Christine Cooks: galette

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Gluten-Free Plum Galette with Cardamom, Sugar-Free or Not

I have a new god(dess) and her name is Carol.

A year ago when I went gluten-free, I tried my hand at making GF pancakes, pies, tarts, fruit galettes and more. Some of them worked fine, others came out so-so and yet others were total disasters. Mostly I couldn't get away from the "beany" taste and/or gritty texture that the flours I was using imparted, so I just gave it up altogether.

Sometime during the year I realized how much I missed pie crust. Light, flakey pie crust. It almost became an obsession. I grew up on my mother's pies. She taught me by example how to make flakey, light-as-a-feather crust. I just had to find a way to make a GF pie or tart that sung to me.

Not too long ago my subscription link to Carol's blog Simply Gluten Free heralded her new GF flour. A gluten-free flour that Carol guarantees can be used cup for cup like regular flour to make cakes, pies, cookies, breads, pastries, pizza(!), and more.

Was this to be my pie crust salvation?

I ordered some. As soon as it arrived I made pie dough, rolled it into a large rustic circle and filled it with beautiful fresh plums. I popped it into the oven. I waited. For 50 minutes I waited. It was agony.

Finally it was time to remove the galette from the oven. Then it had to cool ... more agony.

Finally I cut a piece. I took a bite...

Heaven! It was heaven. It had flake. It had lightness. It was delicious.

Carol, I bow to you. You done good!

Gluten-Free Plum Galette with Cardamom
Christine's original recipe inspired by Carol Kacinski's Amazing All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour
(Print recipe)
Ingredients for pie crust:
1 cup gluten-free flour (see link above)
1 packet Splenda or 1 tablespoon sugar
tiny pinch salt
1/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons each cold heavy cream and cold water
Preparation:
Whisk together flour, sugar, salt. Place in food processor and add butter pieces. Using quick pulses, process until butter and flour resemble fine sand, about 5-6 pulses.
Through the feed tube, add the cream in several pours while pulsing and stopping, pulsing and stopping, then add just enough water to make the dough come together. Pinch mixture between your thumb and fingers. If it holds together, it's ready. Take care to not add too much liquid or your dough will be too wet.
Pour dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, gather the edges of the wrap and make the dough into a ball. Flatten the ball into a disc and refrigerate for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Ingredients for plum filling:
10-12 ripe plums (yellow and red is nice), pits removed, cut into 1/4-inch slices. Makes approx. 3 cups* see Cook's Notes
Splenda packets or sugar to taste** see Cook's Notes
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter cut into tiny cubes
heavy cream and vanilla sugar to finish the pie crust
Preparation:
While the dough is chilling, combine the plums, sugar, cardamom and tapioca starch in a bowl. Allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes for the plum juices to form.

Roll out the pie dough on a pastry cloth sprinkled with gluten free flour to a rough diameter of 14-inches.
Roll the dough up onto your rolling pin and center on a large parchment-lined baking sheet or pizza pan.
Place the plums (juice and all) in the center of the dough, spreading them to within 3-inches of the edges.
Dot the plums with the butter.

Fold the pie dough about 1/2-inch over itself, pleating and pinching if necessary, forming a smooth edge. Bring the smooth edges of the dough about 3-inches over the plums, pleating as you go around, leaving a good portion of the plums showing in the middle of the galette.
Brush the dough with heavy cream and sprinkle with vanilla sugar. This is optional but makes for a nice crust.
Bake in a 380-degree oven for 45-50 minutes or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.
Cool 30 minutes before cutting.
Eat and enjoy! Then just think of the possibilities...

* I actually used 20 plums (10 red and 10 yellow) which made a total of 5 cups. I saved 2 cups of the mixture to make ice cream. Which will be coming along soon. ;)

** I have not provided a measurement for the Splenda or sugar because the amount you use will depend on how tart or sweet your plums are. Add it sparingly and taste until it is to your satisfaction. The plums I used were fairly tart so I added 7 packets of Splenda, which amounts to approx. 6 tablespoons of sugar, which is just under 1/2 cup. The finished fruit was tart with a sweet finish.

One more thing: Just to keep the record straight, Carol doesn't know that I'm writing this post. Well ... she does now, now that I've published. But there is no collusion here. She didn't ask me to write this and I received no freebies for doing so. I'm just terrifically excited by the GF flour.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Strawberry Galette with Triple Sec and Bananas

Bananas? Not seeing bananas?

My secret ingredient. Keep reading...

