Apple Galette

Since it is apple season, I want to share one of my family's favorite autumn recipes with you. If you've never heard of a galette before, it is a sweet or savory filling placed on a circle of dough and then the edges of the dough are folded up to hold the filling in. For people who struggle with making “perfect” pie crust, a galette is a good solution because it is supposed to look rustic. If you want to use something other than apples, pears or plums are a popular galette filling. Unlike American apple pie, a European galette uses only a small amount of sugar and is only slightly sweet.

Pastry Dough:

1 ¼ cup flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

½ cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces

4-8 tablespoons ice water

Measure the flour, salt, and sugar into a large bowl and combine. Add the butter by rubbing it into the flour mixture with your fingers until there are only pea-sized pieces of butter. Sprinkle 4 tablespoons of ice water over the mixture and knead gently until the dough starts to hold together when squeezed. (If needed, add 1 more tablespoon of ice water at a time until you reach the cohesive stage.) Form the dough into a ball, place it on a piece of plastic wrap, and knead for 30 seconds or so until it is smooth and pliable. Do not overwork the dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap it in the plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.

Apple Filling:

5 medium to large apples* cored, peeled, and sliced thin**

¼ cup sugar

4 tablespoons butter

¼ to ½ teaspoon cinnamon, to taste

* Pink Lady, Honeycrisp, and Granny Smith are good choices for baking apples. Granny Smith will be more tart than the other 2 varieties.

**The thinner that you slice your apples, the less time it will take them to cook.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and set aside. While the butter melts in a large frying pan over medium heat, toss the apple slices with the sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl. Cook the apple slices, stirring constantly, until they are soft and most of the liquid has been cooked off – approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Set aside and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the pastry dough into a circle about 1/8 to ¼ inch thick. Transfer the cooked apple slices onto the pastry dough leaving a 1 ½ inch border around the edge. Turn up the pastry border and gather around the apples. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until the crust turns a light golden brown.