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!

Sticky Toffee Maple Sticky Buns for Maine Maple Sunday March 24th

OH MY!!!!! You do need to try these!!

When I first started baking I was leery of trying anything with yeast as it seemed so complicated and I thought you needed a degree in baking to make it work but slowly over the years I have tried more and more yeasted recipes and they have started to work for me - this one is a winner and always works out perfectly - won't you try it even if you too are made a little anxious but the mention of using yeast. I am doing these in honour of Maine Maple Sunday March 24th when many of the sugar houses in Maine are open to the public and you can watch the divine elixir being created from thousands of gallons of sap - or as in my own case from a couple of gallons :)

Yes the sap does get frozen in the tap on these chilly March nights. Each year I tap my one big maple tree and 'sugar down' on our trusty wood stove so we end up with a quart or so of our own lovely Maple Syrup - yum!!!!

For the best Sticky Buns EVER - gleaned from the best magazine EVER, British Country Living - I give you:

 Sticky Toffee Sticky Maple Bunnage Galore

RECIPE: Makes 12 buns – recipe easily cuts in half for 6 (I made a half recipe for this post and it worked perfectly) – you can replace any maple syrup with sugar if you don't have maple syrup on hand.

First make the Sticky Toffee Maple Sauce – this is so good you can put it on anything sweet – ice cream, cakes – anything! This is quite a lot of sticky deliciousness so you can pour more over the buns when they come out of the oven…YUM!!!! If you like your buns very sticky double the recipe - I know you'll always manage to find some way to use any that's leftover!!

10oz weight/ 1 scant cup maple syrup – preferably from Maine for it is Maine Maple Sunday March 24^th!! 

6oz butter/ 12 tablespoons – I prefer salted for that great salted caramel taste 

8 tablespoons of heavy/double cream or half and half 

1. Put all 3 ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a simmering boil until it starts to thicken and the bubbles are dense and lighter in colour.
2. Allow to cool while you make the buns.

3. Using about ½ of the sauce put about 1 tablespoon sauce into each space of 12 muffin pans OR cover the bottom of two 9” cake pans – I show pics of doing it both ways.

STICKY TOFFEE BUNS – oh my SOOOO good – like a really light brioche bread!!!

INGREDIENTS: 

1 tablespoon of active dry yeast

1 teaspoon maple syrup - again you can use sugar

6 fl. ozs/2/3 cup/150ml  warm almost hot to the touch water (the recipe uses milk but I find water is fine)

1. Mix these 3 ingredients together in a bowl/jug and allow to sit in a warm place for about 10 minutes to get all bubbly, creamy and gorgeous: 

Let your yeast mix bubble to this kind of amount - even if takes longer than 10 minutes - I have found this amount of bubble-age is the key to getting yeasted recipes to work well. if your yeast isn't bubbling after say 15 minutes either your yeast is old or your liquid wasn't warm enough - put the bottom of the jug/bowl into a bowl of warm water and see if that activates it.

My ingredients warming on the shelf of the wood stove - purring gently!

Everything should be at room temperature to help better activate the yeast.

1 pound/500g unbleached white flour sifted

Large pinch of salt

2oz weight maple syrup or sugar

2 large eggs beaten

4oz/1 stick softened butter – again I use salted but you can use unsalted if you want.

If you want to use nuts toast 4ozs or even 6ozs if you like a lot of nuts in a 350F oven for a few minutes until fragrant – keep an eye out as they catch and burn very easily – allow to cool – you can use almonds, pecans or walnuts.

1. Sieve flour into a large bowl, stir in the salt and sugar (if using sugar) – for maple syrup make a well in the flour and pour in the maple syrup, eggs, softened butter and yeast mixture and blend until it comes together.

(Remember I only made a half of this recipe so my dough ball looks small)

2. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.

3. Roll the dough into a ball, return to the bowl and cover with a tea towel, place in a warm spot (mine is on the shelf above the wood stove) and allow to double in size which should take about 1 ½ hours.

4. Turn the dough onto refloured surface and knead a little for about a minute.

5. Shape into a rough rectangle – about 14” x 20” I do half the recipe so my rectangle was 7” x 10”ish

6. Spread about 1/3 of the sticky toffee sauce over the centre of the rectangle thus:

7. Sprinkle nuts over if you are using them

8. Roll up the dough from the short side – don’t worry the sauce will ooze as picture below.

9. For full recipe cut into 12 even pieces – it will squush when you are cutting – don’t worry – my half recipe of course I cut into 6 pieces. 

10. Either put them in your cake pan or muffin tins and drizzle more maple syrup/sauce over:

11. Put back to the warm spot uncovered for about ½ until well risen again.

12. Meanwhile warm your oven to 350F and when ready bob in the buns for between 35-40 minutes until well golden brown:

with nuts and....

......without - more maple glaze - or just more plain maple syrup if you prefer - drizzled over the top!!

13. Allow to cool slightly before removing and then devour hot, warm or cold- when still warm drizzle over any remaining sauce –

14. GET THE KETTLE ON!!!!!

Let me know how you do – Happy baking!!! Please feel free to post your baking pictures on my Facebook page.