The best apple galette ever...seriously!!...for Great Maine Apple Day

I do have to blow my own trumpet and stand behind the title of this post as, indeed, I have perfected this recipe over the last few weeks to an amazing level of sublime. I will tell you in detail how I achieve above pictured deliciousness in hopes you will try this galette and be taken to realms of swooning only thus far imagined in your dreams - OK maybe that's a bit over the top but this is a WINNER!!!!

And one again we start with my go to delight:

STICKY TOFFEE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz/ heaped 1/4 cup sugar 

1 1/2 oz / 3 tablespoons salted butter

2 tablespoons cream or half and half

..and if you really like that salty tang - which I do - a good pinch of extra salt.

1. Put all three ingredients in a pan to melt together, mix and keep mixing whilst letting it bubble a couple of minutes until it gets a bit thick - allow to cool and pour over (reserving about 2 tablespoons for the pecans) about 6 - 7ounces of sliced apples of your choice - I am still using the rag, tag and bobtail apples from my old apple trees behind the house:

 Now add about 12 pecans to the reserved sticky toffee sauce and stir them over medium heat in the pan until they are fragrant and a little toasted - about 3 or 4 minutes - set aside.

Set your caramelled apples aside also and now start making the pastry - if you do it exactly how I am saying you should get a crust that is like a crispy, melting cookie/biscuit - it is glorious!

PASTRY: Please do weigh your ingredients if you can - the result will be much more reliable!

Start with everything cold, cold, cold - I even put my flour and sugar in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour before I start making the pastry!

5ozs/ 1 1/4 cups of white flour

4ozs salted butter - hardened in the freezer

2oz/heaped 1/4 cup of sugar

about 2 to 4 fluid ounces/1/8 to 1/4 COLD water - the amount will vary depending on the weather and your flour

METHOD: This is by hand and not in a cuisinart but if you want to use a machine adaption should be easy - you just swish a couple of times for each step until the dough comes together in a ball.

1. Sift the flour and add the sugar and blend.

2. Grate the hardened butter into the flour:

 3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal or swish in a food processor to achieve the same.

4. Add some of the water and start squushing the pastry and keep adding bit by bit of water until it can be formed into a non-sticky ball - less water is better so squush hard until it comes together:

How your pastry ball should look

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour - or as long as you like.

TO ASSEMBLE THE GALETTE:

1. Take your pastry ball from the fridge and on a lightly floured board roll out to about 11" diameter - doesn't matter if the edge is raggedy - in fact it adds to it's rusticity!

2. Place the pastry on a well buttered tray - my tray is black so try for a black tray also or you're cooking time will vary from mine - a lighter coloured tray will take longer, I have a nice square baking tray that is perfect for the job, a tray with an edge is preferably to catch the possible running juices - you never can tell if it will run or not.

 Dollop the cold caramel apples in a high blob in the middle of the pastry:

3. Fold the excess pastry over onto the top of the apples trying to make sure there are no little holes/open spaces for the juices to escape...

4. Wet the top of the galette with water, just a little bit to dampen - or use any remaining sticky toffee sauce from the pecans - and sprinkle sugar atop the little darling:

5. Now pop her back into the fridge for about another hour - or longer - as you prefer - this is a necessary step to help the galette keep it's shape.

When you are ready to bake set the oven to 425F and when it's hot put the galette in for about 25 minutes - remember every oven is different so keep an eye on your galette - turn if necessary - my oven does brown more on one side than the other so I turn half way through - don't worry if juices leak, I have only managed a small percentage of none leaking galette's thus far - it will be OK, and bake until it is nice and toasty brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before tumbling the pecans atop and then make a couple of tablespoon of sugar icing with a little milk (a couple of teaspoons to start) and lots of icing/confectioners sugar - drizzle over and allow to set and VOILA - the best ever apple galette!!

So Happy Great Maine Apple Day - here is a link to MOFGA's events for the day - Happy Baking!!!

