Rebecca Firkser Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is Rebecca Firkser, a Brooklyn-based recipe developer and tester, writer, editor, and food stylist. She's worked with a variety of publications, including Bon Appétit, Food52, Taste, and Eater. She also writes the Nickel & Dine Substack, where she shares budget-friendly recipes full of flavor, but Rebecca is also a galette whisperer, and her debut cookbook, “Galette!” was recently released. The book is a celebration of one of the most impressive yet forgiving pastries out there and all the different ways you can make them, savory, sweet, and everything in between. Rebecca joins me to talk about her multifaceted career in which she wears so many hats, about the first galette she ever baked (spoiler alert, it was a plum one), and about why she considers galettes so riffable. We also chat about her first baking teacher, her mom, and about why galettes are the perfect bake for a home baker. Then Rebecca walks me through her Sour Cherry and Campari Galette, a summer showstopper that's as delicious as it is easy to make. Stay tuned for our chat. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com.
Today's episode is presented by Nordic Ware. Nordic Ware is a brand that every baker needs to know about. Their origin story is the stuff of legend. The brand was founded by husband and wife, Dave and Dottie Dalquist, in Minnesota. Today, Nordic Ware products are still proudly made in America and considered absolute essentials in commercial and home kitchens, including my own, and the company remains family-owned. Nordic Ware is famous for a lot of things, but especially their Bundt pans. If you're a regular listener of our show, you know that a Bundt is a tube-shaped cake. Nordic Ware continues to elevate the art of baking, offering the very best for those who take their craft seriously. Nordic Ware has classic Bundt pans, braided, fluted, minis, wreath-shaped, star-shaped, and even fleur de lis. You have to head to nordicware.com to see all the options. You don't have to hunt for the perfect Bundt, it's all right there. Everything is crafted from high-quality cast aluminum to ensure even heating for the most consistent results. Nordic Ware Pans are built for precise baking and easy release, which means a golden-brown, evenly-baked exterior and crisp design detail to capture all those gorgeous glazes and ganaches you're going to be drizzling over your Bundt cakes. Peeps, one more thing. Nordic Ware is giving She's My Cherry Pie listeners 15% off any order at nordicware.com, just use the code CHERRYBOMBE15 at checkout. That's CHERRYBOMBE15.
Peeps, did you hear the news? Cherry Bombe's Jubilee conference is headed to Los Angeles this fall, and tickets are on sale Tuesday, July 1st. It's taking place Sunday, September 28th at Hudson Loft in downtown L.A. It'll be a full day of inspiring conversations, delicious food and drink, and incredible community. Since 2014, this one-of-a-kind gathering has celebrated the voices and talents of women across the worlds of food, drink, restaurants, and hospitality. Now, it's L.A.'s turn, and we can't wait to give the city the love it deserves. Head to cherrybombe.com to learn more. I hope to see you there.
Let's chat with today's guest. Rebecca, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk Sour Cherry and Campari Galette with you and so much more.
Rebecca Firkser:
So excited to chat with you, Jessie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you share an early baking or sweet memory, whether it be an actual memory of making something or just an early baked good/sweet eating memory with us?
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh gosh, absolutely. Which one to pick? That's my formative years. Well, honestly, I learned how to bake because my mom was a healthy gal and we weren't allowed to have packaged sweets in the house. We didn't have candy, we didn't have packaged cookies, but she was perfectly happy with me baking and she taught me how to bake. So I feel like those are some of my earliest memories is making chocolate chip cookies with my mom. It sounds so nostalgic and picturesque, and she's my first baking teacher. That's the dedication in my book because it was really special for me. We had the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough recipe taped in our pantry in our kitchen.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. How old were you?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah. Oh, gosh. There are photos of me and my mom baking together when I was three or four, but-
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Rebecca Firkser:
... More studiously, maybe in my preteen years.
Jessie Sheehan:
I read about a cream puff eating experience at Rainbow Sweets. I can't remember, in Vermont?
Rebecca Firkser:
That's right, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which was also a preteen time when you fell. Tell us about the-
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh my gosh, absolutely. Well, shout out to Rainbow Sweets in Vermont. They don't exist anymore, but I hope that someone who has worked there or been there listens to this because I still haven't found anyone else who's been there. I'm worried I made it up, but my family was with me when we went, and we went a few years in a row, but it was this very special little side-of-the-road cafe. They made savory as well. The owner was such a character. He would just throw the flatware on the table and be like, "Set the table," to me and my sibling, and we just thought it was such a crack-up. But he made these beautiful puffs. He called them Johnny Depp's On A Plate. Hasn't aged too well, but we thought it was the time of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” We thought it was the coolest thing ever and they were very simple caramel glazed vanilla cream filled puffs, but they were perfect and I think about them a lot.
Jessie Sheehan:
I will have one right now, please.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah, same.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also read that it was around when you were 11 or 12, where even though you were so little, you started to follow recipes and make your own food, and is it like you were cooking for your family?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah. I started cooking for my family when I was really little. I think I just loved it. I was just like, get me in there. I genuinely don't remember when I started cooking because I think it predates my ability to recall.
My family, we were very big on eating dinner together every night, so there was always something being cooked, and I think we helped a lot, my sibling and I, and then eventually, it became pretty clear that I was the one who was into it, and then it got to the point where I think I cared more about making dinner than my parents did. It was like a home-ec class I took in middle school, and I was truly 11 or 12, and I was the only person in the class who took it seriously. I was like, no, I love cookbooks. I'd been reading cookbooks and the teacher was like, "Okay, you're the one I can zero in on." But she would give me homework of making dinner for my family and having my family review it, and I would find recipes from cookbooks.
The “Williams-Sonoma Baking Book” was a formative book for me. It was really, really important to me to make something for myself. I was an artist when I was younger too, so I felt like, oh my gosh, we can eat the art. That's a pretty special thing. It was like, new skill unlocked.
Jessie Sheehan:
You described one, the Williams-Sonoma cookbook, so I'd love to hear about any other cookbooks when you were little that you were really into. And also was there food TV that you were watching when you were a kid?
