Today, we’re talking about Mini Mango Galettes. Every season ushers in its own particular fruits and vegetables. Summer in India sees a mind-boggling variety of sweet, succulent mangoes taking over the markets. India has varying climatic zones as one moves from one end of the country to another. This means that summer starts sometime in March in South India and ends in June/ July in the North. Everyone has their own favourite fruit, and mangoes are most definitely ours.
Every summer I get a touch of mango fever. It’s something that is cured only by consumption of mangoes in various forms. In my traditional Palakkad Iyer cuisine, the mango has a very important place. We cook with both raw and ripe mangoes in so many different ways, though hardly any of them are sweet dishes. All over India, when magoes arrive we pickle them, dry them, convert them to chutneys and jams and cook them into curries.
It is the tail end of the summer in the south but the northern parts of India will continue to enjoy it a little longer. This means we can look forward to mangoes coming to us from those regions even though the rains are here.
I was talking to Meeta the other day about her mango mousse and I was reminded I needed to make the most of the remaining mango season. As I mentioned earlier, our traditional recipes are rarely about using mangoes in sweet dishes. The West however, uses mangoes mostly in desserts. I have tried quite a few of these with mangoes.
I had bookmarked some recipes to bake using mangoes. This was the time to do so.One of bookmarked recipes was Mark‘s Mango Galettes. He and Lisa have a project where they bake from the Tartine cookbook . The Mango Galettes were part of that.
Galette comes from the French word “galet” which means a smooth, flat pebble. So traditionally, any flat, round pastry, cookies, even crêpes or cake could be a Galette. Today, Galettesa are rustic looking, free-form tarts made with a single pastry crust, usually filled with fruit. When the filling is moist, the sides of the Galette are usually folded over to prevent them from leaking out. Otherwise, the pastry edges are crimped or left as they are.
I adapted Mark’s recipe to suit our tastes and make three Mini Mango Galettes. Indians will tell you that mango and cardamom make and an unbeatable combination. So I spiced up the mango filling with cardamom, some cinnamon and cloves. These spices tend to enhance the taste of mangoes in desserts. I used brown sugar and left out egg altogether.
We all like the crust in pies, galettes and the like as much as we like the filling. Making Mini Mango Galettes meant that we each got a hefty portion of crust as well. Mini Galettes also mean prettier small portion dessert without the mess of having to cut into a larger one. Also a Galette doesn’t require any special bakeware so making smaller ones is easy.
The crust can get soggy on the inside from the wet fruit filling. Some people brush the crust with egg white before putting the fruit in. We don’t like the taste of egg being so obvious. I prefer to use cookie crumbs to line the base. I also brush melted chocolate or thinnned apricot jam depending on the recipe.
Please note that this recipe has been updated with text and images.

Mini Mango Galettes
Ingredients
For the pastry:
- 100 gm chilled butter
- 1/4 cup very cold water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
For the filling:
- 1 1/2 cups mango chopped or sliced
- as required brown sugar ,
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp powdered cardamom
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
- 2 to 3 cloves (finely crushed/ powdered)
- brown sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- First of all, grate the butter (using the larger side) into a bowl. Chill the grated butter very well. Then add the flour and salt to the butter. Rub the butter into the flour, using a tablespoon, by pressing down on the butter-flour mixture with spoon and dragging it against the bottom of the bowl in a sweeping motion. You can work by moving the spoon away from you towards the side of the bowl further from you. This tends to flatten out the grated butter pieces while incorporating it into the flour.
- This will result in the butter-flour mixture looking somewhat like crumbs, but with larger and flatter bits of butter in it. Using the spoon also ensures that the mixture remains cold, which is very important to produce a flaky and crisp pie/ tart crust.
- Chill this mixture for about 15 minutes. Add the water, a little bit at a time, and knead the dough just enough to bring it together. Do not handle the dough more than necessary. If making a mini-galettes, divide into three equal portions and shape each into a disc. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for about an hour.
