With my husband and son in Baja Mexico preparing for the legendary Baja 1000 and my daughter visiting her alma mater in Santa Barbara, I find myself sitting in front of the TV being anything but productive. Channel surfing is providing me no satisfaction, that is, until I stumble upon Giada cutting into some sort of apple galette. Suddenly my finger stops pushing the up arrow on the remote, she’s got me. I feel like a voyeur as I watch her take the first bite, describing the taste, as only Giada can, and realize I have to make this.
I immediately start planning….run 3 miles, (I’ll probably need more to work off this treat), search the freezer and pantry for the ingredients. Because I randomly buy things when I shop, I have all the ingredients, even a frozen puff pastry. I have no idea what that was purchased for, but lucky for me it was in the freezer. Her recipe called for 3 apples peeled, cored and sliced into 12 wedges per apple, instead I use Orchard 2 Oven apples from the apple pie filling kit. Being a Math teacher, I quickly do the math and count out 36 slices and save the rest for another use; my guess, another one of these galettes when my men return home.
This recipe is adapted from a recipe seen on Giada at Home.
Ingredients
2 Tbls unsalted butter
36 apple wedges
1/8 tsp kosher salt
1/3 C sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cardamon
½ tsp cornstarch
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, beaten
Topping
4 oz goat cheese crumbled
1/3 C dried cherries (I imagine Cranberries would be good also)
1/3 C sliced toasted almonds
2 Tbls maple syrup
Prepare the apples first and while they cool you can prepare the puff pastry and topping.
Saute the apples, sprinkled with the kosher salt, in the butter until just softened. Sprinkle the apples with the lemon juice and the mixture of sugar, cinnamon, cardamon and cornstarch and gently toss to coat the apples with all the delicious sweetness. Take off the heat to cool.
Put the thawed puff pastry on a sheet of parchment paper dusted with flour. Keep turning it over, so it doesn’t stick, as you roll it into a 12 x 12 square. Cut the corners off so the square looks circular. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg. Leaving 2 inches around the outside edge, lay the apples in a circular pattern.
Fold the edges up over the apples and brush the edge with beaten egg then bake for 30 minutes in a preheated 375° oven until the pastry edge is a deep golden brown.
As the galette bakes prepare the goat cheese topping. Mix together 4 oz of crumbled goat cheese, 1/3 cup of dried sour cherries, 1/3 cup of sliced toasted almonds and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup.
After 30 minutes remove the galette from the oven and cover the apples with the topping and bake for another 10 minutes.
I remove the galette from the oven to find this…. (I did slide it off the cookie sheet to shoot the picture. )
It took everything I had not to cut right into it. I knew better; I know what hot cheese will do to the roof of your mouth! I was able to hold out for 30 minutes, I ate a slice and quickly realized 3 miles wouldn’t be enough. Enjoy!