Our apricot tree has given us a bumper crop this year. My wife and I are most thankful for this bounty. She makes a killer jam with most of the fruit, and I bake her all-time favorite apricot pastry, a galette.
What is a Galette?
A galette, a flat, thin, free-form rustic French tart. The hallmarks of this French classic are a crisp and flaky pastry supporting a thin layer of perfectly cooked fresh fruit. Besides apricots, you can make great galettes with peaches, nectarines, plums, apples and other in-season fruits. I don’t use white peaches because I find them too sweet and too juicy. The key to a great galette is to make sure that the fruit juices thicken up during baking so that the pastry stays crisp. To do that, I spread a thin layer of ground nuts, flour, and cinnamon onto the rolled out dough and then layer on the fruit. As the galette bakes, the fruit juices sink into the flour and nuts and bubble and thicken to a perfect syrupy consistency.
The homeyness of the galette comes from its free-form nature. There’s no shaping or prebaking a tart shell. Once the fruit is arranged on the dough you simply bring up the ragged, uneven exposed edges of pastry over the fruit and press gently so the two adhere. Then brush the pastry edge with water and sprinkle on some sugar. As the galette bakes, the sugar caramelizes giving the pastry sweetness and crunch. Galettes are best when very fresh. Serve as is. They don’t need a thing. Happy Baking!