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh, yes. I'm a big Food Network person. Come home and I'd finish my homework really fast so I could make sure to catch Rachael Ray at six o'clock and then Giada, and then I think “Emeril Live” would be on, and we'd be like, all right, fine. We would just continue to watch until the infomercials would come on, or sometimes, I would get up really early and before the Food Network programming came on, it was like food infomercials and I still have those seared into my brain. TV doesn't exist like that anymore, and I'm a little sad for our youth that you can't have that experience of watching the infomercials before the real programming comes on. But “Barefoot Contessa,” such an important part of my life. I think we had all of Ina Garten's cookbooks, and so that was one of the big ones that I cooked through. Ina's, I think it's called a celebration cake. It's just like a lemony sour cream sheet cake, chocolate frosting. What can be better than that? But that was one of the first things that I made by myself.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. From Ina's book?
Rebecca Firkser:
From Ina's book. Yeah. Yeah. I think that might've been her family book, and it was a lot of dinner party, adjacent, larger format recipes, and I would always just be like, oh, it's my friend's birthday. I'm going to make the treats.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. You've written this baking book, which we're going to talk about. I'm so excited. But you also cook a lot.
Rebecca Firkser:
I do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you consider yourself... And I think I noticed this in the about page of your book, you call yourself a cook?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, so tell me about that.
Rebecca Firkser:
I'm not a pastry chef. I'm not a professional chef. I have done a lot of professional training. I did culinary techniques at the ICC. I have a very technical foundation in French culinary, but I am a cook and I write recipes for home cooks. I do a lot of budget-friendly dinners. My Substack newsletter is mostly cooking. I would say it's less baking. I'd say cooking is something I do every day because I have to feed myself, and it's where I play, I feel like. And then baking is much more like, I need a project, I'm going to lock in on something because that's what I also do in my free time, is a different kind of cooking. But baking is much more, I'm following a recipe, I'm getting to know someone's work, and of course, I'll always go off script as any one of us wants to do. But yeah, I feel like it's a pretty even 50/50 split for me in terms of baking versus cooking.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody. Radio Cherry Bombe's Kerry Diamond here. I want to thank everyone who joined us in Austin, Texas, for the kickoff of our Summer Tastemaker Tour, presented by the Visa Dining Collection by OpenTable and Visa. We had a great lunch and panel discussion at the beautiful Commodore Perry Estate and caught up with some of our favorite food folks. Austin is such a great food city, and I am always happy to visit. Next up on our Summer Tastemaker Tour is Hudson Valley, New York. Join us on Friday, July 11th, at Wildflower Farms, an Auberge Resort, for a day of food and community. We'll be joined by culinary stars Sohui Kim, Angie Rito, and Leah Cohen, and we even have a special focaccia-making class with Ashley Napoli, a focaccia florist. It's the perfect summer escape. I'll be there with team Cherry Bombe, and I would love for you to join us. Access is available for those with eligible Visa credit cards. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at cherrybombe.com and get your tickets through OpenTable. We can't wait to see you there.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cherry Bombe's new issue, the Power issue is out now, and this issue has four incredible cover stars: activist and author, Gloria Steinem, chef Mashama Bailey of The Grey in Savannah, chef/restauranteurs, Jody Williams and Rita Sodi of Via Carota and Bar Pisellino in New York City, and chef and culinary creative, Sophia Roe. The issue includes exclusive interviews with all of the cover stars, plus our first-ever Power list of the 100-plus women making the culinary world a more interesting, inspiring, and innovative place. You don't want to miss this edition of Cherry Bombe magazine. To get your copy, head to cherrybombe.com or stop by your local culinary shop or bookstore. You can find a full list of retailers on cherrybombe.com. Now, back to our guest.
I think it was also while you were in college, maybe towards the end, where you actually developed your first galette recipe?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes, that's right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Maybe it wasn't the first galette you'd ever made, but it was the first-
Rebecca Firkser:
No, certainly not.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you had made a lot of galettes because your mom taught you how to make them, or just they were on your radar?
Rebecca Firkser:
I think they were just on my radar. I'm sure my mom made them. My mom made all the things at some point or another, but I think I probably had made pies in the past and was a little intimidated by them, and then discovered the galette, and I was like, okay, I also don't need a lot of equipment. I can just have my sheet pan and a bowl. I don't even really need a rolling pin.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. I think you rolled the first one out with a wine bottle.
Rebecca Firkser:
I did because I was in a college apartment. No rolling pin, but plenty of wine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, of course. Priorities. It was plum, yes?
Rebecca Firkser:
It was. Yes. So I went down to the local grocery store and they had all this beautiful local produce. We were in Massachusetts, and it was like springtime. Now that actually might've been when I was there over a summer one yea,r because it was plums. Yeah, I got the cheapest butter that they sold at the store. I did a lot of baking for my roommates because again, that's what I did in my spare time and I cobbled together the crust and I was really nervous and I don't think at the time I truly understood you got to work the butter into the flour. You're not going to mess it up. I probably did way too much water to bring it all together.
Jessie Sheehan:
Was it your crust recipe as well?
Rebecca Firkser:
It was. I was playing around. That is not the recipe that's in the book. Nobody worry. But I was like, yeah, so there's this ratio of butter to flour to water, and I'll just make it work. And then I was like, well, the ratios, it's not really holding together. I'll just dump in more water. And it was a little bit haphazard.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Rebecca Firkser:
And I'm throwing in so many plums, really crowded the heck out of it, but I was like, you know what? Ginger could be interesting. Orange could be interesting. Let's just play around with it. Folded it all up. Again was a little too timid in my ceiling of edges.
Jessie Sheehan:
So did it pop open?
Rebecca Firkser:
And I had a huge explosion. It was like the disaster that everyone expects to happen when you're making a galette, but don't worry, I really worked it out. I figured it all out at this point, but I was so delighted to find that it wasn't ruined. It was still crisp on the bottom.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I feel like if they don't leak that you did something wrong.
Rebecca Firkser:
Totally.
Jessie Sheehan:
The leaking is part of their-
Rebecca Firkser:
It's modern art.
Jessie Sheehan:
And their rusticness.
Rebecca Firkser:
I totally agree.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to talk about the book in a little while, I promise. Was this the inspiration for the book?
