Yossy Arefi transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi peeps, you are 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 three baking books, including my latest, “Snackable Bakes.” Each Saturday I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is the food stylist and photographer Yossy Arefi. Yossy is also a fantastic baker and is the author of “Snacking Cakes: Simple Treats for Anytime Cravings.” Her newest book, “Snacking Bakes: Simple Recipes for Cookies, Bars, Brownies, Cakes, and More,” will be out this November. Those of you familiar with Yossy's work also know that she loves to make galettes, those beautiful, simple, freeform tarts filled with seasonal fruit. They are one of the easiest baked goods to master and one that will impress and delight your loved ones. Yossy joins me to explain all things galette and we of course chat about her career and her baking life. And thank you to Yossy for bringing a gorgeous galette to the studio. It was filled with pluots and blueberries and we of course devoured it. Stay tuned for my chat with Yossy.
What's new at Cherry Bombe? Well, the latest issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine is now available. You can purchase a subscription to Cherry Bombe and have it delivered directly to your door four times a year. Or you can pick up a copy from your favorite magazine shop, bookstore, or gourmet shop. Places like Le Dix-Sept Patisserie in San Francisco, Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, and select Whole Food locations. Cherry Bombe magazine is thick and gorgeous and printed on lush paper. It's failed with recipes, features, and profiles you don't want to miss. Visit cherrybombe.com to subscribe.
Thank you to Plugra Premium European Style Butter and California Prunes for supporting today's show. I've been a fan of Plugra for some time, as anyone who has peaked in my fridge can attest. I was introduced to Pugra by my coworkers at my very first bakery job, and I continue to use Plugra today in my work as a professional baker recipe tester and cookbook author. Because of what I do for a living, I go through a lot of butter as you can imagine. I especially love that Plugra contains 82% butter fat because the higher butter fat content means less moisture and more fat. And as baker's know, fat equals flavor. Plus, it's slow churned, making it more pliable and easy to work with. I use Plugra Premium European Style unsalted butter when making either my easy-peasy melted butter pie dough or my traditional cold butter pie dough. I also love the buttery flavor Plugra. Add to my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, which also calls for melted butter. Can you tell melted butter is one of my ingredient obsessions these days? However you use it, Plugra Premium European Style Butter is the perfect choice. From professional kitchens to your home kitchen. Ask for Plugra at your favorite grocery store or visit Plugra.com for a store locator.
Let's check in with today's guest. Yossy.
Yossy Arefi:
Hi.
Jessie Sheehan:
So excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk fruit galettes with you and so much more.
Yossy Arefi:
Thank you so much for having me. Fruit galettes are one of my very favorite topics, especially in the summer.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you are an award-winning cookbook author of two fantastic books, your first “Sweeter Off The Vine “and your second, “Snacking Cakes,” and your third is on the way in November, “Snacking Bakes.” And I just have to say I love the title “Snacking Bakes” because it is just the perfect little sibling or sequel to “Snacking Cakes.” I just thought that was awesome.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. It was definitely the natural follow-up to my first cake baby, “Snacking Cakes.”
Jessie Sheehan:
Exactly. “Snacking Cakes” needs a brother or a sister, “Snacking Bakes.”
Yossy Arefi:
Yes, absolutely.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you describe your two books for the listeners who might not be familiar because they are definitely different?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, they're really different. “Sweeter Off The Vine” came out I think in 2016, which feels like so long ago now, but it's all about fruit desserts and it covers a huge range of things. So it's really simple granitas to layer cakes so it's a huge variety of things. I wanted to showcase all of the different ways that you can highlight fruit, not just in a pie or in a crumble. There's so many ways that you can use fruit and desserts and fruit desserts are so beautiful. The book is just full of photography. I traveled all over the country photographing farms and my parents' garden and my parents' community garden in Seattle just to get all of that luscious, colorful, beautiful photography.
And then “Snacking Cakes” came out in October of 2020, which was a very strange time for everyone. Everyone had been at home for months and months and months, and I think everyone was sick of cooking, but also interested in learning about cooking and baking. And the recipes, they're so easy, they're so approachable, they don't use a lot of ingredients, they don't use a lot of tools. The book, I think it just struck a nerve with people who were looking for some fun, easy projects to do for themselves or with their kids or during nap time or during those little pockets of the day when you just need a little pick me up.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, besides writing baking books, you're also, I think and I think everyone else does, incredible photographer and food stylist. And as such, in addition to the blog site, you also have a site devoted to your styling and photo work, which I had never seen before, Yossyarefi.com. And I wondered how the photography styling piece of what you do came to be. Did food photography and styling come first and then book writing or vice versa or all together?
