The Baker’s Apprentice: Galette

Emily Weinstein, who wrote a series on this blog about learning to cook, is now learning to bake with the food writer and cookbook author Dorie Greenspan.

LESSON 5: SABLÉ BRETON GALETTE (From “Around My French Table” by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton-Mifflin, 2010)

I almost didn’t bake this galette — or, rather, these galettes. I made two of them to serve to the 11 friends who would be eating brisket at my apartment on Saturday night. Dorie’s recipe is a take on Sable Breton cookies, producing a buttery, salty crossbreed of cookie and tart cake. As someone who salts everything to excess, who thinks sweet and salty are the yin and yang of the dessert world, this idea sang to me. And Dorie’s galette seemed simple but sophisticated, a malleable dessert that could be dressed up or down, fussy when decorated, humble when served plain. “You can even put it in the center of the table and have everyone break off pieces,” she said. Perfect.

But the brisket, divvied up between three pots that took up the whole oven, needed every last minute to braise. The galettes would have to be rolled out quickly in between courses, on cluttered counters — every last dish, utensil, glass, wine glass, soup bowl, tea cup and jar in the kitchen was in use. Then I’d have to fit the dough into the buttered tart pan just so.

As my friend and I stood at the stove moving the brisket from pots to cutting boards I realized just how dumb this galette plan was. It was not a good time to do anything that required a rolling pin, a clean workspace and a delicate touch. Also, the galettes were to bake in tart pans with removable bottoms, which I had never used before, and I was a bit anxious at the thought of trying to carefully remove the cakes from the pans, what with the music, the noise, the people, the booze, all in the small space that is my kitchen-living room-dining area.

“Maybe I shouldn’t bake the galettes,” I said to her quietly. I was becoming anxious. “No one will know the difference.” I had already messed up the apples I planned to serve on top of the galette, poaching them to mush. At this point I was prepared to concede the rest of the battle. There was ice cream in the freezer and chocolate chips on the shelf. Everyone would be fine.

But I had already made the dough that morning, two galettes’ worth, and left them in the refrigerator to chill. And after a few more minutes of hopping around the kitchen I just sort of figured, well, if they turn out badly we just won’t eat them.

“The object here is to fit the dough into your buttered tart pan,” Dorie had told me. “How you get there is between you and the dough. This is a case in which the journey is not as important as the destination.” Her method: put the dough between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper and start rolling from the center out. Once it’s close to the size of the pan, stop, and fit it into the pan by pressing with your fingertips. You want it to be pressed into the pan’s little flutes, with the top fairly flat. Leaving the chilled disc of dough in plastic wrap, I rolled out each galette — the dough was softer and damper than I expected it to be. It rolled out evenly, and it was easy to place the thick round into the pan and finish with my fingers.

More tips from Dorie:

Be sure the chill the dough for at least three hours, up to a few days.

Preheat the oven before you start rolling.

Bake the galette on a lined baking sheet – the baking sheet evens out the oven’s heat and makes getting the tart pan in and out of the oven easy; the lining is there to catch any butter that might seep out of the pan.

Let the galette cool completely before serving.

The galettes came out of the oven golden brown, their surface slightly porous. I flipped each face down onto a cooling rack, and then right side up again, removing the fluted ring of the tart pan without drama.

They were buttery, salty, a bit chewy and astonishingly easy for how lovely they looked — so easy that they could be made when your guests are sitting right there. I sliced each into wedges, as though it were pie, and topped each piece with vanilla ice cream and the reduced spiced syrup from the botched apples (the recipe for those are below too), which I left on the stove at least another 20 minutes until it formed a thick sauce.

“My favorite recipe so far in our project!” I wrote to Dorie.

“I thought it would be a good one for you to have because you’ll be able to make it your own and play with it in every season,” she replied.

This is the best kind of recipe, I’ve realized: a template you can master and make over and over again, fancy enough to serve, simple enough to make for yourself whenever you feel like it.