Rebecca Firkser:
It was definitely-
Jessie Sheehan:
Or is it just like a memory that you think of because now you're writing a galette book or now you've written one?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes. It popped into my head the moment that we decided that it would be a book of galettes that I was writing a proposal for. But even if you look back, I think I've had Instagram for 10 years at this point, probably when Instagram began, and I've had so many galettes through the years. And so, I always think back on that and I was like, what was the first recipe I developed? And I certainly couldn't tell you. I'm sure it was formally speaking, some dinner I was tossing together, but that one, I really think back on where I was like, okay, I have a pen and paper out. I'm writing down what I'm doing. I'm recording it. I always think back on and it feels like a very appropriate story.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Rebecca Firkser:
Right now.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. Whether it was or was not-
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
It should be. So you wear so many hats professionally, like total multifaceted career, which is awesome. Can you briefly describe them? I think people know, but what are you doing when you're a food stylist, a recipe tester for cookbooks, a culinary producer, a writer and editor, recipe developer for your own cookbooks, and I'm sure for other people's as well? And then I wondered if these are all your hats, is there a favorite hat? And now, there's an author hat.
Rebecca Firkser:
That's right. That's right. Oh my gosh. Another hat. No, that's such a good question. I feel like a lot of folks don't totally know all the different arms of food media. Recipe development is different than recipe testing. Recipe development is you're creating the recipe from start to finish. Have an idea, and sometimes in my case, you have an assignment from a publication and you're like, okay, how am I going to make this sheet pan chicken recipe? You go to the grocery store, you buy the ingredients, you play around in the kitchen a few times. You're writing everything down. For me, it's very lucky when I have a good one on the first try. Usually, it's like, okay, I'm on the right track. And then I like to make it two or three more times. And more than three means I have a little bit of a project on my hands, but then a recipe would move on to recipe testing. And so, a recipe developer who works for themselves might do some recipe testing for themselves, but officially, a proper recipe test is someone else gets the recipe.
And so, I do a lot of recipe testing for other authors and brands, and you are getting the recipe, maybe there's a reference image, so you know what it is that you're looking at or what you're trying to make, but you're just trying to find any inaccuracies. It's just really to make sure that the recipe works when someone who didn't create the recipe is doing it. Recipe testing has my heart to an extent. And then of course, food styling and culinary producing.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you did food style your book?
Rebecca Firkser:
I did food style, my book, yeah. So I worked as an assistant food stylist for a few years on and off, one of the many hats. Assistant food styling, you're doing a lot of the baking, a lot of the cooking. You're always checking with your lead food stylist to be like, "It says thinly slice the onions, but how thin are we talking? Do you want paper-thin or do you want to see them? So maybe more like an eighth of an inch." I love food styling, and I think food stylists really deserve so many accolades. Their job on set is so, so important. They are really responsible for probably the first thing a home cook is going to see. Other than the recipe title, you're going to see the beautiful image. And so food styling, it's not the recipe developer on set making the food that you see in Bon Appétit or a cookbook or NYT Cooking. It's the food stylist who's making it. So they're making the food look beautiful.
And then I write and edit as well for different folks. I used to write a lot more feature stories, and then it was more reported work and now, I'm more in a recipe world, but I'm never not doing something related to food.
Jessie Sheehan:
And the grind is real, no?
Rebecca Firkser:
It is. I work every single day and sometimes, parts of that work are more fun. I still feel very lucky that I don't get in the kitchen and I'm like, "Ugh, I got to cook." I'm like, "Oh, what am I going to make for dinner tonight?" I'm like, as long as I still feel excited to get into the kitchen, I know that I'm doing something right, but it can be pretty exhausting, the freelance life.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us briefly about your Substack newsletter, Nickel & Dine. Such a good name.
Rebecca Firkser:
Thank you so much. Nickel & Dine started… it's a budget recipe newsletter now. It started as a recipe column when I was an editor at Food52. The original column was dinner for four for $10 or less, and now it can be any iteration. Now, I get to make my own rules, but it's always through a budget lens.
When I first moved to New York, I had a very small salary at the food media job that I worked at, and I didn't have the budget to go out to dinner the way that my friends were. They were working in tech or finance, and I was like, I cannot. But going out to eat and eating together is such a big part of living in New York because everyone has such tiny homes that it's a little hard to get people in one room in an apartment. But I swiftly realized that people could eat on my living room floor and I could cook. Perhaps not quite the quality of the restaurants we had access to living in New York, but I could be inspired by those restaurant meals and make them for a fraction of the price at home. I try to capture a little bit of that in my newsletter. I hope people read it. Please subscribe.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, exactly. Please subscribe to Rebecca's newsletter. All right. So now, I want to talk about your cookbook, but was it always a dream? Were you always like, "Oh my gosh, I hope one day I get to write a cookbook?"
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh, absolutely. So I was working with my agent, Kitty. Love you.
Jessie Sheehan:
How did you have an agent before you had a proposal?
Rebecca Firkser:
I hadn't signed with her yet. I was working with one of her other clients on their cookbook proposal. So oftentimes, literary agents will match writers with personalities who perhaps don't have a writing background but have a point of view that they'd like to share through a cookbook. So I was working with one of Kitty's other authors on a proposal. I had worked with some of her other authors, recipe testing their books. And so we sat down. She knew that I wanted to write a book, but she was like, "I'm going to be a straight shooter. You are not famous enough on Instagram," because obviously, if a publisher is going to give you the responsibility of selling a book, it's really helpful to have the built-in audience of a social media following. But she was like, "But there's a big market for single-subject cookbooks because they're so giftable." Someone's shopping in Anthropologie, and they pick it up and it's like, oh, perfect, a gift for my nephew.
And so there's so many cookie books, there's so many cake books, but there weren't a lot of galette books out there. And so, it felt like such a fortuitous moment to do a single-subject book on galettes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So smart. I wrote, did you always know it would be a galette book? Maybe not.
Rebecca Firkser:
No. Maybe certainly not.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you define what a galette is?
Rebecca Firkser:
What's interesting is there are a lot of different definitions for the term galette. For my book specifically, galette is like a rustic free-form pie. That's, I think, the simplest definition. But galette can mean anything from crepe to cookie to fry bread, depending on what country or time of year or in history you're speaking of. So I think it's a very important question.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it has usually a flaky short crust base just like... It's pie dough.
Rebecca Firkser:
It's pie dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Essentially pleated into these small little folds that kind of go up over the filling.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
But only about a couple of inches so that the center is exposed.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly. No full top crust, no lattice.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's why I love them.
