Quick Sour Cherry Galette
Description
This is another one of those recipe ‘reminders’ that you can do a lot with a few cups of frozen fruit and a disk of crust from your freezer. In this case, sour cherries and Brown Sugar Pastry. I looked to, ‘Pie Squared’, by Cathy Barrow for some guidance and below is what I did – and what a great treat it turned out to be!
Ingredients
1 disk of pastry or enough pastry for 1 crust
3 to 4 c. of fresh or frozen, pitted sour cherries (thawed and drained if needed if previously frozen)
1/4 to 1/2 c. sugar AND 1 to 2 T. cornstarch
1/2 t. almond extract (or vanilla could work, just use a little more)
Instructions
When I have no idea how juicy the fruit is going to be (and I’m in a hurry!), I prefer to make my galettes in a pie plate – more contained, and likely less mess.
Preheat the oven to 450, line a baking sheet with parchment and set a pie plate in the middle. In a large bowl, stir together the cherries, sugar, cornstarch and almond extract and allow to sit while you sort out your pastry.
Roll our your pastry into a circle slightly larger than your pie plate and carefully drape it over, gently pressing it into the bottle edges to make it stay. Fill the pie with your fruit, fold the pastry edges over towards the center, pinching together seams as needed. If you have time for some fanciness then brush all exposed pastry with some cream or a lightly beaten egg and sprinkle with some coarse sugar – you could also sprinkle on some sliced or slivered almonds part way through cooking (if you add them at the beginning, they’ll likely get too brown).
Bake for 10 minutes at 450, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for 30 to 40 minutes more until the crust is a lovely golden brown. You may need to cover the whole galette with a piece of foil if some bits start to brown too quickly. Allow the galette to rest for at least a half hour before attempting to slice it – and then definitely serve it up with some vanilla ice cream!
