It's been so beautiful in the Northwest the last few days - and we have another week of sun to look forward to! THIS is why people live here...for the two weeks a year where it's sunny and nice...at least, that's what I tell myself during the monsoons! So a while back I gathered up some unsuspecting kids and took them blueberry picking...it was a stellar day at the blueberry patch and my little friends thought picking berries was SO much fun!
They tried to pull a fast one though...every few minutes one of them would tell me they had spilled their berries on the ground and they would come and ask me if they could have some of MY berries! I would quickly shoo them away - I love 'em but not enough to share my berries! Then I discovered they had picked their little fingers to the bone and had almost a FULL bucket! Between the 5 of us we picked about 15 pounds of blues!
This was our backdrop - hard to not have fun picking berries with scenery like that! Once we got back home I sorted through my berries and put about 3/4's of them into freezer bags to use in my Morning Mocktail during the winter...and with the rest I decided to make a blueberry pie...which got eaten before any pics could be taken and a Blueberry Galette...again, scarfed up before the camera even had a chance to blink green! We were about blueberried out at this point...but I had some pastry dough to use up and remembered the fresh figs that are now in available at Whole Paycheck Foods . A Fresh Fig Galette with Frangipane...that intoxicating almond paste that can make one a Frangipane Junkie in two bites!
Frangipane is made from toasted almonds, butter, sugar and an egg - it's processed until smooth and then it's ready to be used. Not only it is great with figs, but with peaches it's sensational! Peaches and almonds just go together, do they not?
For this galette, I used mission figs and my new favorite pastry recipe, click here. When the pastry is ready to roll out, it's like a color by number painting...you spread on the frangipane, top with slices of figs (or peaches!) and then fold the top up and over. One, two three and just like that you've made one of the best tasting summer desserts - and if you serve it with ice cream, well, you'll enter another dimension of happiness. Feel free to quote me.
(Update: I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later...me repeating a recipe!! But this one is worth repeating! Last year, while in Italy, we had fig tarts almost everywhere we went...and over the course of the last year I have made many fig tarts...so when I saw fresh figs I couldn't wait to make another tart...forgetting I had already given you the best Rustic Fig Tart recipe EVER! But THIS recipe is slightly different, because of the new pastry recipe...actually, to know which one is better I guess I'll have to make the old one and the new one and compare them side by side...dang it...making more tarts, having to eat them, life is hard!)
Fig Galette With Frangipane - Pots and Pins
For Frangipane:
1/2 cup whole almonds
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1 batch of pastry dough, use this recipe here (you can use purchased refrigerated pastry dough but it will definitely not be as flaky and light...but whatever makes you toe tap!
10 large figs or 15 small ones, I used mission figs, they are sweeter, quartered and peels left on
1 egg for an eggwash
2 tablespoons of turbinado sugar or granulated sugar for sprinkling, optional
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the almonds evenly on a baking sheet and place them in the oven. Roast them for about 10 minutes, or until slightly toasted and fragrant. Transfer to a plate and let cool to room temperature.
Put the cooled almonds and the sugar into a food processor and process until fine. Add the butter and the egg and pulse until well-combined. If you don’t want to use it right away, divide the frangipane into four equal parts, wrap each tightly in plastic. They will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, and up to a month in the freezer.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll out your pastry dough to about 10-inch diameter – more or less won’t harm anything. Spread about 1/4 of the quantity of frangipane on the dough, leaving about 2-inches around the outer edge of the dough. Arrange the figs, pointy end up - in concentric circles to cover the frangipane. Fold the edges up and over, pinching a little to make sure they stick. Brush with beaten egg over top of pastry and sprinkle entire galette with turbinado sugar. Bake for about 45-50 minutes, or until the pastry edges are golden brown. (Chez Pim suggests using a microplane to add some lemon zest over the top of galette after it comes out of the oven, I did not do this, but only because I forgot!) Serves 6.
This galette barely made it to a plate - it kept getting cut into until it was "pieced" to death! So dang good...I'm giving this 5 Dangs on the ol' meter for sure! And since one galette is never enough, and since I had ripe peaches begging to be used...