Rebecca Firkser:
They're so simple.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love simple. You make such a good argument in the introduction for why we should all be galetting. It's a verb. They're easy to make. They're forgiving, simple ingredients, minimal equipment, they're foolproof. And you say they're an ideal bake for a home cook. Why?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes. Well, I think baking is something that's so intimidating for home cooks. They understand that baking is science. It can be quite complicated, but you don't have to go make your own viennoiserie at home. You can start quite simply. You can mix together one bowl, cookie dough, you can make a galette. I think galettes, they're perhaps for someone who's already made one tray of cookies in their life, you can make a galette. The crust comes together in one bowl.
And I think it's really important for home cooks who are interested in eating the baked goods to get in there and experience it themselves and discover that pie dough isn't actually that hard. It can be intimidating. There are a lot of things going on, but it was important for me to have my recipes tested by home cooks, by not professional recipe testers. I had the pros test as well, but so many of my recipe testers were home cooks who'd never baked before. My anecdote, one of my friends was like, "What's a sheet pan?" And he made a gorgeous galette. So it's very doable. You can pull out whatever produce is in your fridge.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, you talk about their riffability.
Rebecca Firkser:
There's a lot of riffability, and I think sometimes, I have to hold myself back from saying, "You could do that or you could do that, or you could do that." Because I don't want anyone to feel like there's a barrier to entry. Like, oh, I can't go to a farmer's market and buy rhubarb, can I not make this? And it's like, of course you can, just use strawberries. It's fine. I think that's the other part of the galette home cook friendliness is you can make them with the most basic supermarket apples and you can make them with the cheapest butter, whatever flour you have available. Nothing needs to be fancy, nothing needs to be organic or of the highest possible quality. You can truly go to your corner store and probably find all the ingredients you need.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I also love that you say that the fillings don't require specificity, which I think is the same way of saying they're pretty riffable.
Rebecca Firkser:
They are. Exactly. And I feel like you have a basic understanding of how much you need, but you don't need to be like, "Oh my gosh, it's an extra quarter of a teaspoon of zest. What am I going to do?" It's just zest the lemon, put it in there. It's fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
And just briefly before we get into the recipe, tell us about the “Galette!” seasonality guide.
Rebecca Firkser:
Absolutely. So the recipes, I feel like I made just about one galette for every kind of produce. Certainly not every kind of produce, but I went through the supermarket aisles and the chapters are organized by types of produce. So naturally, that speaks to the seasons. So you flip across to the stone fruit chapter, if it's January, you're going to be a little bit limited in terms of your options. So I wanted to have this guide in the front to show folks that, okay, even if you're really excited about the sour cherry galette, for example, here's how you can make it in December. Here's how you can make the rhubarb galette in the middle of winter. You can swap in persimmons. And usually, it's not quite such a jump. Usually, it's more like, okay, you don't have these sour cherries. You can use frozen instead. No peaches? You can use plums. Or no apples? You can use pears.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, so now, we are going to talk about your Sour Cherry and Campari Galette. So Campari is like this herbal aperitif that you talk about how well it goes with tart cherries and the floral citrus and it's definitely a filling you say, for people who lean a little bitter as opposed to sweet.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes, exactly. It's still a sweet filling, but I think I maybe have less of a sweet tooth than some folks. So I tend to pull back on the sugar and let other flavors shine through even though there's still plenty of sugar, plenty of sweetness. This one's one of my favorites. I'm so glad we're talking about this one.
Jessie Sheehan:
And just so people know, sour cherries are basically around for about a month, a summer, but you can substitute, I assume, a different cherry or a different berry?
Rebecca Firkser:
Certainly. You can absolutely use just regular dark sweet cherries, but also, frozen cherries are very accessible.
Jessie Sheehan:
Frozen sour cherries?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes. Yes. There's this brand, I think it's called Seal the Seasons. It's like an upstate New York cherry brand. And now that I'm saying it, I'm sure I'll never be able to find them ever again because people will scoop them all up. They're the only brand of frozen sour cherries I've ever seen outside of stocking them from a farmer. And then I think it's Wyman's that makes a sour and sweet cherry blend, and that's really great too.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think I've had that. Yeah.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think you're right, it's Wyman's. All right, so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to make the crust, and I love that you call your crust the good crust or a good crust.
Rebecca Firkser:
The good crust.
Jessie Sheehan:
There are two ways to make it. There's by hand and by a food processor, but we'll start with one by hand and you say, like a galette is only half crust, half filling. It's an even-Steven kind of situation here, so the dough's flavor is paramount. Although you can make it with any butter, you recommend a high-quality, high-fat butter. You also talk a little bit about why we're adding a teeny bit of sugar to our dough, and we're going to do that for sweet and savory galettes. Can you just briefly explain why we want to add a little sugar to the recipe?
Rebecca Firkser:
Absolutely. Yeah. Sugar helps caramelize in the oven. So when something is baking, you get that Maillard reaction that I'm sure food podcast fans have heard before. But it's really just when something caramelizes in the oven, it takes on color, and it takes on a deepe,r toastier flavor. And then also, sugar seasons. So I have salt and sugar in my dough. Obviously, butter and flour are wonderful flavors, but I think seasoning helps bring out those flavors. So that's why whether you're making a sweet or savory galette, add a little sugar. It's not too much, don't worry, it's not a typo, it won't be sweet.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, in a liquid measuring cup or a small bowl, we're going to combine some water and some apple cider vinegar and we're going to place that in the freezer. So I had two questions. First of all, I know we're putting it in the freezer, but should we start with it cold? You don't recommend that it be cold-
Rebecca Firkser:
That's fine. It doesn't have to be freezing, freezing cold. You don't need to get ice or anything if you don't have ice, just pop it in the freezer. You could pop it in the fridge if you don't have room in your freezer, you just want it to be cold. I have made galette dough at this point with just tap water and it's fine. It's totally fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then why the vinegar, and is there a brand of apple cider vinegar that you like?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah, the vinegar, it really is just how I learned how to make pie dough. I noticed that that was a through line in a lot of different galette and pie dough recipes. And when I was doing the research more specifically for the book, it's been debunked, but some people say the moisture content will evaporate off because it's not water. Some say it adds a little bit of flavor. Some say it prevents the dough from getting dull as it sits in the fridge. For me, I think it's just a superstition at this point. I always do a little splash of apple cider vinegar, but I love my Bragg's.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Rebecca Firkser:
They're the best.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think I first learned about it from Four & Twenty Blackbirds.
