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Two weekends ago, before Claire’s arrival, I took a trip to New Hampshire to pick apples at a local farm. I drove out with several friends on a brisk Saturday morning and arrived at a beautiful farm overflowing with fall produce. There were all kinds of pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, and other delicious things, but most importantly there was an incredible assortment of apples. We spent a couple of hours walking through the different apple orchards, and by the end of the day I had eight pounds of apples. But what to do with all of them? I dutifully stored the apples until Claire’s arrival and began daydreaming of the apple things we were going to make!
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Because of the beauty and deliciousness of the fresh, local apples, we looked for a simple recipe that would showcase the apples as the main event. We found a wonderful tart recipe from Smitten Kitchen that was inspired by the classic Chez Panisse apple tart. The day after Claire arrived, we spent all afternoon baking an apple galette and applesauce. We opted for the galette, instead of the tart, and adapted her recipe slightly due to our lack of specialized kitchen tools in Boston. But we figured, people have been making apple desserts forever, and they didn’t have tart pans and electric food processors. We went rustic. We used a fork. We used an empty wine bottle. We used our hands. And it was delicious.
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The form and ingredients that differentiate a pie from a tart from a galette fascinates us because of the minute form and ingredient differences. According to The Kitchn, a pie is baked in a dish with sloped sides and can have a crust on the bottom, top, or both. A tart is baked in a shallow dish with straight sides. A galette is the most free form of the three, needing only a baking sheet for baking. The filling is placed on the dough, and the dough is folded up and around to contain the filling.
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See the Simple Apple Galette Recipe in the rest of the post. Enjoy!
Simple Apple Galette
Dough 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon sugar 1/8 teaspoon salt 3/4 stick unsalted butter, cold, cut in ¼ inch cubes 4 tablespoons chilled waterFilling 2-3 medium apples (any kind will work, but firm, crisp varieties work best) 2 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons sugar
Glaze 1/2 cup sugar Remaining apple cores and skins
To make the dough, mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the cubes of butter and use a fork to mash and incorporate the butter and flour mixture until only small pieces of butter remain. While mixing with your hands, add the chilled water slowly, to evenly distribute the water throughout the dough. Form the dough into a smooth ball. If the dough is too dry, you can add a little bit more water. Flatten the ball into a 1 inch thick disk and smooth the cracked edges so they do not dry out. Be careful not to handle the dough too much so that the butter does not melt. Wrap the disk tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until the dough is cold.
While the dough is in the refrigerator, peel, core and slice the apples. Save the cores and the skins for the glaze! Slice the apples to similar thicknesses, about 1/16 inch, to ensure even baking. We suggest maybe preparing an extra apple, just in case you happen to eat too many slices on accident!
Preheat the oven to 400˚F and remove the dough from the refrigerator. After it warms up a bit, roll out the dough into a circle on a lightly floured surface using a floured rolling pin, an empty wine bottle, or even a thick drinking glass. Be sure that the dough has a consistent thickness, about 1/8 inch. Brush off extra flour from both sides.
Place the rolled dough on parchment paper on a baking sheet. {If you don’t have parchment paper, lightly grease the baking sheet with cooking spray or butter.} For the first layer, overlap apple slices in concentric circles on the dough, leaving a 2 inch border on the outside so the dough can be folded over the apples. Sprinkle a little bit of sugar over this layer. Make another circle of apples for the second layer, leaving a little bit more room on the edge, as in the picture. Repeat the sugar sprinkling and apple layering until you have the desired height, depending on the thickness of your apples and size of your dough circle. Wrap the edges of the dough up and over the apple slices and crimp folds to seal and secure the dough. Pour the melted butter on the apples and the crust and sprinkle with more sugar.
Bake in the oven until the crust browns and the apples are soft, about 30 minutes our oven. Make sure that the bottom of the crust has baked completely. While the galette is baking, place all the apple cores, skins, ½ cup sugar, and enough water to cover everything in a large saucepan and boil for about 30 minutes to create an apple syrup/liquid. Remove the galette from the oven and let rest for 15 minutes. Brush or pour glaze over galette, slice, and share the lovely taste of fall!