On a fragrant note - if, like me, you have lots of grungy windfall apples available that are not fit to cook with I have found you can add them to a pot of boiling water - we keep one on our wood burning stove in the winter months to humidify the air - and let them simmer away and they'll make your house smell like delicious apple sauce!

Just FYI - I have had the occasional partial collapse of the pastry during cooking and don't know the cause but it still has come out tasting fine if looking a little lobsided.

As you can see one of our dear, gnarly old apple trees still has quite the bounty to give up so I see a lot more of these galettes in my future!!

The Pee Gee Hydrangea's are spectacular right now o I thought I'd share a couple of pictures with you!

Be in touch and let me know how your galette goes.

Patricia

This delicious morsel is part of the AUGUST TEA TIME TREATS blog hop organized by the ever lovely LAVENDER & LOVAGE and The HEDGECOMBERS  

Click in the box below to go to the August tea time treats and peruse all the fabulous recipes!

Rustic Pumpkin and Apple Upside Down Cake

This may sound like it could be a heavy carrot cakey like confection but surprisingly it turned out very light and delicate! and so very more-ish! I adapted it from this RECIPE from Aunty Beeb (the BBC) and found yet another way to use up some of my seemingly never ending supply of apples from my trees out the back:

The first order of the day is to peel and slice 2 medium sized apples and keep the slices in cold water with either a spoon of vinegar or lemon to stop them from browning. Now make my go to Sticky Toffee Sauce which I am finding can be added to almost any sweet recipe out there - I am a BIG fan.

STICKY TOFFEE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz/ heaped 1/4 cup brown sugar 

1 1/2 oz / 3 tablespoons salted butter

2 tablespoons cream or half and half

1. Put all three ingredients in a pan to melt together, mix and keep mixing whilst letting it bubble a couple of minutes until it gets a bit thick - allow to cool and pour into a 9" diameter cake pan.

2. Take apple slices out of the water, pat dry and arrange in the cake pan over the toffee sauce in whatever manner you chose and with as few or as many slices as you like. 

Now to make the batter for the cake:

CAKE: Have everything at room temperature

Pre heat the oven to 350F

3 1/2 ozs/ 1 stick minus 1 tablespoon of melted butter (I always use salted because that's what I like - if you don't use salted butter add a pinch of salt to the dry ingredients when you sift them) 

2 large eggs beaten 

5 ozs/ heaped 1 cup white flour  

1 1/2 teaspoons spice - your choice of combination - I used 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1 teaspoon of cardomom, you may like nutmeg and allspice, nutmeg and clove, cinnamon and nutmeg - yes I like my nutmeg 

1 teaspoon baking soda/bicarb of soda 

8 oz shredded pumpkin (or squash of your choice)

1 tablespoon apple juice

4oz/ 1 cup sugar - brown works really nicely in this recipe 

METHOD:

1. Whisk the melted butter (cooled) into the eggs with the apple juice. 

2. Sift all the dry ingredients together. 

3. Fold the dry ingredient into the wet until evenly mixed. 

4. Fold the shredded pumpkin into the mix.

5. Gently dollop the batter onto the apples and sticky toffee so as not to disturb the apple pie order of the apples:

6......and smooth your batter nice and gingerly and seal the edges by smoothing the batter right to the edge of the tin - so the sticky toffee won't escape so much:

 7. Bob into the oven for about 45 mins until nice and evenly browned:

8. Leave to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then gird your loins and flip over onto a pretty plate:

This is the first one I made it was paler and stickier - I think because I used more apples and they were juicier too - maybe I also baked it for less time. This is the second one I made -

...which I decided to cover in some more sugar and broil/grill until the sugar bubbled and not only did it look nicer but it was drier in a good way.

First one stickier, wetter:

 Second one drier and more holding it's shape better - which all goes to prove it's hard to make things the same way twice even with the so called same ingredients because things like the weather, how juicy your fruit is etc can have an effect on the outcome - suffice to say they were both very good and I wouldn't even begin to say which one was better.