Rebecca Firkser:
That was probably where I first did as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And I think it was like the whole vodka or vinegar thing. It was like, which one do you use? And I always use it now and I love the smell.
Rebecca Firkser:
It smells great.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. There's something that feels like pie dough when you add a little bit of vinegar.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes, exactly. I'm like a tangy person. I love acid so, anytime I get the opportunity to throw it in, I will.
Jessie Sheehan:
So in a large bowl. And it's this for you at home, are you using a metal bowl? Are you using a glass bowl?
Rebecca Firkser:
Usually a metal bowl, unless I'm filming content. So, you can see through and then it's glass. But I love just a lightweight metal bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. In a large bowl and using our fingers or a fork, we're going to combine some all-purpose flour, sugar, kosher salt. Why our fingers?
Rebecca Firkser:
I think your hands are a great tool for whisking. Take out a fork, take out a whisk if you prefer, but this pie dough is coming together by hand, so, I think it's no need to dirty something else if you don't want to.
Jessie Sheehan:
I've never thought of whisking with my hands. I am always saying my favorite tool in the kitchen is my hands.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
But I tend not to mix dry ingredients with them, but-
Rebecca Firkser:
I always do.
Jessie Sheehan:
You may have changed me.
Rebecca Firkser:
It's probably just my laziness, but I'm happy to-
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm into lazy. I'm into lazy. Now, we're going to add some cold unsalted butter, but not frozen, just cold from your refrigerator. Cold unsalted butter. Have we cubed it?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, cubed cold-
Rebecca Firkser:
Half-inch pieces.
Jessie Sheehan:
Cubed, half-inch pieces of cold unsalted butter. Now we're using our fingers, which makes sense to me. Now, we're going to use our fingers or a fork to gently toss around the butter to coat it in the flour mixture and then we'll use our fingers to smash and rub the butter into the flour mixture until it forms flat pieces.
Rebecca Firkser:
That's right.
Jessie Sheehan:
You admit that you love these references, the beans-
Rebecca Firkser:
I do. I do.
Jessie Sheehan:
And legumes when we're talking size, but mostly the size of cannellini beans, about three-quarters of an inch. Also, some chickpeas and lentils about a half an inch.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
That is-
Rebecca Firkser:
Because no one should have to take out a ruler to measure a quarter of an inch piece of butter. Just you know what a chickpea is.
Jessie Sheehan:
And just the idea is it's like if the butter was between your fingers, you'd rub your fingers until the butter almost like making gnocchi or something.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly. Oh, that's such a great reference. I love that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yay for me.
Rebecca Firkser:
Let's add it to the book, quick.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And now the mixture should look pretty dry and crumbly. And then we're going to remove that water vinegar mixture from the freezer or the refrigerator or the tap. And then we're going to drizzle half that mixture over the flour-butter mixture. I like this recipe because it's not like we're making a huge amount and then using only a little bit. We're mostly using all of it. Although you say, depending on the weather, you might not use all of it, but I like that we use half in the beginning.
Rebecca Firkser:
I totally struggled with how to list the water measurement because it really is one of those things where again, I'm like, I said, it was so easy for home cooks and yet, so much of making galette dough is about feel and getting comfortable. And you can very easily over-hydrate a pie dough or a galette dough, it will be fine. But when it comes to adding that water, I think people are inclined to just say, "Okay, you said half a cup, dump it on in." And really, depending on the temperature of your room and how well you worked that butter into the flour, you might need a little bit less, you might need a little bit more, and it's best to just start out a little at a time. You can always add more.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we're going to drizzle half of that water-vinegar mixture over the flour-butter mixture. And then working from the bottom of the bowl up, we're going to use our fingers or a fork to gently toss the mixture together. And I love this you say, as if you were tossing a salad.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that reference.
Rebecca Firkser:
That's how I toss a salad with my hands too.
Jessie Sheehan:
My husband likes to eat salad with his hands because Alice Waters from Chez Panisse's salad with her hands.
Rebecca Firkser:
If it's good enough for Alice, it's good enough for anybody.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's good enough for Matt. So now, we're going to drizzle over another splash of the water vinegar mixture. This time, maybe more like a tablespoon or something or a teaspoon.
Rebecca Firkser:
A tablespoon or so is good.
Jessie Sheehan:
And continue to drizzle and toss until the shaggy chunky mixture forms. Should not be completely combined yet. But you don't want any dry areas of flour. I like this, you say, pebbles of moistened flour, not pure powder.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which I think is good. You may not need that full amount of water vinegar. You say, and I like this err on the dry side because you can always add a little bit more.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes. Even in the next step, it's going to come out of the bowl, but you don't have to worry about the fact that you haven't used all your water.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah. You're going to pick up a handful of the mixture and squish it and it should mostly hold together in its stuck shape. And if not, you might drizzle a little bit more teaspoon of water vinegar mixture on the driest areas. I learned that from Erin McDowell.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
She pushes it all aside and then anything that's dry in the corner, that's where she adds the water.
Rebecca Firkser:
That's what you want because the rest of the dough is already hydrated properly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah. That's such a good tip. So now we're going to dump the mixture onto the clean work surface. So we're not flouring it?
Rebecca Firkser:
No, no need.
Jessie Sheehan:
Onto a clean work surface, we're going to use our hands to pat the dough together into a rectangular mass. And the rectangular shape, because I think a round shape is important, because we're going to do this folding technique. Correct?
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
So it's about one inch thick. And again, if we find any more little extra dry areas, we'll just put a teeny bit of water vinegar mixture on those areas. And now, we're going to use our hands or a bench scraper. Do you have a favorite brand or type of bench scraper?
Rebecca Firkser:
I do. I actually really love a flexible bowl scraper from Matfer Bourgeat. I think I'm butchering the pronunciation. I get nervous when I have to speak French in real life. I love their flexible bowl scraper. And then I also love Ateco's bench scraper, the metal one.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to use our hands or a bench scraper, preferably French. We use hands or a bench scraper to fold the mass over itself and press down. So, we're just doing this with our hands, but we're not worrying about warming up the dough at this point?
