Tuesday 7 July 2009

apricot galette with brown sugar cinnamon pastry.

apricot galette with brown sugar cinnamon pastry

Hello, world.

Remember me? I used to write inane, cheerful and cake-centric food blog posts. It made me rather happy, and the people were lovely, and my friends got to eat lots of sugar, and really everyone was a winner. Apart from my mother, who funded my flour rations. But it was kind of for the greater good, and ultimately, she got a cake like this for her birthday, so who was complaining?

But then the metaphorical winter came. And, er, also the literal winter. And also I went to uni and couldn't really afford that much butter - or, I could afford that much butter, but I couldn't afford all the fresh vegetables and salad to balance it out and prevent, you know, heart disease.

But recently, the sun has come back, and I came home; the summer produce has invoked the drive to put fruit in pastry (I can't look at a piece of fruit without wanting to put it in a tart case! I keep snatching nectarines out of my sister's hand and shouting things like, 'PIE!', overzealously. I'm not even very good with pastry); I began to get sickeningly enthusiastic over cooking for my family again; and I developed this strange tic where I compulsively add lemon zest or juice to just about everything.

I thought about going to some sort of support group over the lemon thing, but when I sounded this out to a couple of people I was forced to conclude that no such group exists.

So I came back to blogging. Please be gentle.

apricots & brown sugar


This galette is the perfect example of my newfound pastry-urges (and hello, it contains the phrase brown sugar cinnamon pastry in its name. Surely you understand). This is a terrible thing to admit, but I don't think I'd eaten a fresh apricot before this - dried apricots, apricot yoghurt, apricot squash; but never the real shebang - but even with my lack of experience, I could tell the ones we had were perfect. I didn't even know when apricots were in season - for the record: right now.

Appearance-wise, this tart was a little less than perfect (one reason I like these freeform galettes; you can say you were going for 'rustic'), but I suspect this is due to my resolutely slicing the apricots rather than just halving them (there wasn't really enough room, but I loved the tumbled effect), not to mention that I just couldn't resist that pastry - brown. sugar. cinnamon. - and there was probably supposed to be a good deal more of it than I, um, ended up with. All the same, the galette I ended up with was not a 'serves 8-10' affair; I'd say closer to six, if you don't want to roll your pastry out uncomfortably thin (and it's better if you don't).

apricot galette & vanilla ice cream

Apricot Galette with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pastry

The beauty of this is how incredibly simple it all is; the pastry is made in minutes in the food processor and the fruit is just tossed with brown sugar (and - I couldn't help it - lemon zest, because no one's ever told me that lemon *doesn't* go with apricot...). This means you could use just about any fruit - this is crying out to be made with plums, in that late Summer-early Autumn period around August and September. Do it for me.

Adapted from BBC Good Food magazine.
Serves 6-8.

pastry:
150g plain flour
50g wholemeal flour
2tsp cinnamon
140g cold butter, cut into small chunks
85g light muscavado sugar
optional
zest of 1/2 a lemon
1 egg, separated

filling:
700g apricots, halved and stoned (I sliced mine)
1 tbsp demerara sugar

1. Oven to 200C. Put the flour & cinnamon in a food processor and add the butter, processing to make fine crumbs. Reserve 2tbsp of the muscavado sugar, then add the remainder and the lemon zest, and briefly mix. Add the egg yolk and 1 tbsp water, then pulse to make a firm dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and briefly knead. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins.

2. Toss apricots in the reserved muscavado sugar. Roll out pastry on a sheet of baking parchment to a roughly 30cm round. Slide pastry & paper onto a large baking sheet. Cover with apricot halves/slices, cut sides up, and fold the edges of the pastry over the fruit, leaving the centre uncovered.

3. Lightly beat egg white and brush over the pastry. Sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake for 30-35 mins until the pastry is crisp and the apricots tender. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

apricot galette

26 comments:

Talita said...

Hi there! This galette sounds really yummy! The apricot looks so delicious!

