millions of peaches, peaches for me...

      My lovely lovely roommate brought home ripe peaches this past week with clear instructions: Do something with them. Bake something with them. I immediately thought of the nectarine galette I had been drooling over on The Smitten Kitchen and told myself, "Self, you can tweak this! Deb says it was easy. Ergo, it will be moderately easy for you to whip up over the weekend!"

      Sunday morning came, with no plans aside from starting Michelle Richmond's The Year of Fog and watching Disney princess films on my brocade print couch. Deb mentioned in her recipe that she accidentally doubled it, but included the original recipe. I raised an eyebrow at 6 tablespoons of butter to a cup of flour, but went ahead with mixing the crust ingredients. I cast temperature instructions aside (most of the time, I don't have patience to deal with refrigerated butter and, really? Ice water? I don't refrigerate my Brita and don't have another means of obtaining ice water) and blended everything (save for the water) with, first, a wooden spoon and then, because I like to, with anything, really, by hand.

      The result? A very wet, undough-like dough. My first thought was, "Perhaps Deb accidentally left the 6 tablespoons of butter doubled, and it should have been 3 tablespoons." Then I thought, "Maybe I shouldn't have melted the butter." But I mean, 6 tablespoons of butter, melted or not, is still 6 tablespoons of butter, which is a fair amount for just a cup of flour, right?

      I put the mess in the fridge while I thinly sliced the peaches and pondered adjustments. Half an hour later, I took the dough out and it was basically frozen. I added a few tablespoons of water to soften it and a couple small handfuls of flour. After kneading it for five or so minutes, it began to look like the pulled together, much drier pie crust that I know and love.

        I forsook the original recipe for filling and made up my own. After rolling the dough out on a pizza peel (the biggest surface I have in the kitchen) and meticulously organizing the peaches on the crust, I realized that I didn't have parchment paper to bake the galette on and I hadn't formed the galette on the surface which I would later stick in the oven. As in, my beloved soon to be baked good was firmly attached to the pizza peel.

      I immediately poured myself a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon (yes, at 11:30a, while still in my pajamas) and had myself a think. Armed with three spatulas, my glass of wine, and Bon Iver's Blood Bank EP, I set to work on prying the galette off of the pizza peel and transferring it to a pizza pan. It took ten, fifteen minutes of veeery slowly pushing one spatula under the galette, pushing a little flour between the peel and the galette so as to prevent sticking, and shoving another spatula in place of the initial one to prop it up, with gulps of wine in between and whispered, "Feist. Feist. Feist" mantras to myself. I brushed the top with melted butter, sugar and cinnamon and sent it on its way.

      It's currently in the oven with fifteen minutes to go. This is one of my first ventures just saying, "Fuck all" to the original recipe and trying my hand at it. And, as I immediately remember that I had nothing to eat before my glass of Cabernet save for a cup of coffee, my first time* baking while tipsy. Time to eat breakfast or run the risk of making an MTV Spring Break-esque fool of myself. At noon on a Sunday.


Once during my sophomore year of college, I came back home from a house party thoroughly trashed (i.e, had to be driven home, fell up the stairs, couldn't see straight, woke up with a headache) and prepared dough to make cinnamon rolls the next day.

Cinnamon Sugar Peach Galette, Leilani Style

• Ingredients for the crust
  
  • 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
    
  • 6 tablespoons butter, melted
    
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
    
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
    
  • 3 or so tablespoons water
    
• Ingredients for the filling
  
  • 2 peaches, washed, dried, thinly sliced
    
  • 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
    
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
    
  • pinch or two cinnamon
    
  • 2 tablespoons water
    
• Ingredients for glaze
  
  • 1 tablespoon butter, melted
    
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
    
  • 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
    
• Directions
  
  1. You'll be starting with the crust. Mix dry ingredients together, then slowly add butter (I was lazy and melted it on the stove) while mixing. At this point, I would switch to kneading the dough by hand and adding water by the tablespoon if it's a bit dry. Put in the fridge to chill for half an hour.
     
  2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. If you haven't already sliced the peaches, do so, thinly. And i mean thinly. Mix the sliced peaches with the sugar, water, flour and cinnamon. Cover with aluminum foil and chill in the refrigerator.
     
  3. After the half hour has passed, take the dough out and knead it by hand on a well-floured surface. Place the dough on the parchment paper and roll out thinly (about 1/8") into a circle.
     
  4. Arrange the peach filling on top of the dough. I did a little snail situation, starting by placing peach slices in the center and organizing them in a circular, overlapping fashion. Leave an inch and a half of crust showing.
     
  5. Fold the dough over the edges of the peaches. It'll overlap the corners of the previously folded dough.
     
  6. Brush the melted butter cinnamon sugar glaze over the galette. Place in the oven and bake for 40 to 50 minutes.
     
  7. The galette will be done when the edges of the crust are golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
     

UPDATE: The galette is out of the oven, and two slices are already in my tummy. I adjusted the crust recipe so that it's a bit sweeter, but with the butter whipped cream I made on Friday, it's still goooooooooooood!