Rebecca Firkser:
At this point, it's okay because it's going to chill for quite a while after you work with it. And at this point, the dough definitely shouldn't seem like it's dough yet. It should still be quite crumbly. Quite of a hodgepodge. It's not a homogeneous mixture yet.
Jessie Sheehan:
Could we also, if we didn't want to fold it over, could we just use the bench scraper to cut the rectangle in half and then put half on top?
Rebecca Firkser:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I use the bench scraper as more of a spatula to get under the dough and fold it over itself. It really just makes it easier for me, personally. But if you want to do it like a biscuit exactly. You just cut it, scoop it, pop it.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to fold the massive dough over on itself and press down until it's about one inch thick and the dough should not be moist or sticky. And if it is, we'll add a teeny bit of flour and then we're going to repeat that folding and pressing down two or three more times.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah. Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
So it's like three letter folds-ish.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Not quite a letter book, three book folds.
Rebecca Firkser:
A book fold. Exactly. I don't think that anyone should feel like, oh no, I haven't done it three times yet. Should I keep going? Oh, I've done it three times, but it's still not coming together. I really try to walk the line between over-hand holding and letting people really get a sense for what they're doing when writing a recipe. So two or three more times.
Jessie Sheehan:
So as you fold the dough over on itself, the shaggy mass will form into a cohesive dough, which will help with flakiness later on. Butter should not be blended all the way in, the surface of the dough should look like marble or I think this is the artist in you coming out. Just like marble or wood grain. Then we're going to divide the dough in half. We'll place each on a piece of plastic wrap, wrap it up and press it into a round or a rectangle, depending on if we're going to make a galette or maybe we're going to roll it out for like a sheet pan.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly. Yeah. Some of my galettes can be rectangular, some can be round. But also, forming the dough into a square or a rectangle is just easier for stacking and that's more like folks like us who are constantly dealing with more than five doughs at a time. But for the home cook, whatever you feel comfortable with. Round will be easier to roll out around. So go round.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And now, this is at about three-quarters inch thick. We'll refrigerate it for at least two hours, but up to five days. Then if we want to do this in a food processor, sometimes, this is great to switch to this method when you're making more than one batch of dough at a time, or if you have a crazy warm kitchen or hot hands-
Rebecca Firkser:
Or if you're just nervous, grab the scrubbing machine.
Jessie Sheehan:
To ensure our flaky layers, after we process our ingredients, we're going to bring the dough together on the counter via the folds. Just like the dough we made by hand.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
So the processor really is only to incorporate that butter and liquid.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly. And you start out with the butter, you can freeze it for a little bit to just make sure that you don't over process because that's why sometimes I tell people, I originally, when I wrote this book, I didn't want to include the food processor method, but one of my testers was like, "Quite frankly, I wouldn't make this if you didn't have a food processor method." And I know that some home cooks are just nervous about working the butter into the flour. And even though I think it will help you get better at galette making to do it with your hands, if you are nervous, the food processor, you don't want to pulverize the heck out of it because it quite quickly can be overworked. I think the method works great with the food processor.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also like that you say, and I wonder if this is true for making it by hand, maybe not, but you say that if you don't want to get your hands involved at all, you don't even have to do the folding. You can plop it out of the food processor right onto the piece of plastic, tuck the plastic all around it and then shape it within the plastic and shove it in your refrigerator.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly. At that point, you'd want to rely on the warmth of your hands to press it together because it will be a little bit shaggy at that point, but it will be totally fine. It will bake off a little bit less flaky because ultimately, that's what you're doing with that folding. But at the end of the day, it's going to be a delicious galette.
Jessie Sheehan:
If we're doing that, we would then gently roll over that wrapped dough that we didn't fold with a rolling pin to ensure it's tightly pressed together and about three-quarters inch thick. Is there a type or brand of rolling pin that you love?
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh, gosh. I have so many rolling pins that I love. I genuinely think my favorite French pin is from Crate & Barrel, now that I think because my mom worked at Crate & Barrel for a very long time, so I have a lot of wonderful Crate & Barrel tools. But I also have, officially, it's like a dumpling pin. It's 12 inches long. It's quite small. I got it at a beautiful cooking store in Paris called E.Dehillerin. And it's the only place to go in Paris obviously, but I love a tiny little rolling pin. I think it's incredible. And I'm not just speaking as someone who has a tiny little kitchen. Even if you have a big kitchen, a 12-inch rolling pin is really great.
Jessie Sheehan:
Just to call out the differences between the processor method and the by hands method. You mentioned it, but you do need to freeze the cubed butter when you do it in a food processor.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah. You don't have to freeze it solid, but you want to give it a good 10 or 15 in the freezer.
Jessie Sheehan:
In the freezer. Why?
Rebecca Firkser:
Because that will help the blades from pulverizing the butter too much because if the butter is even a little bit soft, it will start to turn it into a little bit of a paste and that's not what you want. I know there are so many different myth-busting doughs and some involve paste and that's not what we're looking for here.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Rebecca Firkser:
You want to keep those chunks.
Jessie Sheehan:
And so, we're going to prepare the water vinegar mixture just like we did when we made it by hand. But now, we'll place the flour, the sugar, the salt in the bowl of a seven-cup or larger processor. We'll just pulse like three times. Then we'll add that chilled butter, again, it's firm, but it's not frozen solid to the processor. We'll pulse that like three to four times for a second each to just coat the butter in the flour and then to break it into pieces roughly the size of chickpeas.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we'll remove the lid of the processor and we'll drizzle half of that water vinegar mixture over the flour butter, pulse two times at a second each. Remove the lid, do a little drizzle pulse another couple of times. Now we want something that's crumbly with moist pebbles, but no completely dry air as a flour. Same kind of powder.
Rebecca Firkser:
Same deal.
Jessie Sheehan:
Anti-powder.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we'll turn the dough out onto a clean work surface, break up any large pieces with our fingers or with a bench scraper to make uniform crumbs. And then we'll do what we did by hand. We'll do the folds or we will just wrap it in plastic and be done with it. Roll it out a little. The finished dough’s butter pieces are slightly smaller than when you do this by hand and the dough surface is terrazzo.