Yossy Arefi:
It came all together. I worked at a bakery for a number of years on the Upper East Side, and while I was there, I started reading food blogs and learned about this food blogging world probably like 2009, 2010. I was like, "Oh." I had always been interested in photography. I studied, I went to a liberal arts college and I studied photography a little bit in college and I did in classes in high school. So it was always a hobby. I was always the kid with the camera, but I never really took food photography seriously. And then I learned about this whole blogging world where it was like, I can bake all these beautiful things and then I can also photograph them and I can combine these two artistic interests that I have and turn them into this great creative outlet. And that's totally what the blog was for me at first, it was just a creative outlet.
I had all these ideas of things that I wanted to experiment with that I wasn't doing in the bakery where I worked, but I wanted to learn more and just experiment. And the blog was just the perfect venue for that. So through that, I learned more about the food media world and that food styling was a job and food photography was a job, and these are all different things that I could do to still be involved in food but maybe not have to work in a restaurant, which is a really hard lifestyle. And I had been doing it for about six years and I was looking for the next thing. And so starting the blog just catapulted me into the food media world where I started doing more styling and more photography and recipe development for other outlets and all that stuff. And then that rolled into the books. It was a very natural but long progression.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you share just in case a listener might not know what a galette is?
Yossy Arefi:
I always describe it as an open-faced pie. So it's a single crust that you pile a bunch of fruit on that's been sugared and flowered and seasoned however you want. And then you just tuck that crust up around the fruit and you bake it until the crust is golden and the fruit is bubbling. And so you have the feeling of a pie, but it's much more casual. You don't have to worry about the filling setting. When you have, you make a pie and the filling doesn't set and it goes everywhere and you have to scoop it up and do a bowl instead of make a nice slice. A galette is meant to be juicy. The fruit is much thinner, so you don't have to cook it as long. It just has all the things that you love in a pie with more crust to fruit ratio, which is really nice, I think.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also love that you can eat it warm. I was working on a blueberry pie recipe recently and I pulled it too soon and the blueberries were everywhere and it's just so annoying. But with a galette, you can sort of tell when your fruit's set anyway, and if it dribbles, it's not a big deal. You can totally cut a galette when you first make it, whereas with a pie, I think I waited four hours to find out that the blueberry pie hadn't set right. The bad news came hours after I was confident like, "Oh, look at my beautiful pie."
Yossy Arefi:
That's one of those tricky things about baking is you don't know that you've made a mistake until it's all the way done. With cooking, you can adjust as you're going with, but I think that's one thing that frustrates people about baking. It's like you don't know you've made a mistake until it's out of the oven or it's out of the oven and cool. Or you make a cheesecake and it looks beautiful when you take it out of the oven and then two hours later it's just like Grand Canyon down the middle of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
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Okay, so the recipe we're going to talk about is for any fruit galette, which I love that it's more of a formula. I mean it's a recipe, but it's a formula for a recipe, which I think is fantastic. It gives folks so much freedom and flexibility to galette, and yes, that's a verb, with whatever is in season. So first I thought we would start with a pie crust, which is your all butter pie crust. First things first, we're going to whisk. And I wonder, do you have a brand of a whisk or a type of whisk that you like to use?
Yossy Arefi:
I say whisk in the recipe because I think I was trying to be formal, but the honest truth is I usually just put all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix it with my hand.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it. I do that or I use a fork. I can't be bothered, but I love that. So whisk fork or hand, we're going to whisk together some flour. I assume that all-purpose?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, all-purpose flour. I usually choose one that's a little bit lower on the protein content, something that's unbleached. And a lot of times I like to use some portion of a whole grain flour. Usually a third or a half of the total amount I'll add rye flour or spelt or whole wheat just because I think it tastes really interesting. And fruit usually pairs really well with those nutty whole grain flavors. So yeah, I'll use all-purpose and then if I'm feeling fancy, I'll put some whole grain flour in there too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love it. And the little bit of sugar, which is not for sweetness because it's only two teaspoons. It's more tenderness browning, that thing?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, exactly. It's for the tenderness and the browning. The dough's not going to taste sweet. If you were wanted to make something savory, you could use the same dough and not feel like it was a dessert or something.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think that's confusing for people. I've been making a lot of savory baking recipes lately, and I'm putting a little sugar in almost everything because if you don't, everything looks flat and white and strange and you're like, "Oh, sugar is playing a different role here."
Yossy Arefi:
Sugar provides a lot of different things for baked goods. It's not just sweetness, it's moisture and texture and all of that too.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to whisk together our flour, our sugar, and our kosher salt. We're going to put it into a large bowl. Do you have a preference? Do you like to use a glass bowl or a metal bowl?
Yossy Arefi:
I use both. I tend to reach for a metal bowl generally it's just lighter weight and not breakable. I have both and I use both.
