Plum Galette

Holding onto summer as much as I still can with this quintessential summer dessert: Plum Galette. The weekend is about to get a lot better!!

If making pie crust gives you the willy-nillies, then galettes are for you! With a galette, you get all the greatness of homemade pie crust, without any of the stress cause there’s no crimping or decorating pressure involved. Hooray!

Now, let’s talk plums. Do you love ‘em? I really, really do, even if they don’t exactly love me (I’m kind of allergic to all stone fruit, but when they’re cooked I can usually have them) and they are certainly cooked to perfection in this lovely and homey little treat.

Generally I stick with this dough as my go-to, but this time I tried another one that has a bit of sour cream and cornmeal in the mix and it was absolutely delish too—maybe just the teensiest bit harder to roll out, but that may have been the humidity-just know that you can sub in any single crust pie dough recipe you prefer and it’ll be great!

Anyhoo, after you’ve rolled out your dough, you arrange the plum slices in concentric circles—

Fold up the dough any which way over the plums and sprinkle with a little sugar and butter cubes—

Brushing the dough with an egg wash (for added color) and sprinkling with some turbinado sugar (for added sweetness and crunch) in the process. Now it’s time to bake!

Golden flaky pie crust barely covering bursting-with-juiciness plums—guys. this is so, so mouth-wateringly delicious! And remember, no worries about the juices that overflow and escape—this is supposed to look homemade and rustic. Plus, after that first bite, I really don’t think you will hear any complaints!!

The galette is wonderful on its own

And of course, even more heavenly with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Happy still-summer weekend!!!

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Plum Galette

Makes at least 8 servings

You don’t absolutely need a food processor to make the dough but it is very nice to have one for this.

Prep Time for dough: 10 minutes, plus at least 2 hours chilling time and time to roll it out; Prep Time for filling: 15 minutes; Assembly Time: 10-12 minutes; Bake Time: About 35 minutes

Ingredients

For the dough

• 2 tablespoons sour cream

• 2 tablespoons ice-cold water

• 1 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for rolling out the dough

• ¼ cup yellow cornmeal

• 1 rounded teaspoon sugar

• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into cubes and chilled

For the filling

• 8 fresh plums, pitted and sliced into eighths

• 4 tablespoons sugar, divided

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

• 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water for egg wash

• 1 tablespoon cold butter, cut into cubes

• Turbinado sugar

The Recipe

1. To make the dough: In a small bowl, whisk the sour cream and cold water together and set aside. In the large bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, pulse together the flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt. Add the butter and pulse 12 times, until the mixture is crumbly. Drizzle the sour cream mixture over the dough and pulse again, just until the dough comes together—be careful not to over mix. (if you don’t have a food processor, you can do all of this by hand in a large bowl with a pastry blender.)

2. Gather the dough together and flatten it into a thick disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for about 2 hours until firm. You can do this a day ahead but take the dough out of the fridge for about 20 minutes to let it soften up so that you can work with it easily.

3. When you are ready to make the galette, preheat the oven to 350ºF and turn a large rimmed baking sheet upside down and place a sheet of parchment paper over it. Set aside.

4. Lightly flour a board and rolling pin and the top of the dough and roll it out into a rough 13 inch circle, adding a bit more flour underneath the dough and loosening it from the board as you go to prevent it from sticking. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet and pop the whole thing into the fridge.

5. To make the filling: Mix the plums, 3 tablespoons of the sugar and the cornstarch together in a large bowl and set aside.

6. Remove the dough from the fridge and arrange the plum slices in concentric circles on the dough, draining the liquid that accumulates in the bowl and leaving about a 2-inch border from the edges. Now fold up the dough around the plums, kind of pleating it as you go. Sprinkle the plums with the remaining tablespoon of sugar and brush the folded over dough with the egg wash. Sprinkle some turbinado sugar on the dough.

7. Bake the galette for about 35 minutes, turning it around after about 20 minutes so that it cooks evenly. Galette is done when pastry is golden brown and fruit is bubbly. Let cool on the pan on a wire rack for at least half an hour if you want to cut neat slices—I won’t judge you if you can’t wait! Serve as is or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Note: Recipe adapted from The Model Bakery Cookbook by Karen Mitchell and Sarah Mitchell Hansen. I stayed pretty true to the dough recipe but subbed in black plums for the red ones, used water instead of heavy cream for the egg wash as well as the whole egg and sprinkled on some turbinado sugar on the crust before baking.