My Apricot-Plum Galette Baking Adventure

I love galettes, which are round, filled, free-form pastries.  When I was a kid, I liked coloring books because the figures or shapes in the book always looked “better” than the ones I drew free-hand.  As an adult, I’ve become more comfortable going outside the lines – in baking as well as in other parts of my life.  Galettes allow you to roll and fold as you please.

The Avid Bakers group decided to make Abby Dodge’s Glazed Apricot-Plum Galette this month.  Galettes can be either sweet or savory. This one was sweet and simple.   

The dough was quick to make in a food processor.  

Like most pastry dough, it is important to refrigerate this dough for at least an hour before rolling it out.  That timing fit perfectly into my dinner/Olympics-watching plans last night.

I made a few changes to the recipe, but kept the fruits the same: 

• Instead of 1 large galette, I made 3 and froze 2 for later. I followed Abby’s directions and froze those 2 for an hour before wrapping them in plastic and putting them back in the freezer. The first was so good, I’m not sure how long they will stay there.  
• Because my galettes would be small, I cut the fruit slices into 2 or 3 pieces.



• Other Avid Bakers group members found that the filling tended to seep out of the pastry.  I benefited from their experiences and took a belt-and suspenders approach to avoid that fate: First, I let the filling sit for about an hour to render the juices.  Then, I took out the liquid (mostly fruit juices and sugar with a bit of flour) and boiled it while stirring, making it more paste-like before returning it to the filling.  That made the juices much thicker.  Second, I grated pecans onto the dough before filling it, to soak up juices during baking. Many thanks to Karin Anderson and her daughter for tips that set me on that course.  My filling didn’t seep out. 



• Although I like fresh ginger and lemon rind, they seemed a bit strong for this tart, so I left them out.  I didn’t want to abandon the ginger taste completely though and substituted about ¼ cup of ginger sugar for an equal amount of the brown sugar in the recipe.  (The ginger sugar was leftover from making candied ginger.  I keep in the refrigerator and use the ginger sugar as a sweet/pungent flavoring in baking and tea.)  
• Because I my fruit didn’t seem as sweet as I might have liked, I substituted orange juice for the 2 teaspoons of lemon juice in the filling, preferring sweetness instead of a tart undertone.



• Finally, I ditched the glaze in the recipe and substituted raw sugar, which I put over the heavy cream brushed over the outside of the dough.  

Of course, because my galette, was only ⅓ the size of the original recipe, mine took less time to bake – 25 minutes vs. the 40 minutes called for in the recipe. 

The bottom line – delicious!  We ate the mini-galette watching Olympic sprinters, who don’t look as though they eat galettes or spend any time at all wondering what would be the best way to fold the pleats for a leak-proof pastry.  Ah well, to each her/his own!

For other Avid Bakers adventures, see:

• Glazed Cinnamon Rolls
• Glazed Chocolate Orange Mini-Cupcakes
• My Take on Abby Dodge’s Scones
• Brioche Becomes Challah
• Blueberry and Cherry Tartlets