Pastry 5: Apple galette

We spent another sweltering evening in the baking lab making apple galettes, a flat free-form pastry. I wasn't too excited about this class, as it didn't seem that there would be much to learn. We made up a large batch of all-butter pie dough, using milk instead of water. I don't recall why we used milk, but I know it gives a nice flavour and helps to brown pastries. The proportions were 0.5 part egg, 1 part milk, 2 parts fat and 3 parts flour. I think I incorrectly scaled the flour. Combined with the warm environment, our dough turned out pretty soft so we kept the unused portions in the freezer. After preparing the apples as for pie, we rolled out the dough into one large and two small rounds. The apples were piled in the centre and then we folded the edges in, pressing the overlapping portions together. Chef made up a batch of crumble topping (just a basic flour, sugar and butter mixture rubbed into crumbs) which we sprinkled over the centre.

What I didn't like about class was that the recipe she gave for the dough and filling (which deviated from the course notes) was for one person, so we ended up having to scale out another batch and prepare more apples as we went along. I felt rushed throughout the night and ended up being one of the last to finish, even though I usually work fairly quickly.

I suppose the nice thing about galettes and other free-form tarts is that they require less work to make than a traditional pie. Any irregularities can be dismissed by calling the finished product “rustic”! It tasted alright, the pastry being very buttery and rich but not crispy flaky.