Indulge in fresh, ripe fruit with this peach and red plum galette! Luscious peaches and juicy red plums are baked with a touch of honey, cinnamon, walnut, and vanilla, and surrounded by a classic galette pastry. This recipe gives you rustic comfort and rich fruit flavor, all in one dish.
September is one of the best times to visit a farmers market, and this week, our town’s market had rows of fresh peaches and plums. I love to take advantage of fruit at this time of year, because it makes me feel like I’m stretching out summer and holding onto it a little longer. Fresh peaches and plums taste so good and juicy all own their own, but yesterday, I needed to bake.
Baking touches something deep in my soul. Deeper than I can really explain. To roll out dough gives me such comfort. I cannot really understand it, I can only honor this impulse. It must have something to do with my ancestors, with my genetics. Not everyone has this love of baking, though I think most everyone has something like this, something that they love to do and feel compelled to do.
I am not a fancy baker or a formally trained baker. I guess I would say I am a rustic baker. I like to make fruit pies and galettes, hearty bread, pizza. Cookies and muffins. My training comes mainly from relatives, like my mother, mother-in-law, grandmothers, aunts, and a couple of friends. Stories shared, sunny afternoons in my mother’s kitchen, cozy winter afternoons in grandma’s kitchen, or in my husband’s grandma’s kitchen. I can picture these places in my memory– aprons, beautiful aprons, countertops covered in flour, dishes in the sink, laughter….
So in making this galette, besides doing it for my family, and to share this delicious recipe with you all, I did it for me. Not just to eat, though I already had a piece, and it was delicious! But for the sheer comfort of making it. The floury mess, the glorious smells of the dough and fruit baking, the texture of the dough taking shape in my hands. It has been a challenging week, with my kids and I getting over colds, and I needed to do something to ground myself to the earth. Slicing ripe peaches and plums, rolling out dough, these are things I can do and feel like I am making a positive impact on the world.
To me, at the risk of sounding a little corny, baking is part science, part art, and part entering into the mystery of the universe. Crossing the threshold of time and space and feeling connected to those I have lost or lost touch with. It helps me leave my over-active mind behind, and quiet it by working with my hands in an ancient skill.
This recipe is loosely adapted from a lovely book my daughter and husband checked out from our local library: Country Living Pies & Tarts published by Hearst Books in 2016. In my recipe, I substituted some red plums instead of using all peaches, and I used walnuts and vanilla instead of almonds and almond extract, because I did not have any almonds on hand. I can imagine that would taste great too.
I hope you all have a great weekend, and enjoy this time of year! If you have something you really like to do, something that helps give your life meaning and value, I hope you can do it. I heard we are supposed to get a break in the heat and humidity here this weekend, so I am looking forward to that! Fiesta Friday is also going on right now, co-hosted by Angie and Judi @ CookingWithAuntJuju, whose blogs have some wonderful recipes and photos!
Peach and Red Plum Galette
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of unbleached all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 10 tablespoons of cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 3 to 5 tablespoons of cold water
- 1/2 cup of walnuts (raw almonds can also be used)
- 1/2 cup of confectioners’ sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (almond extract if you are using almonds instead of walnuts)
- 4 medium fresh, ripe peaches, peeled and sliced
- 4 red fresh, ripe red plums, peeled and sliced
- 2 tablespoons of honey
- 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the flour, granulated sugar, and salt. Add the cold butter pieces, and with a pastry cutter, cut in the butter. Continue to mix with the pastry cutter until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Add the cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and stir with a wooden spoon until a dough forms. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, place the walnuts (or almonds) and confectioners’ sugar in a blender or food processor. Blend till it is a fine meal. Add the egg yolk and vanilla (or almond extract) and blend again. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the peach slices, plum slices, honey, and cinnamon. Set aside.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a 14-inch circle. Gently place it in a standard sized pie baking dish, letting the extra dough hang over the sides for now. Carefully spread the walnut (or almond) paste over the dough, including up the sides. Add the peach and plum mixture. Then fold the edges of the dough over the fruit mixture, forming a flat pie with about a 2-inch border. This is a rustic dish, so it doesn’t have to look perfect! Lightly brush the dough with water and sprinkle with some granulated sugar. Bake in your preheated oven for about 45 to 50 minutes, or until the crust is golden and flaky, and the fruit is bubbling. Let it cool for a few minutes before slicing. Enjoy!
This recipe is loosely adapted from the book Country Living Pies &Tarts, published by Hearst Communications, 2016.
The sweetness of the blueberries and black raspberries (and some sugar) balance the tartness of the cherries to make a mouth-watering fruit filling full of flavor and those much-sought-after antioxidants. The biscuit topping is golden and moist, pairing beautifully with the fruit. I really notice a difference in taste when I bake with high quality butter, and butter from grass-fed cows is gaining popularity as a relatively healthy fat. With just a few basic ingredients, this cobbler is easy to make and tastes impressive.
My favorite thing about this dessert, aside from the luscious flavor, is that much of the fruit came from my very own yard! Our wonderful cherry trees gave us even more fruit than we expected, allowing me to make two cobblers, a few batches of breakfast jars, and a smoothie with them, and our black raspberries are coming along nicely! I wish I could say I picked the blueberries in this cobbler, but those I did buy from the grocery store, yet they were still sweet and juicy. In any case, seasonal fruit tastes better than candy in my book, and it reminds me to savor the moment, because each season is fleeting.
I hope you are all having a great summer so far. It has been very sunny, but much drier than usual here lately. We finally got some rain last night, and the air smells so fresh, especially since the storms cooled things off. We had an interesting Fourth of July–we got to go for a sail with my brother’s family in his boat, out to a sandbar near a small island. He put down the anchor and we all went swimming off of the boat in gorgeous, cold, clear water. That evening, we hiked a mile at dusk to the top of a hill in a nature preserve, overlooking a lake. Someone from the preserve had a campfire going, and we roasted marshmallows and ate s’mores while the fireworks showered dazzling colors over the lake. Then we hiked down in the dark woods by flashlight. It was amazing to be surrounded by so much natural beauty, up in northern Michigan for a few days.
