All About Apple Galette

For this past Saturday night’s picnic in the graveyard to see All About Eve, my sister, Claire, was charged with making dessert. Earlier in the week she had asked for ideas. The question came after I’d enjoyed a couple gin and tonics one night. “Obviously, you should make apple galette,” I said, having never made one myself. “Why, obviously?” she asked. “You know,” I said, “All About Eve? The apple?” And then I forgot about it. But Claire did not. She is a good sport that way. And my lordy does she have a way with pastry dough. To say nothing of apple arrangement!

The recipe follows, with one extra-special Claire flair…

She arranged the apples on a bed of apricot preserves with Sauternes, which, I might add have also jazzed up one of my billion dollar brown rice rolls today as an afternoon snack:

Apple Galette, Bon Appétit, September 2006

This recipe is inspired by a tart from Chez Panisse in Berkeley.

Yield: Makes 8 to 10 servings
Total Time: 3 Hours

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons (or more) ice water

1 1/2 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices
4 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
1/4 cup apricot preserves
Whole milk

Preparation
Blend flour and salt in processor. Add butter and blend, using on/off turns, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 2 tablespoons ice water and blend just until dough begins to clump together, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic and chill 1 hour. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep dough chilled. Soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.

Roll out dough between sheets of parchment paper to 1/8-inch-thick round, 14 inches in diameter. Remove top sheet of parchment. Using bottom sheet as aid, transfer dough on parchment to large unrimmed baking sheet. Chill 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Combine apple slices, 2 tablespoons sugar, and lemon peel in medium bowl; toss to blend. Spread preserves over crust, leaving 1 1/2-inch plain border. Arrange apple slices in concentric circles atop preserves, overlapping slightly. Using parchment as aid, fold plain crust border up over apples, pinching any cracks in crust. Brush crust with milk. Sprinkle crust edges and apples with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake galette 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F and continue baking until crust is golden, about 30 minutes longer. Remove from oven. Slide long thin knife between parchment and galette. Let stand at least 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.

Flour Power

In the spirit of friendship, I won’t reveal the source but suffice it to say that if you should come across a recipe for Brown Rice Sandwich Rolls that purports itself to be “better than anything you can buy,” I’d take it with a grain of brown rice flour. It’s not that the resulting bread is bad. It’s just that it’s not that great. You know, it was perfectly fine but not mind-blowing. Maybe I’m just sore that I had to go to four stores (Whole Foods, Ralphs, Surfas, Erewhon—in that order) to buy $34 worth of assorted gluten-free flours, gluten-free rice milk and xanthan gum (note, if you need potato flour you WILL have to brave Erewhon and that whole freaky juice bar scene)…

And this in addition to all the ingredients I already had in the pantry (warm water, fine salt and baking soda, not pictured).

Still, I liked the idea of it—a high-fiber, high-protein gluten-free bread to send to school with Tiny G. And truth be told, Tiny G gobbled up a roll spread with hummus for dinner last night, so in a sense it’s a victory??? And as bread recipes go, it was pretty easy to make.

But I don’t think this is EXACTLY what Mr. Foodinista had in mind when I said we’d be having leftover grilled steak sandwiches for dinner…

And so, add to my tab the postprandial $19.27 that I spent on amazon.com for Kim Boyce’s new Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole Grain Flours, in hopes of using all those bags upon bags of whole grain flour staring at me from my kitchen counter. Boyce is a former pastry chef from Spago and Campanile, so I’m super excited to try her recipes. OR—if you have any favorites that call for brown rice flour, white rice flour, buckwheat flour, tapioca flour, potato flour, vanilla-flavored gluten-free rice milk and xanthan gum, I’m all ears.