Jessie Sheehan:
And do you just buy them at a restaurant supply store? Do you have a specific brand that you're fond of?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I love a restaurant supply, stainless steel nesting bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we're going to cut unsalted butter into roughly tablespoon sized slices. And you mentioned that how key, which it is in all pie crust, how key the cold butter is. Do you ever freeze it or you do, you just chill it in the fridge? Any tricks for making sure your butter is super cold?
Yossy Arefi:
I'm a pretty quick crust maker, so I don't usually do a secondary chill after I slice it. But if you feel like you're moving slow or your kitchen is really hot and your butter feels soft or melty, pop it in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes.
Jessie Sheehan:
After you've sliced it?
Yossy Arefi:
After you've sliced it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And now you're going to add some apple cider vinegar to some ice water. I think I know the reason, but can you tell us why vinegar and why apple?
Yossy Arefi:
I like the flavor of it. First of all, when I first started doing it, I had read that adding vinegar to pie crest helps keep it tender. And I think maybe that science has been a little bit debunked, but I got used to the flavor, which I really like, so I just keep putting it in. It just adds a little bit of a background note to the flavor of the crust.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you love the smell when you're prepare... I just feel like that's now what I associate making pie dough with is the smell of the apple cider vinegar. I love that. Now we're going to add the butter to our dry ingredients and toss with our hands to coat. And then we're going to use our fingers or the palms of our hands to press each butter into a flat sheet. And you say that the idea is to create these thin shards of butter that range in size from a dime to a quarter. Is it like that French technique, you pronounce a fasage?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, it's similar to that except I think with Fasage we would dump everything out onto the counter and smear it with your hands to make those long sheets of butter. But I think of it like when you're trying to make a flaky crust, the thing that's makes it flaky is the water and the butter puffing and expanding when the heat hits it in the oven. I'm making lots of hand motions that no one can see except me.
So you want to have long, thin pieces of butter in your crust to make those flakes rather than shorter rounder pieces of butter. And I always found when I first started making crust, it always said to make the butter the size of a pea, which is a round shape. But what happened to me a lot is that those pea size pieces of butter would melt and then make holes in the crust, which is not what I want. I want a nice puffy flake, not a holy leaky crust. The technique of squishing the butter in between your fingers. Or if your fingers are not that strong, you can put it in your palm and squish it in your palm. So making those sheets will just help you have the flakiest crust possible.
Jessie Sheehan:
There was a pie crust a million years ago, I can't even remember whose it was, but something I found on the internet which used this fasage, which I had never seen before. Could you make this pie dough bike dumping that on the counter and just using your palm and then put it back into the bowl or does that sound too fussy to you?
Yossy Arefi:
I think you can. I have done that before it. It makes a bigger mess and so that's why I don't di it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. I love it when everything stays in the bowl. Everyone's like, "Put it on your counter." I'm like, "No, thank you."
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I'm all about reducing the cleanup afterwards in addition to making something really delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, as am I, and I know that you like to use your hands at this point in the process rather than a food processor, and is that because the food processor will break up the butter too much or what do you have against food processors?
Yossy Arefi:
I think for this style of crust, the food processor, it cuts the butter into more round shapes rather than those flat shapes that I want. The food processor works great if you're making more of a pepper day style crust that you want to be shorter. But for this style, I definitely prefer hands. And then also I always find when you use the food processor, when you add the water, there's always some weird gummy stuff that happens at the bottom of the food processor that you don't get when you're mixing with your hands or mixing in a big bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
I don't know why this would happen, but if I am going to use a food processor, I usually just cut the butter in the food processor, then dump it in the bowl and then add the vinegar and water and then it's like an anti-gun move.
Yossy Arefi:
Exactly, yeah. That's the way I would do it if I was going to work in the butter with the food processor. Or even I see people do it with a stand mixer too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Which always blows my mind, but I guess that could work, but it feels too smeary to me. Too creamy.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. I haven't done it myself-
Jessie Sheehan:
Me either.
Yossy Arefi:
So I can't vouch for the technique, but I've seen it done.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too. Me too. So you keep tossing the butter in the flour until all the pieces are coated, and if the butter gets a little warm now that it's in the flour, you can just pop that bowl in the fridge briefly?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. The refrigerator is your best friend. When you're making pie crust, if you're getting frustrated that it feels sticky or melty, if you are worried that it's getting melty, just pop it in the fridge and come back to it later.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. My problem is I'm so impatient. I don't even know if I've ever popped it in the fridge. Maybe once, but I'm just like, "Oh, I think it'll work. I think it'll work." But anyway, now we're going to add our liquid. The combination of the icy water and the vinegar is about one half cup, maybe a teeny bit more, but we're only going to sprinkle about six tablespoons of that icy cold vinegar over the flour and sort of start with that using our hands or wooden spoon to stir that liquid into the dry.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I like to say that I make my hands into rakes, so I spread my fingers pretty far apart and I just toss everything together and I'm pressing a little bit while I'm tossing to see if I've added enough water. And when you're making pie crust, it's not a tragedy if you add too much water, but the texture will just be much nicer if it's not too hydrated. When it gets too hydrated, it gets tough. So you want to make sure if you can, that you've just added the perfect amount of water so it just holds together and then you're going to chill it a little while and that will also help hydrate the flour and make it easier to roll out later.
