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A galette is a French term for flat round cakes, either sweet or savoury, made from flaky pastry, yeast dough or unleavened dough. The nice thing about galettes is that the crust doesn’t need any special shaping and is just folded around the filling. This gives the galette a rustic and homely look.
It is the season for the Indian variety of pears here. Most of the time, when I do see pears at the market, it seems to the yellow skinned and soft variety from China. I prefer the smaller green skinned crunchy variety (from Kashmir or Himachal Pradesh, I think) which have a slightly grainy texture and are juicy and sweet.
I have used these pears in this galette. Working with this recipe from Recipezaar, I made a crust using oil, while I tweaked the filling a bit, using a lot more spices to make an absolutely delicious galette.
Spiced Pear Galette
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 1 xbd cups all purpose flour
- 2 tbsps sugar
- xbc tsp salt
- 2 to 3 tbsps water cold
For the filling:
- 6 pears small , cored , peeled and sliced
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- xbd tsp cinnamon
- xbd tsp ginger powdered
- xbd tsp black pepper freshly crushed
- xbc tsp nutmeg powdered
- xbd tsp star anise powdered
- 2 tbsps brown sugar (adjust according to sweetness of pears)
- xbc tsp salt
- 2 tbsps flour
For glazing:
- 2 tbsps apricot jam
- 1 tbsp water
Instructions
- For the crust:
- I used the food processor but you may do this by hand too. I also find that keeping the flour and the oil in the fridge to chill before using them to make the dough helps.
- Pulse the flour, sugar, salt and oil a couple of times it it resembles bread crumbs. Add the water one tbsp at a time and pulse a couple of times. If doing this by hand, make sure you handle the dough to the minimum possible and do not knead the dough.
- Put his crumbly looking dough onto your work surface and bring together, with your hands, to form a ball. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate it for about an hour.
- Make the filling during this time.
- For the filling:
- I used an Indian variety of pears which are very crunchy and these need cooking. If you are using a softer variety of pears, the pears do not require cooking. In this case, just mix all the ingredients for the filling together and use.
- This is how I made my filling.
- Put the sliced pears in a pan with a tbsp of water and all the other ingredients except the flour. Cook till the sugar melts, everything is well blended and the pears are a bit soft. Allow to cool to room temperature.
- Putting the galette together:
- Take the dough out of the refrigerator and roll the dough between two sheets of parchment or lightly greased aluminium foil, into a circle about xbcu201d thick.
- Slowly peel off the parchment or foil and place the dough circle on a baking sheet.
- Mix the flour into the cooled filling and place this filling in the centre of the dough circle, spreading it out a little leaving 2u201d free at the edge. Pull up the dough and loosely fold the edges around the filling leaving the middle open.
- Bake at 190C for about 40 minutes till the crust is golden brown.
- Melt the apricot jam and water to form a glaze. Brush over the hot fruit filling.
- Serve warm or cold.
Curry Leaf says
I love it .It is also called crostata in Italian.
Bharti says
Gorgeous Galette Aparna.
jayasree says
Looks gorgeous. I cam imagine the flavor of the willing with all those spices in it.
Ivy says
Hi Aparna. Thanks for sending this lovely recipe and personally I have no problem that you are submitting it somewhere else as well. Have never made a galette before and this seems such a lovely recipe to start with.
sowmya says
looks delicious..this is a part of baking I havent yet tried..but the picture and recipe is tempting me to do it soon..
Jayashree says
Lovely…the filling looks real good.
chemcookit says
Hi Aparna!Wonderful recipe! I am absolutely happy that you sent this to the FPOM event and to other events at the same time.. more people see more events at once! It’s just perfect. :)And the idea of adding star anise is just.. wonderful!!!Take care and thanks again.
Vaishali says
Aparna, This is such a beautiful, beautiful galette. Thanks very much for sending it in to Sweet Vegan!
karuna says
this looks really tempting. really nice entry to all the events
Nags says
That looks yummy!
Sig says
six in one- that sure is a winner 🙂 I love the filling!
Arundathi says
oh no – do you think you can put on weight just looking at photos? 🙁 honestly, this looks amazing!
Happy Cook says
Hi hi that is a whole lot event, i didn’t even know about some of them :-)I too love the green vairety ad personally i think they are the really yumm.Love the galette , it is really looking yumm.
sunshinemom says
Would have been all the more unfair to not send the tasty galette to any of the entries:) Thanks !!
Rosie says
Hi Aparna your galette looks gorgeous!!Rosie x
Pearlsofeast says
Hi Aparna, ur galette sounds great to me.I love the crust and love the rustic looks as well.Can I contact u in Yahoo messenger or google talk.
Sarah says
Yum! I love galettes . . . perfect for an easy dessert . . . any season!This one looks really great, especially with the black pepper pop of flavor with the pear!Best,Sarah
Mansi says
Hi Aparna, this looks beautiful!just a quick question – what would the baking temp be and how long if I divided this recipe into 4 small galettes? I can keep checking them to see if they are done, but would it still be at the same temperature?
Aparna says
Thank you all, very much. I would certainly recommend that you try it out because its so easy to do.Mansi,This is the first time I’ve made a galette. But by past experience, I’d say that the temp should remain 190C but baking time should be about 25 to 30 minutes. The filling doesn’t really need cooking and the time should be for the crust to crisp and turn golden brown. So you could start checking after about 20 minutes, I’d say.Single serving galettes sounds great.
Aparna says
Thanks Sweatha, didn’t know that.Yes, I was quite happy with the way this galette turned out and tasted too.Thanks, Sig.Of course Arundathi. How do you think I explain the extra kilos? :)Sure you can, Shibani. I’m on google talk.
saloni says
love the star anise touch
Anonymous says
I used this recipe as a base with a few changes. First, I already had a homemade pie crust in the freezer, so I used it. Secondly, I used 4 pears and 2 Granny Smith apples. I have to say this was delicious. The combination of spices, particularly the anise and black pepper, were wonderful and made this dessert a hit in my home. I will be making it again and again. Thank you,
Aparna says
Anon, good to know you liked it so much. 🙂