Recipe - Galette - a Mary Berry special

Galette

Now I wish mine had turned out quite as nicely as the image above, but I will admit it didn't look quite so polished :). However, this is an incredibly easy recipe and is so, so tasty. It is basically a French almond tart.

It is a Mary Berry recipe and if you want to see the orginal it is over here. I'm typing my own version because I wanted to put in US measurements as well as the UK ones and add some pointers of my own.

Ingredients

• 750g/1lb 10oz ready-made all-butter puff pastry, chilled (I used Morrison's own = 2 packets of 500g)
• plain flour (to stop is sticking to the work top)
• 1 free-range egg, beaten (to glaze and make it look pretty)

For the filling

• 100g/3½oz (just under 1 US stick or 1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 100g/3½oz (~1/2cup) caster sugar
• 1 large free-range egg, plus 1 yolk, at room temperature (if you don't have the extra yolk don't worry, it is not as rich, but still works with just 1 egg)
• 100g/3½oz (~1/2cup) ground almonds (I don't like the texture of flaked almonds in things so I actually used 150g ground almonds and left out the flaked)
• 50g/1¾oz (~1/4cup) flaked almonds
• 1 tsp almond extract (I used 2tsp because I didn't think the flavour was strong enough, but it is a matter of taste)

Instructions

1. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper/ a silicon baking sheet.
2. Roll out one square of puff pastry on a floured surface until you can fit a normal sized plate on it and cut round the plate. Put the circle of pastry on the baking tray.
3. Do the same again and place the second circle of pastry on the first with a sheet of grease proof between them. Then place in the fridge to chill. (at this point I had pastry over, so re-rolled it and made some little circles as well then I upped the filling ingredients by 1/4 so I could make some individual galettes at the same time).
4. Whip the butter with a hand held mixer until it is light and fluffy.
5. Add the sugar and combine until the mixture is light in colour.
6. Beat the egg and yolk in a bowl and then add to the mixture bit by bit, beating in before adding more.
7. Stir in the almonds and almond extract until mixture is fully combined.
8. Cover with cling film/plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill for 20mins.
9. Once chilled take everything out of the fridge and put the top pastry circle to one side.
10. Fill the centre of the bottom pastry circle with the almond filling, leaving a 1inch/2cm ring around the edge.
11. Paint this ring with beaten egg.
12. Place the other pastry circle on top and push down on the egged ring at the edges to seal - do not squash the edges of the puff pastry beyond recognition.
13. Use a knife to knock up the edges of the puff pastry (hold a knife horizontally and come in at a tangent to the edge of the puff pastry, making small indentations all around the edge like you were spreading the edges of a ruff).
14. Using the back of a knife, create a nice scalloped edged by making indentations at 2cm/1in intervals.
15. Glaze all over the top with beaten egg and return to the fridge to chill again for 20 mins (I left this step out with the small ones and just went straight for the glaze and pattern and they worked just fine).
16. Preheat the oven to 220C/450F/Gas7
17. Take out of the fridge and use the rest of the beaten egg to glaze the tart again.
18. Take a sharp knife and cut a criss cross or swirl patten (like the picture) in the top of the pastry. (Do not do this before you glaze or the egg will fill the cuts and ruin the pattern).
19. Bake for 25-30mins until the pastry is golden brown and puffed up nice and crisply. (The small ones took about 15mins in the oven).

To Serve

This is really good with pears in some form of alcohol. Now if you want to you can poach your own pears, but this is a really easy cheat:

• 1 tin Delmonte Pear Halves in light syrup (or any other make of pears in syrup)
• a splosh of port (if you don't like port you could use anything vaguely sweet as an alternative)
• pinch of cinamon
• pinch of ground cloves

1. Put the pears into a liquid safe, sealable bag
2. Add the port (I really did just add it until it was a nice dark colour, probably around 100ml, but just add to your taste)
3. Add the spices
4. Seal the bag and slosh around gently.
5. Leave for at least a day to infuse

I like the galette hot (30s in a microwave is good), but you can serve it hot or cold with a slice of pear on the side. It's good with cream too.