I should have gotten a better pic of the cake inside - but I didn't naughty moi - anyway you can see the little pumpkin shreds and the outside gooieness - yum!!

This cake most definitely should be eaten on the day it is made though as the following day it had gotten damp and moist in not a good way so bear that in mind - most of the cakes I make taste better the next day - not this one!

I hope you enjoy baking this cake and let me know if you do and how it comes out.

If you have an interest in either of the background fabrics featured in this post you will find them in my SPOONFLOWER shop - click HERE to bob on along there - thanks!!

HAPPY BAKING - Patricia

Apples, apples everywhere - Apple Nut Turnovers, Apple Cider Syrup and Glace Apple Slices!!

Isn't that Glace apple slice a thing of beauty - I just saw the recipe for it by accident on Pinterest while I was oogling a recipe for something else and I realized I just had to make them - they were surprisingly easy, turned out just beautifully and taste like a slice of toffee apple - YUM. Propping up the glace delight is a delicious Apple and Nut Turnover - equally as good and delicious created from a recipe in Country Harvest by Linda Burgess and Rosamond Richardson - a simply lovely book full of cosy photos and excellently reliable recipes for the Autumn season.

 To make your turnovers you'll need to start with making your pastry first as you'll want to bob it in the fridge for at least an hour before you start baking.

Pate Brisee by Martha

This is good for 4 nice sized turnovers - this recipe doubles well.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cups/5ozs of white flour - I also added 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg to the flour just for a little extra autumn flavour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 stick/4oz butter I always use salted, VERY cold

1/8 to 1/4 cup ice cold water

METHOD:

1. Sift the flour and add the sugar and blend.

2. Grate the butter into the flour.

3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal or swish in a food processor to achieve the same.

4. Add some of the water and test to see if it comes together, if not keep adding water until the dough will squush into a non-sticky ball.

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour - or as long as you like.

Whilst the dough is chilling you can make the other component parts:

APPLE CIDER SYRUP - make lots of this it is really good on pretty much ANYTHING!

If you use 8fl ounces of apple cider (that would be juice in England not alcoholic cider) all you have to do is gently boil it down until there is only 4 fl ounces left - that's it! When it cools it will go syrupy - if it doesn't, depending on the water content of your juice, then just simmer it a bit more. Allow to cool.

FILLING FOR TURNOVERS - refer to this chart for the type of apples you want to use - I used Braeburns which turned a nice pink and didn't break down in cooking but if you want more filling in your turnover maybe you'll want to chose an apple that turns mushy.

12ozs of apples chopped into bite sized pieces - about 3 medium sized apples

1oz sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon - I'm not a big cinnamon girl but it seemed right in this recipe and this is a small amount

2oz toasted walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans or almonds chopped - I used walnuts.

 1 fl oz/1/8 cup water

1oz butter

4 tablespoons apple cider syrup

1. Cook the apples in the water along with the sugar and cinnamon until mushy if you are using mushy apples or nicely cooked if you are using non mushy, as below:

 2. Fold in the nuts and syrup and allow to cool.

STICKY TOFFEE APPLE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz brown sugar

 1 1/2 oz butter
2 tablespoons cream or half and half 

6 tablespoons apple cider syrup

1. Heat sugar, cream and butter together in a small pan until sugar has dissolved and allow to bubble for a minute or so.

2. Add the apple cider syrup and stir - keep warm but not hot.

GLACE APPLE SLICES - wee hee I love these - found the recipe here.

Here's my interpretation: Set oven at 350F and grease a baking sheet lightly with butter.

