Kitchens Are Monkey Business: Rosie Makes A Fruit Galette.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Rosie Makes A Fruit Galette.

When Mr. Hawthorne visited his Mommie
last weekend for her birthday,
he stopped at Aldi's
and brought home blueberries for $1.49/pint
and strawberries for $1.39/pint.
I wanted to use up the blueberries,
not freeze them, so I'm making a fruit galette.
I've made this before, using a different berry combo,
when the Little Hawthornes were home.
I left it out that night and when I woke up the next morning,
there was nothing left except a dirty plate for me to wash.
Should have seen that one coming.
I don't know what I was thinking, except that I wasn't.

Galette Dough:
This makes enough for two 8-inch galettes.
3 TB buttermilk (You could substitute sour cream, yogurt, or creme fraiche,
but if you don't have buttermilk on hand,
I don't imagine you'd have homemade creme fraiche.)
1/3 cup ice water 1 cup flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
7 TB cold unsalted butter, cut into small dice
To Make The Dough:
Mix buttermilk and ice water.
Set aside.
Thoroughly mix flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt.
Drop diced butter pieces into mixture.
Using a pastry blender, work the butter into the flour mixture.
Most recipes tell you to aim for a "coarse meal" texture.
I'm telling you not to.
You want different sizes of butter bits,
from bread crumbs to small peas.
The smaller pieces will give you a tender dough,
the larger pieces will give you a flaky dough.
Sprinkle the cold buttermilk and ice water mixture over the dough,
a tablespoon at a time, mixing with a fork to evenly distribute it.
After adding the liquid, the dough should be moist enough
so you can gather it together and it will stick when pressed.
(If not, add additional ice water, 1 teaspoon at a time.)
Turn the dough out of the bowl, divide it in half,
and press each piece into a disk.
Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Assembly:
1 galette dough disk
2 cups mixed fresh fruit
turbinado sugar for sprinkling
1 TB sourwood honey from the Blue Ridge Mountains
1 TB cold unsalted butter
Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Place dough on lightly floured surface
and roll it into an 11-inch circle, about 1/8 inch thick.
This is a soft dough, so every now and then,
lift it up, throw some flour on it, and flip.
Roll up the dough around your rolling pin
and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Be sure your baking sheet has sides,
since this thing is going to leak.
Spread the berries over the dough,
piling up in the center, and leaving a 2- to 3-inch border.
Sprinkle a tablespoon or so of the turbinado suga
r over the fruit and drizzle on the honey.
Top fruit with slivers of butter.
Fold the uncovered border of dough up over the filling,
allowing the dough to pleat as you lift it up,
working your way around the galette.
Dip a pastry brush in water and give the crust a light coating.
Sprinkle the crust with more turbinado sugar.
Bake for 35- 45 minutes, or until pastry is crisp and golden.
Let galette rest 10 minutes before serving.

Combine the dry ingredients first: flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt.

Mix dry ingredients, then add in butter pats
. I toss them to coat with flour,
then squish a bit with my fingers to get it started.

Then I work on it with my pastry blender.
You do NOT want a homogeneous mixture.
You want bread crumbs to peas.

Fork in the liquid mixture a tablespoon at a time.

Gather the soft, malleable dough into a ball,
resisting the temptation to knead it or over-work it in any way.

Slice in half.
Notice the butter bits.

Press each half into a disk, cover in plastic,
and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Lightly flour your work area.

Roll the dough out to an 11-inch circle.
I dusted with flour and flipped it over a few times
to get a more even dough.

Roll the dough up around the rolling pin and ...

... unroll on prepared baking sheet.

It's ready for filling now.

Fresh pineapple.

Dice the pineapple.

I'm using a cup each of blueberries and pineapple.

I tossed the pineapple in a 1/4 cup light brown sugar
then added them to my pan on medium high heat
with a tablespoon or two of melted butter.

Cook, stirring constantly for about 2 minutes.

Now, here comes the fun part.
REMOVE pan from open flame.
Pour in about 1/4 cup rum.
Return to flame.
Tilt pan forward and swirl to ignite.
Let flame die out by itself.
Enjoy the flames.

Return pan to heat.
If you're new to flambe-ing,
I suggest you have a fire extinguisher on hand.
Everyone should have fire extinguishers.
Consider that my Public Service Announcement for the day.

I placed my pineapples on the dough first ...

... then added the blueberries.

I wanted a little more color in here,
so I used one strawberry, sliced.
If you're going to use strawberries in this,
I suggest you do so sparingly.
They're too watery.

Pretty! Pretty!

Don't want any of that pan sauce to go to waste.

A tablespoon of only the very best honey ever -
Mr. Hawthorne's sourwood honey he gets from back home.

You owe it to yourself to have turbinado sugar around. Turbinado sugar is a less processed, more natural brown sugar, made from partially refining sugar cane. Your processed brown sugar is made by adding molasses to fully refined sugar. The crystals of turbinado sugar are much larger than other sugars and are golden brown in color. Turbinado sugar comes from the first pressing of the sugar cane, sort of an extra virgin sugar, and it retains some of the molasses flavor, which is a natural byproduct of the sugar process. The term "turbinado" comes from the technique used in making this sugar. The sugar is spun in a cylinder or turbine.

About a tablespoon of the turbinado sugar.

Top with pats of butter.

Fold up sides, letting them pleat naturally.

Thusly.

Brush with water.

And give it another sprinkling of the turbinado.

The turbinado is a very nice finishing touch.
Did I tell you about the rum truffles I made for Christmas?
I rolled them in turbinado sugar and they were da bombe.