Galette: (n) a term used in French cuisine to designate various types of flat round or freeform crusty cakes. (wikipedia)
The apple harvest is over. All that is left is to use them. We have several apple trees on our property. Most are heirloom varieties that the names are longer spoken. We do know 2 that are called Wolf rivers. The rest have been forgotten. There ones that George's Pap grafted & have no names. Others were planted by the wildlife.
We didn't get a bounty of apples this year due to the weather & untimely circumstances. I bought apples this year. I procured them from a local orchard. I obtained a mixture of varieties for different purposes. Some kinds are better for baking. Some for fresh eating. Some for storage. I bought Granny Smith, September Wonder, Macintosh & Candy Crisp for baking. I also got a half bushel of Honey Crisps for snacking.
Today was a dreary cold 1st of November. To brighten up my mood about the day, I baked. Baking does something to soothe my soul. It makes me feel like nothing else matters except the good warm feelings that I know will happen when my family eats something I baked. I love to see their facial expressions as they bite into it. They way they pause after they take that first bite to savor the flavors & texture. bliss.
Today was ripe for baking. So I took out 5 apples from my stash & placed them on the table. I gathered the ingredients for the crust. No store-bought pre-made crusts here. Homemade with lard & butter. Yep. I'll repeat that for you. Lard & butter. I do use my Kitchen Aid food processor to help make the crust. With the crust done up & sitting on the deep freezer in the mud room to chill, I start peeling, quartering, coring & slicing the apples into a big mixing bowl. Once they are all done, I poured about 1/4 dark maple syrup from a local farm on the slice. Next, I added 1/2 cup of raw sugar, a pinch of cloves & powdered ginger each. A 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon to top off the spices. I did add a 1/4 cup of flour to help keep the juices from becoming too runny.
Now the fun part, putting it all together. I took the dough out of its container & onto the floured counter top. I rolled out the dough into a big thin circle. Not so thin that you could see through it. I folded it into quarters so it was easy to move to my large round baking sheet & unfolded it. I dumped the spicy apple mixture in the middle of the dough careful to leave a couple inches around the outside to fold over. After the edges were folded over the edge of the apple circle, i bushed the dough with milk & sprinkled it with the raw sugar. The final bit is to dot the filling with some butter.
I then put the pan in the cook stove oven. This is where you would put it in your regular oven at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until the outside crust is golden brown. After that, the only thing left to do is sneak into a room & eat it!! Or....or you could share it with your family & friends. My husband suggested a glass of milk to accompany the dessert. I suppose a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some whipped cream would be just fine.
You can follow my thrown-together-recipe as a guideline. I sorta made it up as I was going along. There are plenty of recipes on the internet that are more detailed. As you can see, It turned out pretty good for us.