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

1 small apple sliced fine on a mandolin - I think I did my slices much thinner than in the MyRecipes recipe but they worked out well - also they don't mention it's hard to get a whole apple slice the way it looks in their picture - and if you do get a whole slice you aren't getting too many of them because they'll only come from the middle part of the apple - so don't be disappointed if most of your slices are just circles with no character. MyRecipes also didn't mention that you need to use a non mushy making apple as mentioned above so check your apples are sufficiently sturdy :)

1. Bring water and sugar to a boil.

2. Allow to boil gently for a couple of minutes.

3. Add a few apple slices and stir them around gently - watch them go transparent pretty quickly especially so if your slices are as thin as mine.

4. When they are transparent gingerly move them to the baking tray -

 - I found tongs were the best way to do this - flatten them out as best you can and bob into the oven for about 5 minutes to start - check how they are if they are starting to go golden they are ready - they actually went white again for me which confused me but when I took them out and put them on a cooling rack they went transparent again. You may have to play with this a little to get them right but you can put them in and out of the oven until they go crisp when cold. DO make sure you take them off the baking tray and put on a cooling rack whilst they are still pretty hot though or they'll stick. Don't throw away the apple simple syrup you have now made - there's always something you can do with it!

  Now to assemble your turnovers.

Set your oven to 350F.

You will need one beaten egg yolk.

Take the dough out of the fridge and roll out to a square about 12 x 12" and cut into four even squares:

Bob 2 tablespoons or so of the apple mix onto the square thus:

 Dab some of the beaten yolk along the 2 front edges and fold the pastry in half over the filling to form a triangle - press with a fork along the edges to press the top and bottom pastries together - you don't want any gaps or holes of the filling will ooze out whilst cooking. Now wash the top of the turnovers with more egg yolk and a goodly sprinkling of sugar:

Can you believe how yellow my egg yolk is - it's from Farmetta Farm - best eggs around!

 ...and into the oven with them for about 20 minutes until golden brown and piping hot.

 Allow to cool slightly, cover with the sticky toffee sauce and some of the apple mix if you have any leftover - decorate with a glace apple slice or two and off you go - these are SO GOOD!!!!!

HAPPY BAKING!!

If you make these please feel free to post on my Facebook page - I'd love to hear about it!

Here's an excellent apple usage chart from Pocket Change Gourmet and some more info on apple varieties HERE

Until quite recently I thought all apples were created equal and didn't know you used different varieties for different things - now I know!!

Apple and Mincemeat Frangipane Gallette - it's a goodie :))

Oh my this is a good one - it has a lovely crisp sour cream pastry shell and I did the filling two ways - as above with mincemeat - fresh, vegetarian mincemeat - frangipane and apples and also the next day, because I liked it so much I tried it with just the mincemeat and apples and added a sticky toffee sauce - I can't possible decide which I preferred so you might consider making both too - you could split the pastry amount given here in half and make two decent sized gallettes - that's how I did it.

A day or two ahead of actually making the gallette(s) you want to make the fresh mincemeat so it has time to meld and marry those lovely flavours - here's a wonderful one from David Lebovitz:

I am calling this ‘fresh’ mincemeat, meaning you don’t have to wait months for it to be ready as with your ordinary or garden variety mincemeat. This recipe is ready after one day and better after three - also this is a vegetarian variety so no shredding of suet which can be a little off putting to say the very least!!

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup (135g) coarsely chopped raisins, dark or golden
½ cup candied peel…orange or lemon or both
¼ cup brandy but I have used used whiskey or red wine and I think you could safely use apple juice or orange juice if you don't want the alcohol.
2 teaspoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons sugar…again dark or light
1 teaspoon of cardomom
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
½ teaspoon of mace
(I differed my spices from David’s recipe which called for ½ teaspoon each ground cinnamon and nutmeg and ¼ teaspoon of cloves…I am not a fan of cloves as a flavouring and I think cardamom works really well with the lemon flavour)
1 grated crunchy apple…I use Pink Lady which is a big fave of mine.

This is really hard…mix everything together and put it in a jar. Allow to stand for one to three days, don‘t put in the fridge, the flavours marry better at room temp. This mincemeat is meant to be used quickly.

Now your mincemeat is ready on with move with the gallette!! Wee heeeee.....

