Recently I purchased The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It has many interesting looking recipes that I’m eager to try out! Since I have some wonderful ripe peaches, the first recipe had to be a peach recipe, if it included one.
Luckily there was one peach recipe in the book: a Peach Galette. When I looked through the recipe I was struck by an unusual ingredient in the crust: cream cheese! I had never made a pie crust with cream cheese in it before, but it sounded interesting.
The crust came together quite differently than usual. When I processed it in the food processor, it was still quite dry looking, but came together well with a little bit of kneading. I did an extra step after bringing the dough together of rolling and folding it as I would with puff pastry, to ensure extra flakiness. After chilling the dough I rolled it out as thin as I could before adding the filling. It was a much stickier dough to work with, so I had to roll it out over some plastic wrap to keep it sticking to the counter. The plastic wrap worked very well though, and I had no trouble rolling out a thin dough.
For the filling, I switched it up a bit by using brown sugar and adding some nutmeg to the mixture to compliment the peach flavour. The peaches are macerated in the brown sugar for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes, I drained the resulting liquid and added some butter and then microwaved it to make a caramel. It was quick and easy to make the caramel and added a nice depth of flavour to the tart.
The resulting tart was quite delicious! The pastry was rich and flaky and smelled amazing while it cooked! The filling had a nice balance of peach and caramel flavours with a boost of flavour from the almond extract and nutmeg. If those two flavours don’t appeal you could substitute vanilla and cinnamon for an equally delicious tart!
This tart was amazing served warm with a scoop of ice cream!
When I made the tart, I put the dough directly on the pizza pan as the instructions said. However, once it was cooked it was quite difficult to move onto a serving platter without breaking it. I would recommend putting some parchment paper on the pan before putting the crust on, so it is easier to transfer off of the pan after baking.
Peach Galette with Brown Sugar Caramel
This peach galette is based on a recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Baking Bible. The rich and flaky crust has the unusual addition of cream cheese. The filling consists of peaches macerated in brown sugar and a caramel that is made from the macerated juices, with a hint of nutmeg and almond extract for additional flavour.
Ingredients
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For the Crust
- For the Filling
Instructions
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For the Crust
- Cut the butter into small 1/2 inch cubes. Put into a small bowl and freeze for 30 minutes, until frozen solid.
- Place flour, salt and baking powder into a small bowl or freezer bag and freeze for at least 30 minutes.
- Place frozen flour mixture in a food processor. Cut the cream cheese into 3 or 4 pieces and add it to the flour. Process for 5-10 pulses until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
- Add the frozen butter cubes and pulse until butter pieces are no larger than the size of a pea, 10-20 pulses.
- Add the cream and vinegar and pulse to combine (the mixture will not hold together).
- Turn the dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Using the plastic wrap as a barrier, press the mixture together until it holds in one piece. Then continue to gently knead until it becomes uniform, about 1-2 minutes.
- Place a second sheet of plastic wrap on top of the dough and roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/4-1/2 inch thick.
- Fold the rectangle into thirds, like a business letter lengthwise. Then fold into thirds again width wise to form a square. Gently press the dough into a disk.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 45 minutes or up to 2 days. For the Filling
- Combine peaches, sugar, lemon juice and salt in a bowl. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes or up to 1 1/2 hours.
- Drain the peaches in a colander set over a bowl to capture the liquid.
- Pour the liquid into a 2 cup microwavable measuring cup that has been lightly coated with cooking spray. Place the peaches in the now empty bowl.
- Add butter to juices in the measuring cup and microwave for 6-9 minutes, until mixture is thick and syrupy, like caramel. Be careful not to burn the mixture!
- Pour caramel over the peaches and stir to combine. The caramel will harden but it will melt again as it cooks in the oven.
- In a small bowl, stir together cornstarch and nutmeg. Then pour cornstarch mixture and almond extract over peach mixture and stir to combine. For assembly
- Place two overlapping pieces of plastic wrap on your counter and lightly flour them.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out to a minimum 17-inch circle. If dough is stiff, let it sit on the counter for up to 10 minutes to soften. Trim the edges of the circle so that they are not ragged. Transfer the dough to a round pizza pan that has been lined with parchment paper.
- Place the peach filling in the centre of the dough and spread to a roughly 9-inch circle. Carefully drape the border of the dough over the peaches, allowing it to pleat as evenly as possible. There will be a small area of the centre exposed.
- Cover loosely with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 1-3 hours.
- 45 minutes before baking, place a baking stone on the lowest rack of your oven and preheat the oven to 400 F/200 C.
- Before baking, whisk together egg with 1 tsp water, then brush the top of the dough with the egg wash. Finally sprinkle raw sugar over the top of the dough.
- Set the pan directly on the baking stone and bake for 20 minutes. Turn the pan, then bake for 20-25 minutes more, until crust is golden and filling is bubbling in the centre. If the crust starts to brown too much, cover the galette with some aluminum foil that has a hole cut in the centre to let steam escape.
- Cool on a wire rack for 2-3 hours, until warm or room temperature before serving. Once cool, move the tart onto a serving platter.
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