Rebecca Firkser:
That's right. I can't help myself.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right. Now, we're going to make the filling. So in a medium saucepan. And are you doing this with a Le Creuset or are you doing this with just a metal?
Rebecca Firkser:
Either one. I've made it in Dutch ovens. I've made it in just whatever aluminum pots I have hanging around.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. So in a medium saucepan, we're going to combine some granulated sugar, some grated blood orange zest, or grapefruit zest.
Rebecca Firkser:
Or just regular oranges if that's all you have. I was just trying to have fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Kosher salt.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to rub that with our fingers until the sugar is slightly moistened and fragrant. That's like a Dorie Greenspan tip from way back, her lemon cake.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah, that's an original.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So good, so good. Then we're going to stir in the sour cherries. We can use fresh, we can use frozen. And we're going heat this over medium-high heat and just cook it, stirring often with a spatula. Is there a brand or a type of spatula you love?
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh gosh, I have about 47 spatulas. I could not pick a favorite.
Jessie Sheehan:
My husband's always so mad at me that I have so many tools. I'm like, that's my job.
Rebecca Firkser:
I need them all.
Jessie Sheehan:
Hello.
Rebecca Firkser:
Even if I only use the same three, I need those other 42 of them.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's how I feel. I always use the same. So we're going to stir with the spatula to ensure the mixture doesn't burn and we're going to try not to smush the cherries too much. And we do this until the cherries have softened, released some liquid, bubbling eight to 12 minutes. I wondered why we have to cook this filling. Is it because that it won't set up in the short amount of time that it's going to take us to bake the galette? Or is it to meld flavors?
Rebecca Firkser:
It certainly would. When you're doing a single-subject cookbook, you want to avoid repetition as much as possible.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, so true.
Rebecca Firkser:
So that's where this one came from, is I had done a lot of very simple galettes that are truly tossing-
Jessie Sheehan:
With corn starch?
Rebecca Firkser:
Sugared fruit, cornstarch, plop it in the crust, toss it in the oven. And I didn't want to just do 50 recipes like that, even though it would've been a wonderful book had I done that. But I wanted to push myself a little bit further to get a little creative with the fillings. And these jamier fillings I think, were really exciting to me because it's a very different texture than when you just bake raw fruit.
Jessie Sheehan:
Raw fruit. Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah. It gets a little bit more chewy and I don't know, just a little bit more interesting and nothing raw. I have a regular cherry galette.
Jessie Sheehan:
Could we do this one, this one without cooking it if we wanted to?
Rebecca Firkser:
You certainly could. Absolutely. I think you'd want to hold back on some of the liquid.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course. Yeah, yeah.
Rebecca Firkser:
Because we are cooking off some of that liquid as we're cooking it on the stove.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that you mentioned that a bit. I don't think it has to do with single-subject. I feel like that, in any cookbook I write, it's like you need to have variety. And even though it seems like this is different than that, it may not be different enough.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly. And I'm such a person who cooks my favorite things over and over in various iterations, but when it comes to a cookbook, I think you want to hold yourself to a little bit more of a challenge.
Jessie Sheehan:
I couldn't agree with you more. I can't just do chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting.
Rebecca Firkser:
Right. I mean for me, everything I make is just some iteration of beans and carbs, but I'm like, that can't be a book. Maybe it could be.
Jessie Sheehan:
Who knows? Beans and carbs-
Rebecca Firkser:
Editors out there. Maybe you're listening.
Jessie Sheehan:
Maybe that could be your next book. Then in a small bowl, we're going to stir together cornstarch and two tablespoons of the Campari until it forms a smooth slurry. Do we need the slurry? Could we just add the liquid and the cornstarch? I never make a slurry. Should it be?
Rebecca Firkser:
From the jump-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Rebecca Firkser:
You could. So basically, the cornstarch is coming into this at a later stage because I am cooking off some of that liquid from the cherries first. It probably would still work.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right.
Rebecca Firkser:
I like the slurry mostly because I feel like it prevents the lumps from happening. I have noticed that when I, especially when you're heating, because cornstarch activates when it's heated. So I find that when you throw the cornstarch in, even if you're stirring the heck out of it immediately, I still felt little lumps.
Jessie Sheehan:
Feel like it gets lumpy.
Rebecca Firkser:
Again, I'm mostly trying to provide insurance policies for home cooks who maybe don't know exactly what to do when they dump cornstarch into something. But just to avoid that, I feel like it's helpful.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to stir the slurry into the cherry mixture, reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook stirring off and until the mixture gets thick and jammy, about four to six minutes, and we should be able to drag our spatula through the mixture and cleanly see the bottom of the pot in that line thing. So like custards, ice cream, all of that, pudding, pastry cream.
Rebecca Firkser:
Those are all my favorite foods. I'm like, let's keep going.
Jessie Sheehan:
All the foods that require the line in the pot-
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes. And then you get to where you're doing it with a spoon, you can use your finger and a lick.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, totally. So then we're going to remove from the heat, stir in the remaining one tablespoon of Campari, we're going to set up a large bowl. Again, is this either a metal bowl or a glass bowl?
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes. Anything heat-safe.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to set that up. Basically, we're making an ice bath. We're going to place the bowl of ice and we're going to add some water for this ice bath. We're doing this, we're making this ice bath because the just-cooked galette filling must cool completely before we add it to the crust.
Rebecca Firkser:
That's right.
Jessie Sheehan:
Why?
Rebecca Firkser:
You definitely don't want to add hot or warm filling to pie dough or crust because it can start to melt the butter and you want to wait until the dough hits the hot oven to get that going because the moment that crust gets a little warm, it can start to weep out butter when it hits the oven. And so, you want to keep things... This is where I'm a little bit more intense about keeping things cold. For the water in the crust, it's fine, but here, you want to be cold.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right. And this technique saves time because we're cooling it down quickly. We could just leave it on the counter.
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh, for sure. I had the fear of God put in me by a chef, chef Nick at the French Culinary Institute, who was very, very concerned with food safety. And when you leave something hot and jammy out at room temp, it can grow bacteria if it sits for longer. And he was like, always ice bath. Always ice bath. And I'm like, I am not serving restaurant clients. It's probably fine. It's going to go in the oven here. But I always think back to chef Nick telling me to use an ice bath.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's hilarious. Since I never went to culinary school, I'm like, "Oh yeah, let's sit out there."