Something that I like to do sometimes if I'm feeling very persnickety is I'll look in the bowl and if there's a little dry patch in the bowl, I'll put a little bit of water directly where that dry patch is instead of sprinkling it all over. Some people use a spray bottle or a spritzer to do that as well. But you're just looking to add just enough water so it holds together, but not enough water that it feels sticky at all.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that, and I think it's always safe for people to start with a little less than what the water or liquid is called for like the six tablespoons versus all of it. I think that just helps people not make that mistake. And it's funny, Erin Jeanne [McDowell]was on the podcast and she has that same little tip of just putting a little spritz or dribbling a little water, and I don't know why that had never occurred to me, but I thought that was brilliant because you see the dry patch and then you add water to everything and you miss the dry patch.
Yossy Arefi:
Right. Yeah. Or even after I've gathered it into a ball and I'm like pressing it out, if I see that there's a spot that looks extra dry, I'll just take my fingertips, dip them in water and just literally put a drop on there and then when I'm rolling it out, it'll just be a little easier to deal with.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's so smart. That's so smart. I'm so afraid of too much liquid that I have a tendency to do too little liquid, and so when I form a disc, I can see a little bit of dry flour or just that in between. It's not dry and it's not where you want it. I don't even know what to call it, a little crumbly and you just say, if the dose seems dry, add a little more cold water couple teaspoons at a time, and then your sign to know you're ready is if you've added enough water that when you pick up a handful of dough and you can easily squeeze it together without it falling apart. Now we're going to take the dough and make it into two discs and you say, press the dough together. Does that mean we're not going to do a quick need or anything? We're just sort of, once we can grip it in our hand, we're ready to form our discs?
Yossy Arefi:
It's so tricky because when you hear need, I think of bread dough, but you do want to make sure that you're pressing all of the dough together and that it holds together. And that can look like a very gentle need in the bowl, but you're not needing it dough, you're not using all your weight on it, you're just trying to gather it all together. And if you squeeze it a little bit and compact it a little bit, that's totally fine. You're not going to ruin your pie dough by turning it around the bowl a couple of times. You just don't want to really go for it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. Again, I think it's so tricky because I'm just thinking of myself and sometimes you're so scared of all the things you know that can go wrong when you're making pie dough that you're like, "Oh gosh, I don't want to overmix." And then literally I'm trying to wrap something that isn't really cohesive.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. And that's the thing about recipe development too. It's like the words that you use are so important, words in that specific step. It's like if I had said need, maybe someone would've really gone for it and needed it, but when you say press it together, pressing it together is a more gentle motion, but you can press it with some force.
Jessie Sheehan:
So the dough will be in two discs. We're going to wrap them in plastic rack. We're going to chill for at least two hours. And again, my impatience is showing, but could you do an hour or for your dough, you really think two hours is better?
Yossy Arefi:
I've definitely chilled it less than two hours. I think the longer that you chill it, two things will happen. The dough will hydrate more, which means that the water that's in that dough it's going to hydrate the flour. It's going to become more cohesive and easier to roll out. And then it also will give the small amount of gluten that you may have formed a little bit of time to relax, so it'll be easier to roll out. But if you need it right now, you could still use it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. And you say preferably overnight, because even that whole overnight rest, the dough will be at the exact spot you want it to be?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. I like to say overnight because one, it breaks up the work, so if you were making more than one or whatever, you could just do the dough one day and do the baking the next day. It's also just so much easier to roll it out when it's cold. It's not going to stick to your countertop. You're not going to be fighting with it if it's very cold and very hydrated.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you mentioned this before, but I wanted to bring it up again, the variations for this dough. One is a rye variation and one is a spelt variation. You mentioned that you might need a teeny bit more water if you are substituting some of the all-purpose flowers with one of these. Is there a ratio of don't go above half of the all-purpose or keep it... What would you-
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I always say I like to go up to about half. I would say if you're doing it for the first time, maybe start with 25 or 30% whole grain flour to all-purpose. I usually go half-and-half.
Jessie Sheehan:
Just in case people don't know and, okay, I'll admit it, maybe I don't know. How will the rye flour change the flavor of the dough? How will the spelt flour change the flavor of the dough?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, they both add a little bit of wholesomeness. There's a nuttiness that comes when you use a whole grain flour. Rye tends to have a milkier flavor. Spelt is, I think more nutty, more like a whole wheat flavor, and they both pair just really nicely with fruit. It just adds another layer of flavor and texture.
