The Sobremesa 22.

cherry almond galette

Pies may be the most underrated dessert out there.

If you’ve been following this newsletter for a little while, you may be saying to yourself, HAVEN’T YOU TALKED ABOUT PIES ENOUGH ALREADY, LADY?! And yes, I have talked about them quite a bit, but I just don’t think you really get it yet. And it’s bugging me. So I’m here to spread the gospel again.

There’s a lot of food trends out there. And NYC is notorious for the long lines to get these cherished goodies. Shoot, even in DC we still see those looooong lines for cupcakes a lil’ Baked&Wired.

One time I heard of a place that just served cookie dough in NYC - yes, that’s all they served, different varieties of cookie dough! How fun is that! A cookie dough aficionado myself, I grabbed my girlfriends and made my trek out there. We got to the door, and was stopped by a literal professional bouncer “Excuse me m’am, where do you think you’re going?” “Oh, I’m just trying to get some cookie dough….am I in the wrong spot?” I answered, confused. “The line is over there.” And sure enough, there was a line about 2 BLOCKS LONG down the street….and in the POURING RAIN to boot. We decided to leave and go buy a log of Tollhouse at the Duane Reade instead. I’ll never know how good that dough was….

So unlike it’s hotter dessert cousins like the edible cookie dough, the cronut, or the cupcake - you’re never going to see a line wrapping around a street corner for a slice of pie.

But WHY!?

I have theories:

1. You’ve had a lot of bad pies: Pies are all about the dough, and most people are intimidated to make the dough. So, they go out and buy one from the supermarket, and those of course are…meh.

2. You overdid it on Thanksgiving: We all love a good traditional food. For Americans, that’s pie on Thanksgiving. You’re so excited for the pie that you only eat this one time of year, that you therefore eat a ton of it and don’t want it again until next year.

Why do I love pie?

1. You can get creative: There’s so many varieties you can play up with different seasonal fruits, creams, nuts, herbs, etc.

2. You can eat that for all meals of the day: They’re not too sweet and usually made with fruit - sounds like breakfast to me.

3. People are impressed when you make them: see point 1 under theories.

4. They make me feel warm and fuzzy: You know the ooey gooey feelings you get on Thanksgiving when you’re served a slice of pie. Imagine feeling that all year around.

But I get it, making a whole pie is … a lot.

So once I discovered the galette, my whole world opened up. Essentially, they are the lazy person’s pie. You don’t even need a pie plate, you don’t need to do do any fancy crimping technique, and you don’t need to figure out how you’re going to find 8-10 people to feed.

Once you learn to make the dough yourself, you’ll be whipping these bad boys out all the time. I find pies to be the most creatively flexible desserts. Just on Monday I was thinking “what am I going to do with this weird bag of frozen cherries in my freezer?” and BAM, duh, I’ll put them in this galette.

I can also easily adapt a galette recipe to make a few small ones, or one big one. So, if I have some fruit in the house, a hankering for something sweet, and an hour to kill, I’m definitely making a galette.

I altered my normal pie dough recipe to make it more almond-y. But you can easily adapt to make it all 100% all-purpose. Just don’t do 100% almond flour, as it won’t bind correctly and you’ll end up with a crumbly mess instead.

I’m now making Instagram Reels of all my recipes. I know, I was impressed with myself also! Check it out to see the recipe from start to finish.

Cherry Almond Galette

serves 6-8 or serves 2 over two days because it’s on my counter and we cannot stop sticking a fork in it and taking bites all day.

Ingredients

Almond-y Pie Dough

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup almond flour (if you don’t have almond flour, just do 100% AP or 50/50% AP and whole wheat)

1/2 cup unsalted butter (aka 1 stick), a bit cold but not quite room temperature

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

up to 1/3 cup ice cold water

Cherry Almond Filling

1 lb frozen dark sweet cherries

1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling

Juice of ½ lemon

Topping

1 egg white to make the crust glossy

1/3 cup crushed almonds

Let’s do it!

1. Set your oven to 375 F.

2. Let’s start with your filling: Run water over your frozen cherries until they dethaw. Dump in a bowl, and add cornstarch (this allows the fruit to bind), sugar, and lemon juice. Mix it up and let it hang out on your counter while you make the dough.

   

3. Dough time! Check out my Instagram and select the Pies Highlight to see the video tutorials if my words aren’t cutting it.

4. Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium bowl. Cut your stick of butter into chunks and add to the flour mixture (remember, butter should be cold, but not rock hard either).

5. Pick up handfuls of the butter / flour in both hands, and in a squeezing motion, mush together and then work off your fingers back into the bowl. Repeat this motion over and over again until the dough makes little pea shaped balls and there are no “dusty” flour bits left. You don’t want to overwork this though.

6. Add ice cold water, sprinkling over dough mixture. Start with a little less than 1/3 cup, adding up to 1/3 cup if the dough feels too dry still. Feel it out. If you accidentally add to much water and it feels super wet, don’t worry! Just add some more flour to balance it out.

7. Lightly toss until it starts to come together. You do not want to work with the mixture much. Then form into a ball.

8. Rest a damp cold towel / paper towel over the dough ball in the bowl and put it in the fridge for 10 mins to rest.

9. Take a pie cloth or a piece of parchment paper lightly dusted in flour and put it on a flat surface.

10. Take your dough ball out of the fridge. Here you have flexibility to make one big ass galette, or two smaller ones (for two, just divide the dough in half). I decided to make a big ass galette today.

11. Take your ball and flatten it out with your hands as much as you can so it’s in a nice and even pancake. Place on the parchment paper and with a rolling pin (or a full wine bottle works too!) roll out the dough until is is fairly thin. Remember, what’s cool about a galette is that it doesn’t have to be a perfect circle or have super smooth edges. It’s kinda meant to be ugly. It’s beautiful on the inside and that’s all that matters.

    

12. Place the dough on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

13. Take your fruit mixture and put it in the center (along with some of the juices at the bottom) fold over edges.

14. Brush the outside with egg whites, then scatter your crushed almonds on the dough, then sprinkle all around dough generously with sugar.

15. Bake for 40-45 minutes, turning the tray around halfway to get an even bake. You’ll know it’s finished when the crust is a nice golden brown and if you lift it up a bit, the bottom will be slightly brown as well.

    

And there you go!

If you really wanna do this galette justice, top it with some fresh whipped cream or a side of vanilla ice cream.

Or, if you’re an animal like me, just take forkfuls straight from the pan every time you pass through the kitchen. No judgement here.

Happy baking, love ya mucho.

Tessa