Rebecca Firkser:
But it's fine, whatever.
Jessie Sheehan:
So this technique will save us little time and ensures that the filling will cool quickly. We're going to scrape the mixture into a medium bowl and then we're going to place that medium bowl over the bowl of ice water, ice and water and that cooled room temp about 20 minutes. Stirring maybe frequently to help it cool. And then if we're not making the galette right away, we could refrigerate that mixture.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
But we are.
Rebecca Firkser:
That's the other thing I love about the cooked fillings. I'm so glad I remembered this, is you can make them really far in advance. So you can truly go... You have your pie dough prepped, you have your precooked filling prepped. You can just preheat the oven and get ready to make your galette. You don't have to take out another bowl, you don't have to take out your ingredients. You can just have it all set and ready to go. It's a good party recipe-
Jessie Sheehan:
Love it. When we're ready to bake, we're going to preheat our oven to 425 with a rack positioned in the center and we're going to line a sheet pan with parchment and then we're going to roll our dough, which we took out of the refrigerator. We're going to let it sit on a lightly floured counter for a few minutes just to temper it.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah. Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to roll it into a circle, picking it up and moving it and flipping it over periodically. Make sure it doesn't stick to our counter, until it's about 13 and a half inches round, about an eighth to a quarter inch thick. Then we'll fold it in quarters, I always love that part of it, to move it easily. And then we'll unfold it on our prepared sheet pan. Then we'll spoon the filling into the crust, which is probably pretty jammy now. We might even almost be spreading it.
Rebecca Firkser:
Totally.
Jessie Sheehan:
Instead of spooning it.
Rebecca Firkser:
You can use the back of a spoon and just spread it around. You can use a spatula.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we'll leave like a two-inch border. We'll fold the edges of... Is two inches always the galette...
Rebecca Firkser:
It's my sweet spot, for sure. Some of the savory ones, I go even a little bit shorter and just twist it around because those are more rustic tarts, I don't have the juicing involved. But for that juice, I definitely find that galettes tend to expand in the oven too, so it's nice to give it that nice two-inch insurance policy.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to fold the edges of the crust over the filling towards the center, overlapping and pleating as desired. And then we'll freeze the galette on the sheet pan for 10 minutes. Is that enough time to set it?
Rebecca Firkser:
It's a decent amount of time. I would say you could also chill in the fridge for 20 minutes as well if you don't have room in your freezer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Rebecca Firkser:
You could also leave it in the freezer for longer. That's not a problem. 10 was the limit.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to brush egg wash over the exposed crust, sprinkle some more granulated sugar over the crust. I love that. Do you ever use turbinado?
Rebecca Firkser:
I love to use turbinado sugar. I sacrificed the look of the beautiful textured turbinado sugar to just be like, you already have the granulated sugar.
Jessie Sheehan:
I get you. I know. It's hard for me to do that when I write recipes, but I try to do that too.
Rebecca Firkser:
It's tough, but it looks so much prettier.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sometimes I'm even like, don't use an egg washer's cream in the recipe, use the cream. But I always love the way an egg wash looks.
Rebecca Firkser:
It looks so beautiful.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we're going to bake until the crust is starting to turn golden, about 12 to 15 minutes. Then we're reducing the temp to 375, dropping it by 50 degrees, and we are going to continue to bake until the crust is deeply golden brown. Very important. Yes, deeply-
Rebecca Firkser:
Most people are underbaking, I would say. I think people are so worried about burning things that they go a little too blonde. And that's when you risk the soggy bottom.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, and the pasty.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly. You don't want that.
Jessie Sheehan:
No, no, no.
Rebecca Firkser:
Let it get bien cuit.
Jessie Sheehan:
Deeply. Yes, exactly. And also, a good bakery in Brooklyn. Deeply golden brown. And the filling should be bubbling. What's also nice about a galette, another thing I love about them is that they bake more quickly than pie.
Rebecca Firkser:
They do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because they have less filling. To this point, about baking a pie or a galette to its proper state, it really needs to be dark brown crust because that's how long it's going to take for those berries in the center to be bubbling.
Rebecca Firkser:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Although, I guess because it's cooked, it's a tiny bit different.
Rebecca Firkser:
That one specifically is a little bit different, but I would say-
Jessie Sheehan:
But in general, right?
Rebecca Firkser:
Across the board, even if you're using a filling, a vegetable filling that has no liquid, no extra bubbling or sugar creating juices, you still want to go deeply golden brown and those cook a little bit faster. But the oven has to do a lot of work to penetrate through all of those layers. And when you're cooking certain pies, you par-bake the crust and you give it a head start. You can't do that with a galette.
Jessie Sheehan:
No. But I also just think like a berry pie-
Rebecca Firkser:
Oh, gosh. It takes forever.
Jessie Sheehan:
A blackberry pie could take an hour at least. Same with a blueberry pie.
Rebecca Firkser:
Absolutely. No question.
Jessie Sheehan:
But you make a blueberry galette, does not take that-
Rebecca Firkser:
Much faster. Much faster.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I love that. So, sorry, I went on a tangent. So now that-
Rebecca Firkser:
I love a fruit-related tangent.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now the filling will be bubbling. That's going to be probably another 35 to 45 minutes to get us to that bubbling stage. We'll rotate the pan from front to back. Halfway through the baking time, I always rotate, I love to meet a fellow rotator. And then we'll remove the galette from the oven and cool it uncovered for at least 25 minutes and up to eight hours. I feel like another perk of a galette is that you can eat it right away.
Rebecca Firkser:
You totally can.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's different than pie, where you really need it to set or it'll just... Yes. Yeah, that was my...
Rebecca Firkser:
Especially for this one too. Again, your filling is already cooked, so it's not going to be quite as juicy immediately as a pie. But I think it is helpful to let them set up a little bit. Maybe you don't give it that 25 minutes. You're ready to eat. You've got your ice cream out, your guests around the table. Go ahead and slice in warm just to make the cleanest slice.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I love that. And then we will slice and serve.
Rebecca Firkser:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Rebecca, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Rebecca Firkser:
Thank you so much, Jessie. You're my cherry galette.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I should have said that. That's it for today's show. Thank you to Nordic Ware for supporting this episode. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and tell your pals about us. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thank you to CityVox Studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.