Ultimate Cook Book_ 900 New Recipes, Thousands of Ideas - Bruce Weinstein [405]
While the skillet is still over the heat, arrange the apple slices in the sugar in a circular pattern. Place any remaining apple wedges on top of the arranged ones (these will cook down and not form a decorative pattern when the skillet is later inverted).
Sprinkle the remaining brown sugar over the apples; pour on the remaining melted butter.
Remove the pan from the heat. Place the rolled-out pastry dough on top of the apples, tucking the edges around the inside of the pan. Cut four slits in the dough to allow steam to escape.
Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the pastry is browned and the filling is lightly bubbling inside, about 30 minutes.
Set the skillet over medium heat. Be very careful: the pan is hot! Cook until the juices inside have thickened and the filling at the edges looks like jam, 3 to 5 minutes.
Set aside for 5 minutes off the heat. Place a lipped heat-safe serving platter over the skillet. Invert the two together and remove the pan. If any apples have stuck to the pan, peel them off with a metal spatula and place them on the tart. Scrape any juices out of the pan and spoon them over the apples. Serve at once with the garnish of your choice.
Pear Galette
This free-form tart is not made in a pan. Instead, you roll out the crust, top it with the fruit, fold the edges over, and bake on a sheet pan. Makes 1 free-form tart (about 6 servings)
1½ pounds ripe fresh pears, such as Anjou, Barlett, or Comice, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1½ cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for dusting
6 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cool unsalted butter, cut into chunks
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) solid vegetable shortening
2 to 3 tablespoons ice water
¼ teaspoon cider vinegar
Position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
Toss the sliced pears, lemon juice, and cinnamon in a large bowl; set aside.
Mix the flour, 4 tablespoons (¼ cup) sugar, and the salt in a second, large bowl. Cut in the 4 tablespoons butter and all the shortening with a pastry cutter or two forks, pressing the fat and flour together through the tines repeatedly until the mixture looks like coarse sand with no chunks of shortening or butter visible.
Stir in 1 tablespoon ice water and the vinegar with a fork. Then stir in the remaining ice water in two additions until a soft dough begins to form.
Sprinkle a few drops of water on your work surface and lay a piece of wax paper on top of them. Sprinkle the paper lightly with flour, gather the dough together into a ball, and place it on the wax paper. Press down gently to make the ball look like a deflated tire, then dust lightly with flour and top with a second sheet of wax paper.
Roll the dough into a circle about 14 inches in diameter, starting in the middle and always rolling on the radius (not the diameter), rotating the pin after each roll to create a fairly even circle.
Peel off the top sheet of wax paper. Pick up the dough by picking up the underlying sheet of wax paper; invert both onto the prepared baking sheet. Center the dough circle on the baking sheet and peel off the wax paper.
Spoon the pears and juice into the middle of the tart, fanning the slices in a decorative pattern, but leaving a 2-inch border all the way around the perimeter of the tart. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over the pear slices, then dot them with the remaining 1 tablespoon butter.
Fold up the sides of the dough over the pear slices, pressing and pinching the edges together so that they fold over the fruit and form an uneven circle with a cutout hole in the middle where the fruit is visible. Make sure there are no holes in the crust dough; if so, patch them with dampened fingers by pulling the dough over itself.
Bake until lightly browned and the filling is gently bubbling, about 45 minutes. Cool the baking sheet on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then transfer the galette to a serving