use the reserved trimmings to patch, if necessary. If you have any leftover pieces of pastry, pop them on the baking sheet and bake them alongside the galette. But remember to check on them, or they’ll burn.
Pour over your liqueur of choice, or not.
Sugar the galette.
Paint your egg wash over. I use a whole egg here, but use just the yolk, if you prefer.
Slide your galette into the oven and bake 35-40 minutes. It’s done when it puffs, is deeply brown, and the filling is bubbly. The galette will look done–use your eyes. You’ll know.
Cool completely on a baking rack. Otherwise, soggy pastry.
The galette will keep for three days at room temperature, well-wrapped. If your kitchen is extremely warm, refrigerate it. After three days, freeze the galette. It will keep, frozen, up to three months.
Notes:
White vinegar is an excellent if stinky cleaning solution. It’s also food safe.
Some people feel the cherries going into galettes should be left unpitted. These people do not live with somebody who might choke to death on cherry pits. Like my husband.
Even if John were the picture of health, the idea of baking a galette filled with unpitted cherries leaves me cold. Here you are, chewing, spitting out pits, Talk about ruining what should be a pleasure! But if you want unpitted cherries, don’t let me stop you.
After years of making huge messes pitting cherries with the side of a knife, I bought a cherry pitter. I recommend them. Olive pitters also work.
About the egg wash: I use the entire egg, which leaves leftover, I cover and refrigerate it, using up the remainder in another meal.
I’ve had the occasional pastry leak while baking; this is not the end of the world, so long has you use a sturdy baking sheet.
The variations to this galette are nearly endless. (Maybe not endless. Crabapples might be a hard sell.) You may add nuts, so long as you’re certain you won’t kill anyone. Vary the liquor or omit it: consider Amaretto, cherry bounce, cherry heering, Raspberry liquors, Cointreau, or hazelnut extract. Swap the ricotta base for almond paste or smear some jam under there. Or be elegantly understated and just shake a little sugar over the bare pastry and call it good.
Don’t use a huge piece of baking paper that leaves the ends hanging off the baking tray. The parchment burns, setting off the smoke detector and leaving an ashy mess everywhere. You don’t want to clean this up. Trust me.
Plum Galette with Almond Paste
yield: one galette, about 8 servings
prep time: if pastry is not prepared ahead of time, it requires at least an hour to chill. The galette needs 35-40 minutes to bake.
Please read notes before baking.
about 4 ounces/113 grams galette dough
(Link to Smitten Kitchen recipe for galette dough is above)
1/4 cup/7 grams almond paste
2 cups/500g plums, sliced as neatly as possible
2-4 tablespoons sugar
1-2 tablespoons Amaretto or almond extract (optional)
Egg wash for the top
flour, for the worktop and rolling pin
Preheat the oven to 425F/220C. Line a large baking sheet, or round pizza pan, should you have one, with baking parchment or a silicon mat.
Lightly scatter flour over your clean worktop. Lightly flour your rolling pin. Now roll out your pastry from the center. If it fights you, give it a moment to find itself and try again. If the pastry sticks to your work surface, get under it with a large spatula, fish slice, or whatever you have that’s thin and ideally metal to work it free. Be patient.
Aim for a circular, or at least oblong shape, about 10-12 inches/23-25cm. Add a bit more flour if you must, but try not to.
If the pastry rips, press it together with the pin or your fingers. Try to handle it as little as possible.
Using a small, sharp knife, trim your pastry and save the trimmings to patch any tears or holes .
Using your fish slice, or spatula, move what is now your crust to your baking sheet.
Leaving a good 2 inch/5 cm border, dollop the almond paste on dough. I use my clean fingers to gently press it down, but the back of a spoon also works. You don’t need to have a perfectly smooth, even layer-my almond paste is thick, and working it would tear the pastry, so I just press it down to flattish lumps.
Lay the plums down over the almond paste. You can be neat or haphazard. I put mine down in a circular pattern.
Fold the pastry border over by pinching it. I do this in roughly two inch/5 cm pieces, folding as I go. My folds are not neat, but remember, galettes are rustic. Now patch any holes using reserved trimmings, if necessary.
If you have any leftover pastry bits, you can sugar and bake them alongside the galette. Remember to check on them, as they’ll be done faster than the galette.
Pour over your liqueur of choice, or not.
Scatter sugar over the pastry.
Paint your egg wash over. I use a whole egg here, but use just the yolk, if you prefer.
Slide your galette into the oven and bake 35-40 minutes. It’s done when it puffs, is deeply brown, and the filling is bubbly. It will look done–use your eyes. You’ll know.
Cool completely on a baking rack. Otherwise, soggy pastry.
The galette will keep for three days at room temperature, well-wrapped, but if your kitchen is extremely warm, refrigerate the galette. After three days, freeze the galette. It will keep, frozen, up to three months.
Notes:
You want to buy almond paste, not marzipan. I like Odense brand.
The amount of sugar depends on your fruit and personal preference.
Plums don’t always lend themselves to neat slices; it depends on the fruit variety and their ripeness. Do your best and don’t worry.
As with the cherry galette and vanilla, the Amaretto and/or almond extract is entirely optional. If you do decide to add it, go easy, as it rapidly goes from charming to overwhelming.
