apple galette with chocolate & apricot filling

We’re galette crazy here at emandam.  Ok, maybe it’s just me, although I’m pretty sure I heard Emily swooning over a zucchini galette at some point this summer.  Anyway, this isn’t exactly a “galette,” unless you get a bit fancier with the dough folding than I did the few times that I made it – I’m fully capable of fancy-pants galette making, mind you, but I kept having problems with my rolling pin not staying well-floured and it made rolling the dough thin enough rather difficult. Anyway, while mine doesn’t look quite as fancy as a typical galette, yours could, and it’s certainly not a tart (since I don’t have a tart pan), so it’s a galette.  Period, end of discussion.  Harumph.

This is a pretty simple recipe – it’s got a lot of the yumminess of an apple pie, without as much effort.  Although, I do love a good apple pie, and I know that Emily baked one yesterday for something un-emandam-related, so I’m hoping that there will be leftover apple pie in my near future.  Or I might have to make another one of these galettes to satisfy my cravings.  No, I did not just eat an entire galette, thank you very much.  I’m writing up a recipe that I made a while back.

Apple Galette

Adapted from Epicurious

Galette Dough

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 8 TBSP unsalted butter, cold
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3-4 TBSP ice-cold water
  

Galette Filling

• 2-3 apples, preferably a mix of Granny Smith and a firm red apple like Pink Lady or Fuji (you probably won’t use all of the apples, but the mixing of flavors is important, I think)
• 4 TBSP sugar, divided
• Zest of half of a lemon
• Juice of half of a lemon
• dash of nutmeg or cinnamon
• scant 1/3 cup apricot preserves
• 1 to 1.5 oz unsweetened baking chocolate (or use semi-sweet and cut the sugar amount), optional
• Whole milk or egg (for egg wash or milk wash – is milk wash a thing?)

First, make the dough.   Cut up the butter into 1/2 inch to inch cubes and set aside.  Sift together the flour, salt, and sugar.   Pour into a food processor, add the butter, and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.  Alternatively, use a pastry blender to mix the butter with the flour – again, until it resembles a coarse meal.   Add the cold water a tablespoon at a time, mixing after each tablespoon, just until the dough holds together.  Wrap in plastic-wrap and refrigerate for at least thirty minutes.

Preheat oven to 450.

Core the applies and slice into 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick slices.  Most recipes would tell you to peel them, too, but honestly, I love the flavor of apple peel.  Admittedly, though, it makes it harder to chew gracefully, so if you’re serving this to guests at a fancy-pants party, you might want to peel the apples.  In a medium-sized mixing bowl, toss the sliced apples with the lemon zest, lemon juice, 2 TBSP of the sugar, and a dash of a cinnamon or nutmeg.

Pull the dough out of the fridge when thirty minutes have passed.  Roll it out on a well-floured surface until it’s about 11-12 inches across.  Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.   If it’s particularly sticky and difficult to work with, you may need to chill the rolled-out dough for about fifteen minutes or so.

Melt the chocolate (if using) and mix in a small bowl with the apricot preserves.   Spread this in the center of the dough, leaving the outermost few inches of the dough uncovered (like a “margin” of un-covered dough).   Top this mixture with the apple mixture, arranging the apples in concentric, relatively attractive circles.  Fold the dough “margin” up over the apples.  If it’s not too sticky, try making pretty folds in the dough so that it looks more like a classic galette.

Using a pastry brush, spread either milk or a beaten egg over the exposed part of the galette dough / future crust.  Sprinkle with the remaining two tablespoons sugar (I found that this was a lot of sugar but tasted delicious – feel free to get out two tablespoons of sugar and just sprinkle until it’s well-covered).

Bake at 450 for 20 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 375.  Bake for another 30 minutes or until crust is golden (check on it at least five minutes early, in case your oven runs hot).   Remove from oven and let cool on sheet for about ten minutes.  Transfer to a cooling rack and cool for at least another fifteen minutes or until you are ready to serve the galette.  Try not to eat the whole thing by yourself.