Rustic Spiced Pear Galette
This Rustic Spiced Pear Galette is the ultimate easy Fall dessert! This gorgeous galette features a spiced pear filling that is full of cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. Once baked, the filling is the perfect amount of caramelly and jammy, laying on top of a super flaky, buttery, and tender pie dough that is beautifully folded into the lovely rustic-looking Spiced Pear Galette. Served with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce!
What is a Galette?
A Galette is a French dessert that is made from a free-form crust. More simply, galettes are essentially pies, but they do not require a pie dish, a tart pan, or really any sort of pan except for a baking sheet. They are made from, as mentioned above, a free-form pie crust – meaning that you basically just roll the pie dough out into a general circle shape, place the filling into the centre, then fold the edges up, and bake! So incredibly simple and easy! Plus, they’re absolutely beautiful-looking!
How to Make the Perfect Pie Dough
The perfect pie dough should produce a crust that is flaky, tender, buttery, and delicately sweet. In order to achieve this, a few ingredients are needed, as well as proper technique.
The Ingredients
To create the pie dough, cold butter and cold water are absolute musts. Similar to making scones or biscuits, the reason the butter needs to be cold is so that once it hits the hot oven, the water within the butter quickly evaporates, leaving behind little air pockets. These little air pockets are what creates that flaky texture! The reason for the cold liquid is so that it doesn’t warm up the other ingredients, like the butter.
Another ingredient that I use in my pie doughs is vodka. Yes you heard me right – vodka! By using vodka, instead of water, it helps to inhibit gluten formation, and as we know, too much gluten = a tough final product! The reason for this is because water activates gluten, so by replacing the water with vodka it reduces the water content by 40% (vodka is 60% water, 40% ethanol). However, you need to be careful not to add too much vodka, as it may effect the flavor. Therefore, I like to use a 50% water and 50% vodka mix!
The Technique
The key to perfect pie dough is to handle it as little as possible. Handling the dough too much can result in the butter melting, which will create a dense dough. As well, overhandling the dough by kneading it too much will result in excess gluten formation, and a subsequent tough dough. It is important to only knead the dough until it forms a shaggy dough. After a shaggy dough comes together, press it into a disk shape as best as you can and place it into plastic wrap, and then into the fridge for an hour. After an hour, remove the dough, let it warm up slightly on the counter for 3-4 minutes, then begin rolling it out!
Rolling, Filling, & Folding the Rustic Spiced Pear Galette
Rolling out the pie dough for the Spiced Pear Galette is super easy – I swear! It does not need to be rolled out into a perfect circle, like with pie dough does. In fact, the more rustic looking the dough is, the better! Roll the dough out into a general circle or sq-oval shape, about 1/8 – 1/4″ thick.
Filling the Spiced Pear Galette is a little bit different than filling a typical Pie. With Pie, you typically pile the filling sky-high, so that you can have a nice thick slice of pie. With galettes, it’s a different story. You want to aim to have a rather flat and compact filling – otherwise the galette tends to get mushy. So, as a general rule, try to keep the filling as flat as possible, and leave about a 2-3” border around the edges, so you can properly fold the edges over.
Folding the Galette is also very straight forward. Essentially fold the edges up, over, and on top of the filling, overlapping the folds until it is completely folded.
What Kind of Pears
Like finding the right apple, finding the right pear for baking can be ultra-confusing. When making a galette, you want to look for a pear that will hold it’s shape well during the baking process. Some pears hold their shape extremely well when baked, while others will disintegrate into a jammy like texture.. Some varieties that are excellent for keeping their shapes are Anjou, Bartlett, or what I used in this recipe – Bosc Pears!
Get the Recipe: Rustic Spiced Pear Galette
Ingredients
Pie Crust
- 2 cup All Purpose Flour,, measured correctly †
- 4 tbsp White Sugar
- Pinch of Salt
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter,, cubed and very cold
- 4 tbsp Ice Cold Water,, plus more if needed
- 4 tbsp Cold Vodka
Spiced Pear Filling
- 2 tbsp Apple Butter
- 3-4 Pears,, cores removed, sliced into 1/8” slices
- 3 tbsp White Sugar
- 2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Ginger
- 1/4 tsp Allspice
- 4 tbsp Cold Butter,, cut into small cubes
- 1 Egg + 1 tsp Water,, for Egg Wash
- Turbinado Sugar,, for sprinkling on crust (optional)
Instructions
Making the Rustic Pear Pear Galette Pie Dough
- Mix together vodka and water into a small measuring cup, then set aside. In a large mixing bowl, add flour, sugar, and salt. Whisk to combine. Add in cold butter cubes, and work the butter into flour with your hands or a pastry cutter. Work the butter until it is crumbly and about the size of peas.
- Slowly drizzle in vodka-water while simultaneously tossing with a fork to combine. After all the vodka-water has been added, knead the dough a few times inside the bowl until a shaggy dough forms. If the dough doesn’t come together, slowly add more water until a shaggy dough forms.
- Form dough, as best as you can, into a disk shape, then place into a freezer bag, then into the fridge for an hour to chill.
- Remove dough from fridge and place onto counter for 5 minute to warm-up a bit. Remove the dough from the freezer bag and place onto a well-floured work surface.
- Roll dough out to be about 1/4” thick, and about 13-14” in diameter, aiming for a general circle shape (however it does not need to be perfect). Place rolled out dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Filling & Baking the Rustic Spiced Pear Galette
- Preheat oven to 375°F. In a small bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. Set aside.
- Spread a layer of apple butter along with bottom of the galette dough, leaving a 2-3” border around the edges. Then place the slices pears in a single, even, and relatively compact layer on top of the apple butter. Sprinkle the pears with the sugar mixture, then top intermittently with the cubed cold butter.
- Gently fold the bare edge of the dough over the filling, overlapping the dough as necessary. Press gently to seal the edges.
- In a small dish, whisk together the egg and water until frothy and combined. Brush this egg wash across the edges of the galette, then sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
- Place the Rustic Spiced Pear Galette into the oven, bake for 35 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