Sour Cream Pastry - this is GOOD!!!! 

6oz/175g plain white flour

3oz/ 80g cold butter

7 tablespoons/1/3 cup sour cream 

2 tablespoon sugar

1. Mix the flour and sugar together.

2. Grate the cold butter into the flour and blend until you get nice even 'breadcrumbs' - if you are using a food processor pulse to get your nice breadcrumbs.

3. Put sour cream into the mix and blend until nice and smooth and pulled together - but don't overwork and allow the pastry to warm up - keep it nice and cold.

4. Bob the pastry into the fridge for at least an hour during which time make the filling(s).

Now the gallette fillings:

Frangipane Deliciousness:

2oz/50g butter softened

2oz/50g sugar

4oz/110g almonds toasted and cooled, then ground til fine in - I find best - a coffee grinder

2 medium eggs whisked

1/2 teaspoon almond essence/extract - if you can get Simply Organic - it's fantastic!!

1. Cream butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy .

2. Blend eggs into creamed butter and sugar until relatively smooth - it won't be that smooth by hand but maybe more so by food processor.

3. Blend in the ground almonds and almond essence/extract

YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

 

Apples: 2 good sized apples - preferably dessert apples - sweet and crisp - slice evenly as you can and put into a bowl of cold water with a bit of lemon juice or vinegar to keep the apples from going brown. 

PUT YOUR GALLETTE TOGETHER:

1.Take the pastry from the fridge and roll out to a circle about 11" diameter - lift onto a baking sheet. Pick the pastry all over with a fork.

2. Dollop that lovely mincemeat into the centre of the pastry circle and smooth out to within a couple of inches of the edge as below:

 3. Now dollop the frangipane on top of the mincemeat and smooth out as below:

4. Arrange the apple slices as you wish - I tried to do a pretty circlet but got a bit messed up when trying to finish the circle - still it looked pretty good before it was cooked - just FYI I have made a few of these free form open rustic tarts and no matter how neat and tidy they go into the oven or how cold I get them before baking they never look the same when they come out - they become lobsided, uneven and sometimes runny because a little hole opens up in the pastry where you folded it - do not despair it will still be a thing of beauty to behold and after all it does for sure make it look homemade :)).
5. Fold the pastry up and over the filling as below and pinch together every couple of inches or so for it to hold together when baking.

5. Pop the whole thing back into the fridge for 1/2 hour during which time heat up the oven to 425F.

6. After half an hour bob the gallette into the oven and bake for about 30-40 minutes until nice and evenly golden delicious delightful brown.

7. In the last 10 minutes of cooking warm a few tablespoons of apricot jam in a saucepan and keep warm until you take the gallette out of the oven.

7. As soon as you take it out of the oven spread the apricot jam all over the surface for a nice tang and bright shiny tart :)

ALTERNATE and just as GOOD GALLETTE with just mincemeat, shredded apples and toffee sauce.

The only changes you need to make:

1. Don't make the frangipane.

2. Shred the apples instead of slicing them.

3. Put apples on top of the mincemeat in the gallette.

4. Everything else is the same EXCEPT in the last 10 minutes of baking make this fantastic toffee sauce - which you can use on anything and everything you ever want - it is from a sticky toffee pudding recipe:

Sticky Toffee Topping:
2 1/2oz brown sugar...oops didn't figure that one out, I suppose a bit more than 1/4 cup
1 1/2 oz butter
2 tablespoons cream or half and half

1. Heat sugar, cream and butter together in a small pan until sugar has dissolved - let bubble gently for a couple of mintes - pour over gallette.

These are both SOOOOOO good - as I said before you can do one big one of EITHER recipe with the amount listed or two small different ones. Either way:

HAPPY BAKING - let me know how it goes and do post pics on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/PatriciaSheaDesigns

Eat the gallettes hot, warm or cold with cream or custard or ice cream - whichever way you choose you will be delighted :))