Jessie Sheehan:
You can probably tell that I don't usually substitute a little bit of rye or a little bit of spelt because I have so many questions, but is there a particular fruit like, "Oh, I'm doing rye, I should do peaches. Oh, I'm doing spelt, I should do plums." Or is it both of them just work with whatever you're going to find?
Yossy Arefi:
I think both of them just work always in my mind. I've made a connection with rye flour and stone fruit, but rye flour and berries and spelt flour and berries is great too.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's all delicious.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Okay. So now we'll talk about the galette's fruit filling. And I love this because you give us a wide variety of fruit that we could use. You say if we're using apples or pears or stone fruit, you can say we can peel if we want, but we don't have to. Are there any that you would peel? I don't usually peel a peach or a plum. I might peel an apple, but maybe not. Where do you stand on peeling?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I'm totally with you. For a galette, I'm probably not trying to peel a peach or a nectarine. I would probably just choose a nectarine because the skin is a little bit thinner than a peach, but you still have really similar flavor, and a nectarine is a little bit more tart than a peach, which is nice for baking. A plum, I'm never going to peel. I can't even imagine doing that. Things with a thicker skin like an apple or a pair I might peel. And they're also very easy to peel just with the Y-shaped peeler and you don't have to worry about bruising it. Whereas if you're trying to peel stone fruit, it's very sticky and it's definitely worth it when you're making something with peaches to peel the peaches, you get that super luscious texture. But the point of the galette is that it's really easy. So if I'm making a galette, I'm probably not peeling.
Jessie Sheehan:
And if we're using stone fruit or apples or pears, we're going to slice into quarter inch to one third inch so we can... It's not small. It's not super thin, but you have a little wiggle room depending on the toothsomeness of the fruit that you would like.
Yossy Arefi:
Exactly. And even small plums, you could cut them into quarters. You just want a piece of fruit that's easy to bite through and with one bite.
Jessie Sheehan:
Strawberries maybe cut them in half or quarters of large rhubarb batons or one half inch chunks. And then you talked about combining favorite fruits like stone fruit and berries, but do you ever have to worry like, oh, the stone fruit is going to cook at this amount of time and the berries will cook faster? Do you have to be cognizant of trying to pair things that will bake at the same time?
Yossy Arefi:
I don't think so. I think the only thing that I probably wouldn't pair together would be something that's harder, like an apple or a pear with a softer berry. But in my mind, those aren't in season at the same time, so I probably wouldn't have them both at the same time anyway. But I think all of the summer fruits, berries and stone fruit, you can just go for it with whatever you have. My favorite thing to do is if I'm at a vacation house or at the end of a trip is to gather up all of the random fruit that's left in the refrigerator and make galettes with it. And it's usually a crazy hodgepodge. It's like half of a peach and two strawberries and a handful of blueberries and you can toss it all together and it's great.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So we're going to arrange a rack in the oven in the lower third. Why is lower third important?
Yossy Arefi:
The lower third is important because you want the bottom of the galette to get really nice and brown and crusty. My ideal texture of a baked good, this is something that I can pick up with my hand. I want to be able to slice the galette and if I don't have a plate, I want to be able to just put it in a paper towel and eat it like a slice of pizza.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. And then we're going to heat the oven to 425, and I feel like there is lots of varieties of baking times with fruit pies and galettes. How did you land? I'm always like, should it be 400? Should it be 450? Should I drop it to 375? How did you land on 425 for a galette?
Yossy Arefi:
I like to bake the galettes really hot because I like them to get super brown and crusty, and I think that when you're baking also something like this, it's really important to pay attention to all of your senses, so you're going to smell that the crust is toasty, you're going to smell the fruit is cooking, you're going to see that the crust is really brown, you're going to see that the juices are bubbling. And those cues are almost more important than the timing. I think with a lot of baking, these visual cues and these other sensory cues are more important than bake time. And since this is a casual recipe, there is a time range that's given, but I think the most important thing is to just really pay attention to all of your senses.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Do you have a brand of baking sheet that you're fond of or is it restaurant supply?
Yossy Arefi:
Restaurant supply.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love that.
Yossy Arefi:
I love it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to whisk the sort of sugary mixture that goes with the fruit. We're going to do this in a smallish bowl. Again, are you grabbing a metal nesting bowl at this stage?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, something that's medium-sized that can hold my fruit and sugar if it's at a vacation house, sometimes it's a sauce pan. It could be anything.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. So we're going to add some sugar and it's about a quarter cup of sugar to about three quarters of a pound of fruit. Do you ever find yourself adding a little... My guess is you don't like things super, super sweet. You want the fruit to shine. Some of us that are very sugar forward, to me that seems like, You need more sugar." But do you ever play with it or you find that almost always works for you?