First, the strawberries: So sweet and tender from Neukom Family Farm, we gobbled up a bunch of them within hours of purchase from the farmers' market, had barely enough leftover, getting a bit soft, not enough for a pie, not for ice cream, not enough, really, for much.

But a galette, now, might have just enough for that.

Turns out, I needed a bit more than the 2 scant cups of sliced strawberries in the center of the galette. When I looked around the kitchen, I saw only bananas.

Taking an idea from cheese-stuffed pizza crust, I put the sliced bananas in a ring around the strawberries, which gave me just enough fruit substance to make this work.

Slather the top of the dough with well-beaten egg whites then sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

I keep a small jar of vanilla sugar around for just such an occasion.

Just out of the oven. Slice while warm or at room temperature. Serve unadorned or with your favorite ice cream.

Still wondering about those bananas? Look closely.

Strawberry Galette with Triple Sec and Bananas
Christine's original recipe (galette dough inspired by the recipe in
Rustic Fruit Desserts)Ingredients:for the pastry dough (be sure to give yourself time for the dough to chill 1 hour)
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons Splenda sugar blend
1/2 teaspoon fine kosher salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter (divided) cut into 1/2-inch cubes (See Cook's Notes)
4-6 tablespoons ice water
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (I pretty much always use Meyers)
1 egg white, beaten
1-2 teaspoons vanilla sugar (See Cook's Notes)

Dough preparation:Use 3/4 cup butter for the pastry and keep it in the fridge (cut up) until ready to use. Reserve the rest of the butter for finishing the galette (Instructions below.)
Combine the lemon juice with the ice water and set aside.
In a bowl, combine the flours, sugar and salt until well mixed.
Sprinkle the butter pieces over the flour and quickly toss to cover each piece in flour.
Transfer flour mixture to a food processor and pulse in short bursts until the butter is cut into small pieces about the size of peas. Don't over process.
Pulsing in short bursts, drizzle the ice water through the feed tube 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough starts to leave the sides of the bowl. Pinch a small amount of the dough between your fingers. If it holds together, that's enough processing.
Dump the dough onto a pastry cloth and knead a few times to bring it together. Shape it into a ball then press it down into a flat round.
Cover in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

For the strawberries:2 cups (more if you have them) sliced sweet, ripe strawberries
1-2 tablespoons Triple Sec
1 teaspoon splenda sugar blend (if needed)
Preparation for the strawberries:
Toss the sliced berries with the sugar and liqueur. Set aside to let the juices form.
For the bananas:3 small, ripe bananas, sliced
1 tablespoon (heaping) splenda brown sugar blend
1/2 teaspoon Meyer lemon juice
2 teaspoons Triple Sec
Preparation for the bananas:Toss the bananas with the lemon juice as you are slicing them, this will keep them from turning brown.
Toss with the brown sugar and liqueur and set aside.

Putting it all together:Bring the galette dough out of the fridge 15 minutes before rolling so it can soften.
Using a pastry cloth and long rolling pin sprinkled with flour, roll the dough into a circle 14 to 16 inches in diameter. The dough should be about 1/4-inch thick.
Transfer the rolled dough to a parchment-covered large pizza pan or baking sheet (dough will overlap sides).
Mound the strawberry mixture in the center of the dough, spreading it out slightly, then sprinkle the banana mixture evenly around the strawberries to within 2-3 inches from the edge of the dough. Be sure to include all the fruit juices when you do this.

Remember those extra 2 tablespoons of butter? Sprinkle them evenly over the strawberries and bananas now. (This is optional but will make the galette richer. As if it wouldn't be already without the butter.)

Begin folding the outer edges of the dough over the bananas and some of the strawberries, pleating the dough as you go around so it will look rustically beautiful like the photos above.
Using a pastry brush, brush the beaten egg white all over the top of the dough, then sprinkle generously with the vanilla sugar.
Bake in a 425-degree oven for 30 minutes then turn the oven down to 350 and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown and the fruit filling is bubbly.
Remove from the oven and place the entire pan on a rack to cool.
Cook's Notes:Vanilla sugar may be made by placing a vanilla bean in a jar of baker's sugar (superfine), closing the lid, giving it a shake, and storing it until you need it. I leave the bean in until the sugar is all used up; for me, that can be a year or more.As I've said before, use a really high quality butter for your pie or galette dough and you almost can't go wrong. I use Strauss Family Creamery unsalted butter for its high butterfat-low moisture content. It doesn't fail me. Keep it very cold until you're ready to use it.