Maria♥ said...

Welcome back Indigo, lovely to see you blogging again. I missed you!

This apricot galette looks really yummylicious.

Maria
x

Maili said...

:D APRICOTS-YUM :D
xxxxxxxxxxx
p.s. make me a cake!

Lori said...

Indeed, who could resist said pastry? I sure could not. Beautiful.

I checked to see if you were back just recentlya nd I was sad. So glad your back. Not only are you back but back in style!

BTW, I have a drawer full of lemons. Oh the shame.

Anonymous said...

You've certainly returned with a big bang; that galette looks perfect for any season! I'll have mine with peaches please. Or apples. With extra cinnamon, thank you :P

Leah said...

It says a lot about my obsession with your food that even from Argentina, after 6 months away, I am salivating over your blog upon the very day of your return. Some would call it fate. God, I look forward to my return and the cake you shall surely bake. Will it get a British-themed blog? I think it surely should.

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

Welcome back! I love the sound of any sentence that includes the words Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pastry :)

Anonymous said...

HOORAY! I am so glad you're back.

Sophie The Good Friend said...

yay food. feed me? I leave on monday for the land of wide open spaces, canada, for three weeks, so I need to see you before then! yay to you blogging again! yay to lovely food pictures! yay for you! yay for apricots! xxx

steph- whisk/spoon said...

there you are...welcome back, and happy summer! i love apricots, and this looks delicious. rustic=beautiful in my books.

eatme_delicious said...

Welcome back to blogging! Mmm brown sugar pastry sounds like the most perfect kind. And I like calling all of my baking "rustic" and "homemade" so I don't have to stress out about how it looks, just how it tastes haha.

grace said...

welcome back, indigo!! i didn't realize how much i've missed your gorgeous creations and witty commentary.
meanwhile, my heart simply stopped at reading the words "brown sugar cinnamon pastry," and the photos didn't do much to get it started again. lovely galette!

Katrina said...

Welcome back to the food bloggy world. I love apricots and this looks de-lish.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting!

Clumbsy Cookie said...

WELCOME BACK YO BLOGGING! Was that not gentle?

Carolyn Jung said...

I think your galette looks gorgeous. The big half-spheres of apricots are artsy in themselves.

Liz said...

Sounds delicious! Apricots are one of my favorite fruits to bake with. Your galette sounds amazing.

morgana said...

Welcome home!!!!!

Apricots, cinnamon.... Mmmmmmm.

Adam said...

Hey welcome back! We've pretty much all gone on hiatus' before, it's just cool you came back :)

I don't really think I've had a fresh apricot either. They are harder to find than Where's Waldo throughout most the year. I love the plum idea for this... I'll do it for you.

♥Rosie♥ said...

Hello Indigo and it's great to see you back blogging!! I have missed your wonderful creations. This apricot galette looks so delicious!

Jacque said...

Mmmm, so pretty and so tasty-looking! That looks like a perfect excuse to try apricots for the first time.

Welcome back, by the way.

Lyndas recipe box said...

This looks yummy with the all the apricots! I love the brown sugar and cinnamon combination- I don't think anything smells as good as this!
Thanks for visiting my blog!

Y said...

Well, what a way to come back! Your funny posts have been missed. Maybe if you can't afford the butter, you could try blogging about fresh vegetables instead, but I don't know if there's much humour to be found in onions and cabbages.

Ginny said...

This looks so good! I need to find some apricots and make it! :)

Jaime said...

that looks wonderful. the galette we made for TWD was great too

Nurit "1 family. friendly. food." said...

yeah, I'm in a lemon stage too right now. My family is not too happy about it.
the gallette looks absolutely fantasctic. I think I'll try it this Friday. Thanks for the recipe.

Ingrid_3Bs said...

Welcome back!

You're right how do you resist brown sugar cinnamon pastry. You don't and I'm glad you didn't thanks for sharing.
~ingrid