Yossy Arefi:
For sure. I do play with it a lot and we haven't talked about it yet, but sometimes I do put a layer of jam on the bottom and the jam also is going to provide some sweetness. So if you're not going to use the jam, which you totally don't have to, you can definitely add more sugar. I made one for us today and I didn't have any jam, so I added more sugar to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, good to know. In action. You call for some vanilla bean seeds. I had a couple of questions. First, is there a brand of vanilla bean that you're fond of?
Yossy Arefi:
I really love the vanilla from Heilala Vanilla.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then can we use extract instead?
Yossy Arefi:
For sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
For vanilla bean seeds, would it be like if it's one seed, is it one to two teaspoons of vanilla or is that too much?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I think about a teaspoon is probably the right amount.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, okay, perfect. Then we might add a little lemon zest, but you say it's optional. So I have two questions. First of all, why do we want the zest? And second of all, I often use lemon juice with fruit. Why did you choose zest versus juice and would juice work in this application?
Yossy Arefi:
You could definitely use a little bit of juice. The zest is just a nice little hit of concentrated lemony flavor. If you're working with a fruit that's extra sweet, something like a peach, you might want a little bit of acidity and that can come in the form of some lemon zest or lemon juice to balance that sweetness. But if you don't have it, you don't need to go buy a lemon to make the dessert. That's the whole idea.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that when you call things for being optional so people don't get panicked like, "I can't make a galette, I don't have any zest." And now for your thickener, you call for flour, and I just wondered why flour versus corn starch or tapioca or arrow root?
Yossy Arefi:
I call for flour because the idea for me is that this recipe is extremely easy, and so if you're buying flour to make your crust, you can use the same flour to thicken your galette. You could also use a small amount of corn starch. I would maybe even use a little bit less than two tablespoons. But for me it was just like ease of preparation, fewer ingredients to not use a different starch than flour. Everyone who bakes pies has really strong opinions about thickeners. I've been very happy making galettes with flour and I don't have to get another ingredient out of the cupboard, which again, I always love.
Jessie Sheehan:
When you're at home, even if you had cornstarch, you would just do it with flour?
Yossy Arefi:
Probably. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, good to know. And the salt here that we're going to put in is going to be kosher?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. Whatever you keep on your counter.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. And then our lemon zest and our flour and our sugar and our seeds, they're in a bowl big enough to hold our fruit as well, and we're going to add our fruit to the bowl. And I thought this was interesting. Once we add our fruit, we don't stir it yet. And I love that. Is that we don't want the juices to start macerating too early?
Yossy Arefi:
Yes, because depending on how long it takes you to roll out your crust and get it on the sheet pan, you want to keep all of that fruit juice contained. You're not baking in a dish. Your only thing that's containing all of those juices is your crust, and so if it gets really, really soggy, it's going to be hard to make that transfer. So wait until the last second and then fold the crust and tuck the fruit in Nice and tight.
Jessie Sheehan:
I thought that was such a great tip because of course that's true. The minute you add all that sugar and everything to that fruit, the juices are going to start flowing. So now on a lightly flowered work surface, you're going to roll the dough into a rough circle between an eighth and a quarter of an inch thick. Two questions. First, is there a favorite rolling pin or type of rolling pin or both?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I like a simple dowel style rolling pin. I have a maple one that I've just had forever.
Jessie Sheehan:
With tapered ends or no?
Yossy Arefi:
I don't prefer the tapered ends, but I know lots of people do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Do you have any rolling tips for us? For whatever, mine are always oblong. I have the hardest time with a round galette bottom.
Yossy Arefi:
My biggest tip is to always keep moving the dough as you're rolling it, and that serves two functions. One, it'll help you make it more round, and two, it'll help you ensure that it's not stuck to your surface so you don't spend all this time rolling your dough out and then find that you can't actually get it up off your countertop. Since you're always going to be moving it, you're going to feel if it's sticking and then you can add a little bit more flour if you need to roll it out and just try to use even pressure from the center to the outside of the dough. And if you're feeling like it's thicker in one place than another, just focus on that thicker spot for a second. Yeah, just be careful, keep it moving. I even flip it over sometimes to make sure that both sides, sometimes you get little cracks in the dough on one side versus the other, and if you flip it over once or twice while you're rolling it, you can squish those cracks back together.
Jessie Sheehan:
This is super granular, but would you give it a roll, turn it, give it a roll, turn it? Are we talking about turning it that much or you might roll up and then maybe down and then turn?
Yossy Arefi:
I'll probably roll a few times and then I'll spin it a quarter turn or a half turn and then roll it a few more times and keep moving it like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, perfect. Then you're going to transfer the dough to the parchment line baking sheet. Any transferring tips? Do you like to drape it over the pin or fold it into a triangle?
