Apricot Galette

APRICOT GALETTE!  Seems like such a fancy name for an incredibly simple, rustic, yet elegant and delicious dessert. Stone fruits are ideal for this amazing treat, but you can use whatever fruit you have on hand. Berries are also delicious as well as rhubarb.  Similar to a pie or tart, this French pastry can be served as either a sweet or savory indulgence.  Simply substitute fruit with veggies, meat and cheese and you immediately have a delightful and mouthwatering savory dish.  With its flaky and light crust each bite will transport you to a place of total comfort. Let’s follow the simple steps of creating your very own Apricot galette.

 Supplies:

• Metal bucket for ashes. Can be found at any hardware store.
• Marinara Pizza Oven
• Infrared thermometer
• Ash cleaning shovel
• Brass Bristled cleaning brush
• Baking pan

Ingredients:

• 8 ripe apricots
• 300 grams Zoë’s pie dough
• Sugar as needed to sprinkle over the apricots and the crust
• 226 grams cream cheese (1 pack)
• 35 grams corn starch
• 65 grams powdered sugar
• 10 grams vanilla 
• 2 Tablespoons cream
• Zest of one lemon
• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Preheat the Marinara Pizza Oven to 400°F – 204°C
2. We used Zoë François’ pie dough, the one with a twist.  Instead of only using water to make the pie dough we also added a bit of Vodka to the recipe. This is a fun trick we learned from Zoë. You can find the pie dough recipe here.
3. Cut the apricots in half, remove the pit and then with the help of a sharp knife  cut each half into thin slices.  Set the fruit aside for later.
4. For the filling, place the cream cheese into a bowl with the vanilla, pinch of salt and zest of one clean, organic lemon. 
5. Once everything has been thoroughly creamed, add the powered sugar  and the cornstarch and carefully mix into the filling. You may first want to incorporate the dry ingredients without turning on the hand mixer, in order to avoid making the powdery ingredients fly all over the kitchen. 
6. Next, roll out the chilled pie dough into a circle of 14-16 inches – (35.5-40.64 cm) and about 1/8th inch in thickness (3.175 mm). Give the dough slight turns as you roll it out to ensure it from sticking to the work surface and to easily form an almost perfect round shape.
7. Carefully spread the cream cheese filling on the dough, making sure to leave enough of a border along the edge, as shown in the video. This border will later be folded over the fruit as is typical in a galette. 
8. Fan the sliced apricot halves on the cream cheese filling. Avoid placing them on the border the one that will be folded over.
9. Sprinkle a generous amount of sugar over the apricots. Stone fruits tend to become very tart and sour when baked, so do not be shy to use a generous sprinkling of sugar over the fruit. The amount of sweetness is personal.
10. And now the fun part begins. Fold the edge of the dough over the outer layer of the apricots and slightly overlap as shown in the video.
11. With a pastry brush dipped in heavy cream, gently and lightly brush the entire dough, the one resting over the fruit. Sprinkle sugar over the folded, cream brushed dough.
12. With a clean brush take the time to dust the pan from all the sugar that has spread there. Doing this will later make the cleaning of the pan much easier.
13. The galette can now be placed in the refrigerator or even in the freezer for a few minutes. Do this long enough for the butter to set and get cold, as you finish preparing the oven for baking. 
14. Now to the oven floor inside the cooking chamber. At this point it is ideal for the oven temperature to be higher than what it needs to be to bake the galette, even up to 425°F – 218°C. Why?  As you clean the oven floor and take the coals and ashes out, the oven temperature will naturally drop a bit.  This is the reason why you do the cleaning process while the oven is hotter than what is needed for the galette.
15. With the help of the ash shovel pull out all the hot coals and ashes which can easily be removed and place them into a metal bucket next to the oven.  Finish cleaning by brushing the oven floor with the brass-bristled cleaning brush. 
16. Once the oven is cleaned check the temperature of the oven one more time before placing the galette in. Do this easily with the infrared thermometer. It should read about 400°F – 204°C.
17. Our galette can finally be placed in the pre-heated oven. Bake at 400°F – 204°C for abut 30-35 minutes. Open the oven door to check on your galette.  The temperature will probably have dropped to 350°F – 177°C Continue baking an additional 20-25 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. 
18. When the crust is to your liking remove the galette from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy! Buon Appetito! 

Thanks Zoë François for a delicious pie dough recipe.

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