How to Make a Fresh Cherry Galette

This is the perfect time of year to enjoy perfectly ripe, delicious stone fruit!  From peaches to nectarines, plums, apricots, and cherries there are so many delicious fruits to enjoy fresh, in jams and preserves, or, in baking.

In today’s post I will show you the steps of how to make a fresh cherry galette.  This is an easy and extremely flavorful dessert that combines the fresh flavor of sweet summer cherries with a rich almond layer and a hint of orange.  This is a recipe that once you make once you can later use for other fruits as well, depending on your tastes, preferences and, of course, the season.

As a base for the galette I make a delicious, buttery, flaky pâté brisée crust which I use for all my sweet galettes.  If you have a food processor, the dough comes together in just seconds.  If you are feeling nervous or even intimidated by forming and shaping the dough for a tart, you will find that making this rustic, free-form tart is almost fool-proof:  all it takes is just rolling out the dough into a rough circle, adding the filling to the center, and, folding its edges over the fruit.

The dough typically needs some time in the refrigerator to chill, which gives us some time to prepare the filling.  For this cherry galette the only time consuming step is to pit the cherries.  If you have any helping hands near by, this step can go fast and your lightly stained fingers will show that you had fun baking!

How to Make a Fresh Cherry Galette – The easy steps:

1. Choose cherries with green stems and which are not wrinkled. This will ensure they are freshly picked.
2. Wash the cherries and drain them well.
3. Pit them and cut half of them in half.
4. Toss them with the orange zest mixture and sugar
5. Roll out the dough, let it chill.
6.  Sprinkle it with the almond mixture and top with the cherries. 
7. Fold the edge of the dough up over the cherries and bake. 
8. When the galette comes out of the oven, resist the urge to slice it immediately.  Let it rest for awhile so the flavors develop.  Serve it at room temperature–or slightly warm–at the end of a meal with a scoop of good quality vanilla ice cream.  This is a true taste of summer!  Enjoy!

How to Make a Fresh Cherry Galette

4.8 from 5 reviews

How to Make a Fresh Cherry Galette

 

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Prep time

40 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

1 hour 20 mins

 

A delicious fruit dessert highlighting fresh cherries

Author: Marilena Leavitt

Recipe type: Fruit dessert

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• For the paté brisée:
• 1½ cups All-Purpose flour
• 1½ sticks unsalted butter—cold--and cut into ½-inch pieces
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ⅓ cup ice water
• For the filling:
• 1½ lbs. fresh cherries (a little over 4 cups)
• ¼ cup (plus ¼ cup) sugar
• 4 TBSP. almond flour
• 1 TBSP. Amaretto (or orange juice)
• 1 TBSP. cornstarch
• ½ tsp. almond extract
• 1 TBSP. orange zest
• 2 TBSP. butter—cold--cut into small cubes
• 1 TBSP. milk

Instructions

1. To make the paté brisée. Put the flour, butter, and salt in a food processor and process for about 5 seconds; the butter should still be visible and in small pieces. Add the ice water, a little at a time (you might not need it all) and process for 5 seconds longer, or, just until the dough comes together (you should still be able to see the butter bits).
2. To form the dough. Remove the dough from the processor and gather it into a ball. Sprinkle some flour on a work surface and roll out the dough with a rolling pin roll into a 15” to 16” round, about ⅛” thick (note that the shape does not have to be a perfect circle). Drape the dough over the rolling pin and transfer it to a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Unroll the dough onto the parchment paper and chill it until firm, about 20 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 375°.
4. To make the filling. Wash and pit all the cherries, cut most of them in half (leave a few whole), and place them all in a medium bowl. In a separate small bowl, combine ¼ cup of the sugar with the almond flour and set aside. In a second small bowl, stir together the Amaretto (or orange juice), cornstarch, almond extract and orange zest. Add this mixture to the bowl with the cherries and mix to combine. Sprinkle all but 1 TBSP. of the remaining ¼ cup sugar over the cherries and mix again.
5. To assemble the galette. Remove the baking sheet with the dough from the refrigerator. Spread the mixture of sugar and almond flour evenly over the dough to within 2” from the edges. Arrange the cherries on top of this mixture and dot the cherries with the cubes of cold butter. Fold the edge of the dough up over the cherries to create a 2” border. (If the dough feels too cold and firm, wait for a few minutes until it softens to prevent it from cracking.). Brush the border of the galette with the milk and sprinkle with the reserved 1 TBSP of sugar.
6. To bake the galette. Place the baking sheet with the galette in the middle rack of the oven and bake for about 40-45 minutes, or, until the fruit is very soft and the crust is nicely browned (watch the time, as every oven is different). If any juices have leaked onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheet, slide a knife under the galette to release it from the sheet.
7. To serve the gallete. Let the galette cool to room temperature, then cut it into wedges and serve with some good vanilla ice cream.

Notes

If you don’t have almond flour, make your own by grounding some balanced almonds until very fine.

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