Yossy Arefi:
I usually just go for it, which I know is not a popular way to do it, but I feel very confident since I've been moving it around so much on my board that I can just pick it up and move it to the parchment. If it takes you a little bit longer on your dough does get a little bit soft, draping it over your rolling pin can help give you another hand to move it to the baking sheet without tearing it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sometimes I roll it out on the piece of parchment. It does require flowering your parchment a little bit, et cetera, but then it's just so easy to lift it and place it on the baking sheet.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I think that's definitely a good technique. If you're worried about doing that transfer, it's one of those things that you just really have to do with confidence. And if it's like your first time and you're a little worried, maybe try rolling it on the parchment so you have a bigger surface to move rather than just the dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. Now we're going to stir our fruit mixture. We have our fruit and we have that sugary mixture in there and we're going to toss them together. Do you just use your hands at this point again or would you grab a spoon? What would you be stirring with?
Yossy Arefi:
Either or. Depending on how casual I'm feeling that day.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then you're going to spread some apricot jam onto the center of the dough. And I had a couple of questions. First, do we want to border? Should we leave a two-inch border or does it not matter? Can you go to the edges?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, definitely leave a border about two inches is a good measurement because then you'll have enough space to fold the unjammed unfruit coverage dough over the fruit.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then you say it's optional or that you could substitute with any jam or marmalade that you like that compliments the fruit you're using. Is apricot the standard because it sort of goes with everything or could you use raspberry? Talk to me about that.
Yossy Arefi:
You could certainly use anything you have kicking around the fridge. I like apricot because it generally has a little bit of tartness to it. It's a mild enough flavor that pairs nicely with anything. It tends to be not too sweet. If you use something like blueberry or strawberry, it might be a little bit sweeter. And for me, I like to be able to really taste the fruit, so I'm using just enough sugar to sweeten it and get those juices flowing. And if I'm using jam, I want to use something that's not going to overpower the fruit flavor, and for me, that's apricot.
Jessie Sheehan:
So just so I understand, the apricot, it's just sort of to add another layer of sweet. It doesn't play another role having to do with the dough or having to do with the fruit?
Yossy Arefi:
It also will add a little bit of moisture if you're using fruit that's a little bit drier, sometimes apples or pears can be dry, so it's nice to have that sticky moisture down at the bottom. Or if you're using a fruit like blueberries that wants to roll all over the place, the jam can help you stick the blueberries to the center while also providing a little extra sweetness and flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Would you use apricot with apples? I think that's brilliant because apples can be a teeny bit dry.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I definitely have done it before.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that. The other thing I just thought of that I remember, I think it was a galette one summer we had peaches, but they really didn't have great flavor. It was so sad. They were so beautiful but not flavorful. And I used peach jam on the bottom cheat, but now I don't think of it as a cheat because you do it.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, not a cheat at all.
Jessie Sheehan:
But it helped bring out the flavor so people weren't like, "Beautiful." But, "What is it?" So I feel like that's something people could do too if the fruit doesn't have a ton of flavor for whatever reason, a jam of that flavor is amazing.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. And a lot of times with a fancy French fruit tart, those tarts are glazed with apricot jam on the top. So I think that was the inspiration for putting it in the galette on the bottom.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I can picture that in my head. So now we're going to transfer the fruit into the center of the galette, press down gently to compact the fruit, which I think is a great little tip. I often forget to do that. And then we have this border, so we're going to fold the edges of the dough up and over the fruit and just press the folds gently to seal. I've done it, so I know it's pretty easy. But just in case people are afraid, any techniques to share with folding and getting it to look pretty? I think what sometimes happens is I'm folding it all the way around and then suddenly I'm hitting the folds from another direction. I'm like, "They're not going in the same..." But honestly it doesn't matter. But what would you say to us about for techniques?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I would not worry about all of your folds and pleats lining up perfectly. Not what we're trying to do here, first of all. And I think for me, I generally, I always start at the top and I work counterclockwise, just folding and pressing the dough, and I try to keep it as tight as possible around the fruit without tearing the dough. But if you do tear the dough a little bit, you can pull a little from the edge and smash it back together gently, but firmly press it all together and keep everybody contained.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to refrigerate the galette. I think just from my bakery days, I always freeze everything, so I would stick it in the freezer. Is that a mistake?
Yossy Arefi:
No, not at all. My freezer is not big enough to hold a sheet pan, so I never say freeze because I can't do it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, you can't do it yourself.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you say to refrigerate until the galette is very firm, is that an hour?
Yossy Arefi:
No, I think give it 15 minutes and if you're working really fast, you could do less time. But it's just a good check-in to make sure that the dough is not melty because if it's melty when it's going in the oven, it's just going to create a puddle when it hits that super hot oven. So you do want it to be cold and firm.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to pop it out of the refrigerator and we're going to brush the galette with egg wash. And I always wonder about this because I think, again, it's my impatience, but I usually egg wash before I even stick it in the freezer just to get it done with because I don't want to deal with it later and I'm in the mode of having dirty things around my kitchen. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a reason to wait till after it's chilled to do the egg wash?
