Contents
A free-form tart: pastry rolled out, fruit piled in the middle, edges folded over, baked on a sheet pan. No tin, no crimping, no lattice, no blind baking. It is the most forgiving thing in this folder and the best possible use of a small amount of fruit.
It is also the honest answer to most pie questions, because a galette does two things a covered pie cannot: it lets water evaporate freely, and it shows you exactly how the filling is doing.
What makes it work
- The open top is a drying rack. Steam leaves, juices concentrate, and the filling needs perhaps half the starch a closed pie would take.
- Leave a 5 cm border and fold in pleats. Overlapping folds, pressed at each crease. A smooth folded edge unravels.
- Ground almonds, semolina, or crushed biscuit under the fruit. A 3 mm layer soaks up the juice at the seam, which is the only place a galette leaks. This is the single best trick on the page.
- Bake on a preheated heavy tray at 200 °C. High heat sets the pastry before the juice reaches it.
- Fruit sliced no thicker than 8 mm and not piled more than 4 cm deep.
- Accept that some juice escapes, and bake on parchment so the caramel that forms comes off with it.
Ingredients
One 28 cm galette. Serves 6.
- 1 disc all-butter pie crust
- 600–700 g fruit: plums, apples, apricots, cherries, berries, pears, rhubarb or figs
- 80–120 g granulated sugar, depending on the fruit
- 15 g cornstarch
- 3 g fine salt
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 30 g ground almonds or fine semolina, for the base
- 1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk
- coarse sugar
- 20 g unsalted butter
Method
Heat the oven to 200 °C / 400 °F with a heavy tray on the middle rack.
Roll the pastry to a rough 33 cm round on parchment — it does not need to be neat — and slide the parchment onto a second tray. Chill while you prepare the fruit.
Toss the fruit with the sugar, cornstarch, salt and lemon juice.
Scatter the ground almonds over the centre of the pastry, leaving a 5 cm border. Pile the fruit on the almonds, no deeper than 4 cm.
Fold the border up and over in overlapping pleats, pressing each crease firmly. Dot the exposed fruit with butter.
Brush the pastry with egg wash and scatter coarse sugar.
Slide the parchment onto the preheated tray and bake 40–50 minutes, until the pastry is deep brown and the fruit bubbles.
Cool 30 minutes on the tray before moving.
Notes
- Savoury galettes work identically — tomato and goat's cheese, mushroom and thyme, squash and sage. Drop the sugar, add an egg to the filling. See tomato pie.
- Crostata is the Italian name for essentially the same thing; a French tarte rustique is the same again.
- Best the day it is made, and unlike a pie it is genuinely good warm.
Elsewhere on the site
Method and theory: Pie and tart recipes · pies and tarts · all-butter pie crust
Nearby: tarte tatin · blueberry pie · pear frangipane tart