Easy Rustic Pie Strawberry Galette Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep the bottom of galette from getting soggy? ›

Adding cornstarch to the fruit filling and brushing the inner crust with egg white ensures a perfectly crisp bottom.

Unlike mile-high pies, galettes should be short and sweet—well, or short and savory. The deep, sloped edges of a pie pan help a pie crust hold its structure as it bakes and firms up, but a galette is baked directly on a rimmed cooke sheet and offers no such insurance.

The three most common types of galette are galette Breton, galette de rois, and fruit galette. A galette Breton is a buckwheat crepe. A galette de rois is a type of flat cake made with pastry dough. Finally, a fruit galette is a freeform pie shaped around the filling.

You can make the dough up to three days ahead, but this galette is at its best served the same day it was baked.

Choose the Right Rack in the Oven

Which rack you use in the oven can help ensure a crisp crust. Baking the pie on a lower rack will concentrate heat on the bottom of the pie and help the crust crisp.

Crust dust is a 1:1 mixture of flour and granulated sugar. When baking a pie, especially a fruit pie, a couple of teaspoons of crust dust sprinkled into the bottom of the crust will help prevent the crust from becoming saturated with juicy filling as it bakes.

In addition, the galettes always contain a single little charm, or fève, that hidden inside. Historically, there really would be a fève ('broad bean') inside, but in the 19th century this was replaced by small ornaments or figurines.

The French have been serving up galette des rois since the 14th-century. Traditionally, it's served on January 6th – the 12th day of Christmas – to celebrate the Epiphany, a religious feast day commemorating the arrival of the Three Kings to the manger where Jesus was born.

In France, when the new year begins, all French people are waiting for one thing : eating their first galette des rois.

With a super-flaky crust (the secret: frozen grated butter) and a lightly spiced sweet-savory filling featuring butternut and kabocha squash, this rustic galette makes a perfect vegetarian meal. Serve it with a green salad.

What is hidden in the galette? ›

The “king” is represented by the fève, once a fava bean, now a porcelain or plastic figurine, hidden inside the cake. The person who discovers the fève in their serving is declared le roi (the king) or la reine (the queen) and gets to wear the golden paper couronne (crown) that comes with cake.

Roll the galette dough out into a round, roughly 12-inches in diameter — no need for neat edges. Pile the fruit in the center of the dough and spread out into an even layer, leaving a two-inch border. Now fold the border up over the fruit, making sure to leave a large hole over the fruit so any steam can escape.

Galette crust becomes soggy when the filling is too wet or when the butter in the pastry melts too quickly. To avoid a soggy galette crust, keep all ingredients cold and work quickly, especially if working in a hot kitchen. Another option is to sprinkle a layer of cornmeal on the baking sheet or parchment paper.

The Galette des Rois is essentially frangipane encased within puff pastry and decorated by making cuts in the surface of the pastry. It's served in slices and can be eaten both hot and cold.

Instead, try the sheet pan flip: Once the galette is browned on the bottom, slide it onto a sheet pan. Cover the galette with the skillet, then, holding the handle with one hand and the bottom of the sheet pan with the other, flip the whole thing so the galette lands back in the skillet, browned side up.

Soggy bottoms

And finally, the most frustrating pastry problem of all – the soggy bottom. This normally happens when the oven is not hot enough or the pastry is not baked for long enough. However, it can also be because too much water was added to the dough.

Whether making a sweet or savory galette, a soggy bottom can be difficult to avoid because the fruits or vegetables in the filling release water as the galette bakes. Here at ATK, we've come up with many crisp-crust solutions, such as parcooking the vegetables in the filling or macerating and draining the fruit.

A baker's best friend is parchment paper.