Yossy Arefi:
I don't think so. I think you could do it either way. I think it's just force of habit. That's how I've done it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Then we're going to sprinkle with turbinado sugar, which I love, for the sparkling crunch, I always do that. But this thing I just adore and I've never done. You also say that a little bit of flaky sea salt is optional around the edge. Tell me about that. I love that.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. I always think that dessert needs to be seasoned. Sometimes it's just a nice little surprise to get a little bit of salt with your sweet, especially if you're having it with ice cream, something about a little crunchy salt bite with a sweet, juicy fruit bite is very delicious to me.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I thought that was so smart. Would you do that on a pie too?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. You want to use very little, a very scant little pinch. So it's almost like even every bite maybe doesn't have salt on it, but it's a nice little surprise to get a little salty bite every once in a while.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Then we're going to bake until deep golden brown and bubbling. And you know with a pie, you really need to see bubbles in the center of the pie or your corn starch or whatever you're using has not activated yet or you really know then that you can pull the pie? Do you think that's the same with galette or do you think it doesn't really matter where the bubbling is when your galette is ready?
Yossy Arefi:
It doesn't matter as much because again, you're not trying to slice a thick layer of fruit and have it pulled together somewhat, but you do want to see some very vigorous bubbling. If it's just happening on the outside, you want it to be like lava flow, big juicy bubbles.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And this is going to take about 45 to 55 minutes, which is again what we talked about earlier. It's nice. Sometimes a pie can be 70, 75 minutes. A galette is fast comparatively.
Yossy Arefi:
It's fast. And it might take less time than that too. So check it at a half hour and see how everyone's doing. And if it's looking really crusty and brown, it might be finished already because everyone's oven is a little bit different. And if it's frozen versus refrigerated, it'll take a little bit different time to bake through. Use all of your senses. Don't only go by the timing. It's one of my top five baking tips.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. That's a good one. I'm wondering, once you pull it from the oven, you can serve it right away or would you let it rest for a little while? It's not like a pie where it has to set up.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. As long as it's not molten, I would serve it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then is it your favorite to serve it with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, I like ice cream.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I do too. Do you have other combos of fruit that you like to put together? Maybe describe the one that you brought to us today.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, the one I brought today is blueberries and pluots and pluots are a plum apricot hybrid. And the ones that I bought are this deep red, beautiful color. So I saw them in the store and I had to have them. And so those are a little bit more tart and they have a little bit of tartness in the skin. And then blueberries are generally very sweet. So the combination of something that's a little tart and sweet I like to do together. I also really love rhubarb with a dark berry, like a rhubarb with blackberries or raspberries. That's a great combination. I think any orange stone fruit, like a peach or nectarine with berries is great.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because like I told you, it's a verb. Do you galette in the winter?
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah, definitely. I don't always, but I try to keep a freezer sash of things from the summer, so I picked sour cherries this year, so I have enough sour cherries to make two or three sour cherry, so I'm probably going to make one or two more this summer and then save one for the depths of winter. But you can use any apples or pears, work great. You could even use frozen blueberries, I would say would probably be fine in a galette. I wouldn't do very many other frozen fruits, but blueberries seem to hold their shape a little bit better than lots of other fruits. But yeah, it's a year-round thing for sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was just thinking about that when you're talking about blueberries holding their shape. I know people can get a little bit panicked when juices are flowing out of a galette, which I'm always just saying, "That's a galette, that's why it's so beautiful. Do not be worried." But the leaking is going to happen if you didn't quite fold the edges tightly enough or does leaking just happen?
Yossy Arefi:
Sometimes if the edges aren't folded quite enough. Sometimes if your fruit is super juicy, it just erupts over the sides. If you have a spot in your crust that maybe has a chunk of butter, then the butter melts and then the juices sneak out of that hole. That's why we're putting on parchment, and that's why we're baking it on a rimmed baking sheet to catch all of that juiciness. And if you find in the oven that it's really burning, you can take a spatula and scoot it away from the crust so it's not burning the edge of your crust. But generally it's just a little bit of juiciness isn't going to hurt anybody.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then I also just wanted to plug savory galettes, right? I think last summer I made my first tomato galette and it was so delicious.
Yossy Arefi:
Yeah. Lots of quick cooking vegetables are great for galettes, like any summer squash and tomatoes with those, instead of the jam, I would put some ricotta or some mustard or some cheese underneath to make that extra layer of flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
That sounds delicious.
Yossy Arefi:
Sounds really good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Yossy, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Yossy Arefi:
It's so great to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugra Premium European Style Butter and California Prunes for their support. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on your favorite podcast platform and tell your baking buddies about us. Be sure to check out our other episodes and get tips and tricks for making the most popular baked goods around from birthday cake to biscuits to blondies. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at CityVox Studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.