Apple galette or is it a tart?

One of the few cookbooks I open repeatedly is Julia and Jacques cooking at home. The book shows variations by two phenomenal cooks, helping one understand that there are many ways to go about making a dish. The book exudes such care and such joy in cooking that one cannot help but love it.

I made their recipe for apple galette many times. Even though I don't really need to go go back and look it up, I always do, mostly to enjoy the careful instructions for making a flaky crust.

One day, however, I rebelled and started to adjust the recipe to our current needs. No white flour was the main restriction. I learned quickly that freshly milled wheat flour worked great. I could use either soft (preferable) or hard wheat berries, and the crust was still amazing. At the end I settled on using freshly milled einkorn flour, both for the flavor and for working around gluten sensitivity. Namely, einkorn has a much simpler gluten than the regular wheat, and that seems to make einkorn much easier to digest.

My other change is to use a tart pan. I press the dough into the pan and avoiding rolling it. If I do want a more proper galette, I roll out the dough directly on parchment, make the galette on top of parchment, and then transfer the parchment with the galette directly on a baking sheet. This avoid so much mess and reduces the difficulty by an order of magnitude. 

Ingredients:

Crust

• 6 oz (170g) wheat flour. My recommendation is freshly milled whole einkorn, but almost any wheat flour would do. I recommend agains the awful store-bought whole wheat flout. 
• 1/2 (2.5 ml) tsp salt 
• 1/2 (2.5 ml) tsp sugar
• 3 to 4 oz (85g - 115g) cold unsalted butter cut into small chunks
• Optional: a pinch of ground cinnamon
• 2-3 TBS (30ml - 45ml) ice water

Filling:

• 3-4 apples, cored and cut into small chunks
• A pinch of ground cinnamon
• a handful of raisins and/or dry cranberries, optionally soaked in rum
• 1-2 TBS (15ml - 30ml) sugar
• 1/2 (120ml) cup apricot jam
• 2 TBS (30ml) or so Grand Mariner
• 1 TBS (15 ml) unsalted butter, cubed

Method    

1.  In a bowl of a food processor, pulse all ingredients for the crust apart from the water. Pulls about 5 times, just enough to make the dough look like a fine crumble.
1. The careful pulsing is needed to avoid waking up the gluten creation.
2. Add 2 TBS water, and pulse the food processor  3-4 times, a second per pulse. The dough should stuck together when pressed. For this recipe you can add some more water to the dough, but do not make the dough wet.
3. The dough is usable right away, and will be even nice after an hour in the fridge.
4. When ready, preheat the oven to 400F. 
5. Core and chop the apples. In a bowl, mix the apples with cinnanon, sugar, and (drained) raisins.
6. Take the dough out of the fridge and press it into a tart pan. I use either a 9 inch round pan, or a 14 x 5.75 inch rectangular pan. Use your fingers and make sure that the dough goes all the way up the tart pan.
7. Warm up the jam and mix it with Grand Mariner to make the glaze.
8. Spread about 1/2 of the glaze on the bottom.
9. Distribute the apple mixture over the crust, and dot with the 1 TBS butter
10. Bake for 50 minutes or until the crust is done and the apples are soft.
11. Reheat the remaining glaze and spread/brush it over the tart.
12. Take the tart/galette out of the pan and let it cool. A rack or even a wooden cutting board works well for me.