Now is the perfect moment for making these rustic pastries.
Last weekend, Andrew was delighted to be back baking after a long winter hiatus. And the first thing he baked was a stone fruit galette. It brought back memories of the individual galettes he had made some years ago. And I thought it was time to bring back this phenomenal recipe from Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Andrew was delighted with the nectarines he found at Costco and he paired them with some beautiful blueberries he also found there. When it comes to baking, I am very reluctant to say any recipe is “easy”. Baking, the science, can be very unforgiving. But a galette doesn’t involve a perfectly rolled-out crust neatly piped around the edges. And you can put almost any fruit into it. You can use local peaches and cherries later in the season or sliced apples or pears. It’s worth keeping this recipe on hand all summer long.
Tartine is both a marvelous cookbook and a great Bakery in San Francisco.
When Elisabeth “Liz” Prueitt and Chad Robertson were students at the Culinary Institute of 
America in Hyde Park, NY, students were paired alphabetically by last name. Guess who sat together? They started their baking careers in the tiny kitchen of their Victorian cottage in Marin County, CA. 9 years later, they opened their first storefront Bakery. Tartine Bakery (600 Guerrero St. San Francisco CA 94110 Tel: (415) 487 2600 was both a neighborhood bakery and café smack in the center of the city. The couple has gone on to create a baking empire with 3 Bakeries in San Francisco, 5 in Los Angeles, and 6 in South Korea! Today’s recipe was from the original Tartine Cookbook (Chronicle Books 2006). That book was revised in 2019 when Chronicle Books published “Tartine: A Classic Revisited:69 All-New Recipes + 55 Updated Favorites”. It joins no fewer 
than 5 other Tartine cookbooks.
What to know before you bake…
Lis and Chad are experts at explaining a recipe. But they do it in such detail that at first glance it looks quite intimidating. As an observer, I was astonished at how easily the crust came together. So don’t be put off. Just reading through the recipe should make you feel more confident. A word about the flour: Pastry Flour will give you the best crust. However, you can certainly use All-Purpose Flour to achieve a lovely, buttery flaky crust. And it will be worth the effort. Filled with beautiful fresh fruit and coated with demerara sugar, it’s best served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Here’s the recipe and some other stone fruit recipes to try.
Stone Fruit Galettes from Tartine Bakery
Flaky pastry, beautiful fresh fruit sprinkled with demerara sugar best served warm with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream.
Ingredients
- For the Dough:
- 2 cups (1 lb.) unsalted butter, very cold
- 1 cup water
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 2/3 cups pastry flour
- OR
- 5 cups of all-purpose flour
- For the Filling:
- About 6 cups fruit (peaches, nectarines, apricots, berries, sautéed apples or pears – your choice), cut up if necessary.
- Demerara sugar
- For the Egg wash:
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon cream
Directions
- Step 1 To make the dough, cut the butter into 1-inch cubes and put them in the freezer. Measure the water, dissolve the salt into it, and put it into the freezer as well. Chill both for about 10 minutes.
- Step 2 Measure the flour onto a large, flat work surface and spread into a rectangle about 1cm thick. Scatter the butter cubes over the flour and toss a little flour over the butter so that your rolling pin won’t stick, and begin rolling.
- Step 3 When the butter starts flattening out into long, thin pieces, use a bench scraper to scoop up the sides of the rectangle so that it is the size that you started with. Repeat the rolling and scraping 3 or 4 times.
- Step 4 Make a well in the center and pour all of the water into it. Using the bench scraper, scoop the sides of the dough into the center, cutting the water through the dough. Keep scraping and cutting until the dough is a shaggy mass and shaped into a rectangle.
- Step 5 Lightly dust the top with flour and roll out the rectangle until it is half as large again, then scrape the top, bottom and sides together to the original size and re-roll. Repeat 3 or 4 times until you have a smooth and cohesive dough. Transfer the rectangle of dough to a large baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.
- Step 6 While the dough is chilling, prepare the fruit. Hull berries, pit the peaches, and cut into eighths, etc. depending on the fruit you are using.
- Step 7 When you are ready to roll the dough, divide it into 2 equal portions if making large galettes or 12 equal portions for small ones. Roll the dough into circle shapes by rolling from the center to each end, not flattening the end points. Turn the pastry so the flattened out corners are at the top and bottom. Again, roll from the center towards the points nearest and farthest to you, stopping short of the top and bottom. Roll the thicker areas and you will begin to see a circle forming. Transfer to baking sheets and chill for 10 minutes.
- Step 8 Fill the center of each dough circle with fruit, leaving a 5cm edge uncovered on the large galettes or a 2cm edge on the small ones. Taste the fruit for sweetness and determine how much sugar you want to use to sweeten it. Sprinkle with granulated sugar, typically using 2-4 tablespoons for large galettes and 1-2 teaspoons for each small. Fold in the sides of the circle to cover the fruit partially. Chill for another 10 minutes.
- Step 9 In the meantime, preheat the oven to 375ºF. To make the egg wash, whisk egg yolk and cream in a small bowl. Crush the egg wash over the pastry edges and then sprinkle with Demerara sugar.
- Step 10 Bake the galettes until the crust has visibly puffed and baked to dark brown and the juice from the fruit is bubbling inside – 45-60 minutes for large galettes and 40-50 minutes for small galettes. Rotate the baking sheets at the midway point to ensure even baking. Remove from the oven and serve hot or at room temperature.
Here are some other Stone Fruit Recipes to try…