- Prepare the filling, in the meanwhile, by cooking the mango pieces, sugar and salt till the sugar dissolves and the fruit is just soft. This should take about 5 minutes. Add the cardamom, cinnamon and clove powders and mix well. Take off the heat.
- Take out the dough and lightly roll out each portion into a 1/4" thick circle. Put 1/3rd the filling in the centre of each circle and sprinkle some brown sugar over it. Gather up the edge of the circle together inwards, covering the filling partially and seal in a pleated fashion leaving the centre of the galette open.
- Place on a baking sheet and bake at 190C (375F) for 45 minutes to an hour till the crust is crisp and a golden brown. Cool on a rack and serve warm as it is or with ice-cream or a custard sauce.
Simply superb, love the spices used, would taste heavenly with mangoes!!
I love galeets, here too most of the time i have to half the recipes.Hubby did buy mangoes 3 boxes full when he was in UK, till now we have been eating them like that, just made one dessert that is all.This looks really delicous.
Oooooo! They look so good! Superb combo!
Wow.. very tempting indeed. The pastry looks very flaky and loved the spices in the filling.Waiting for more virtual mango treats..
you know… I’d probably have eaten all the mango before any pastry gets made. 🙂 looks yummy
That pastry looks very flaky and the filling isjust mouth watering aParna..
I first heard the word galette in Auroville and it looked more like a custard pie. It was tasty but I was quite anxious about it because behind the counter was a loo with the door open and several flies swarming around and helping themselves to the goodies. That state of affairs continued for a long time, don’t think they have that counter anymore!
I agree with Raaga,the mangoes wouldnt have lasted till the pastry got made:).Looks delicious..I’ve never heard about/had it though;)
Thanks, once again. :)HC, you don’t get mangoes there? I wish I could sen you some.I keep downsizing recipes unless we have company. :)They’re coming, Jayasree. :)Raaga and Divya, it was with great difficulty that we keep from eating them up too. :)I very rarely have left over mangoes, bananas and chikoos!Whenever I finally get around to visiting Pondicherry ( and I will), I’ll keep in mind this galette eatery.
I bet they are delicious! They look very tempting:)
Great idea. we are going thru the mania here now, but nothing is saved from the little we get to make anything with them:-(
Thanks for the kind words, Aparna 🙂 They do look wonderfully made, even if our methods were different! I love that you spiced up the mangoes too!
Wow – what a recipe… Lovely…
Aww the mango filled pastry looks so yum! Wish I could slice off some!
Woohoo!! they look soo great!
WOw that really wonderful aparna really mouthwatering and wish to taste it..tempting
You are right … mango and cardamom do go great. Those galettes look so good Aparna! 🙂
I love every dish made of mango..galletes made me hungry 🙂
absolutely superb!!! thanks for sharing~~~have a happy foodie weekend
I love the sound of the elaichi mangoes in a galette. Well done Aparna.
Lovely galletes. I have been focusing on litchis and cherries past few weeks, but I had an amazing mango mousse yesterday so dreaming of mango desserts now.
so delicately delicious, loved the addition of elaichi!
I could tell that that pastry would melt in my mouth.
Lovely snap.. wonderful blog.. thank you 🙂
Looks great and delicious.I somehow missed this dish.Mangoes are not much preferred by me,tgh my family loves it
If only I’d seen this before mango season ended! These look soo yumm, I’m bookmarking for next year! The spices must have added a delightful level to them 😀
HiGreat Blog and your recipe is superb and delicious i have tried it, i will try it again it was really delicious, thanks for the recipe recommend to all.
They are delicious Harini, they are.Mango madness is fun. Good to have company, Soma.Thank you, Mark for that compliment and the inspiration. :)Simran, We’ve been eating a lot of cherries and plums too. LItchis are a bit of an acquired taste for us. :)Sweatha, you don’t like mangoes? Must be like me and jackfruit!Avanika, we’re still getting mangoes here, though not as good as earlier in the season.
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