Pear & dried Cherry sweet gallette

One of my favorite fall desserts to make is this recipe for a pear and dried cherry gallette, particularly now when the pears are filling the produce aisles and you can choose from many different types of pears. This pastry recipe works nicely with ripe juicy pears that give off a lot of gooey juice, as the dried cherries soak up quite a bit of the flavorful juice. This gallette recipe is actually quite easy to make. Sometimes, you may thing that it is not forming up exactly as you wish it to do (like it did for me today) but don't be afraid -- it always turns out fine, and you can't mess it up. Even if it looks a bit messy, it always tastes delicious.

Sweet pastry dough:

2 cups flour (use a soft flour, but not cake flour)
1/2 c butter (1 stick), cold but cut into about 8 chunks
1/2 c confectioner's (powdered) sugar
1 egg

To mix: 

Using a Cuisinart with the knife blade attachment, pulse the flour and butter for a minute until the mix resembles coarse crumbs. (Alternately, you can cut in the butter and the flour with either 2 knives or with a pastry cutter).  Add the powdered sugar and pulse once or twice. Add the egg and pulse until just mixed, do not overmix. You will have what looks like crumbs.  Pour the crumbs into a bowl and knead a few times with your hands until you can form a ball. Flatten the ball into a round disc. Today I tried to make 3 smallish gallettes, so I made 3 smaller discs. Hint: it's easier to make this with only 1 disc, 1 pear gallette. I'm not sure why!! Wrap the disc (s) in plastic and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

Pear & Dried Cherry filling:

4 large firm but ripe pears, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slices
1 cup dried cherries
1 Tbls cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Toss the pears and the next 5 ingredients in a bowl until well mixed. Let stand for 1 hour.

Have ready:

3 Tbls butter, softened
1 egg, beaten with:
2 Tbls water

1 Tbls sugar


Preheat the oven to 375F. Roll the pastry into a 12 inch circle on a floured piece of parchment paper. Trim the edges to be smooth and regular. Try to make sure that the disc of dough is of a uniform consistency.  Spread 2 T of the soft butter onto the dough and spread in an 8 inch circle in the center of the disc. Spoon the pears and cherries in the center of the 8 inch circle, reserving the juices. (Or, if you made 3 small ones, roll each dough disc out to be a 6 inch circle, spread the butter on the inner 3 -4 inches, spread 1/3 of the pears/cherries onto each circle.) Fold the edge of the pastry up partially over the edge of the pear filling; pleating the pastry carefully. Try not to crack the pastry, particularly at the bottom of the gallette so that the juices will not leak out. Slide the pastry carefully (which is still on the parchment paper) onto a cookie sheet.  Once you've carefully moved the pastry to the cookie sheet pour the reserved juices in the middle and top with the remaining 1 Tbls of butter.

Whisk the egg and the water in a small bowl. Carefully brush the exposed pastry with the egg wash, and sprinkle the washed pastry with 1 Tbls sugar on the edges.

Bake in the center of the oven for 40 to 50 minutes until pastry is golden brown and juices are bubbly. Don't worry if the juices leak out, I've never been able to make one with no leaked juices, but they still taste great! You can see from my picture that they didn't turn out as pretty as I would have liked, but they tasted great. Next time I make these, if they turn out prettier, I'll upload a better picture. You can see that I also ran out of parchment paper so I had to bake them directly on the jelly roll pan, and they did stick badly. Next time I won't forget!

Let stand to cool for 30 minutes and serve warm or cool. Warm, serve with ice cream, cold, serve with whipped cream.