This term the Petits Chefs are testing out some of the recipes from my cookbook and this week, we worked on something that I’ve made many times before with them boys – mini fruit galettes. Galettes are one of my favourite “go to” items to make “when there’s’s nothing in the fridge“. Galette was my entry point into making pastry, thanks to Kate Hill (check out her wonderful pastry making skills here) and since I’ve learned to conquer my fear of pastry, I’ve made it dozens of times with the boys. Their parents are always so impressed when they appear with pastry from scratch!
Obviously there needs to be a recipe for galettes in the book and who better to help me refine and perfect the recipe than Les Petits Chefs?
It’s hard writing a cookbook (<<< biggest understatement of the year right there…) because you hope that people all over the world will be buying it and making the recipes, so when you include something like a fruit dessert, you obviously want to make sure it’s fruit that many people can get their hands on (most of the year if necessary). I’ve experimented with a number of different fruits for the galette recipe – I still am, really, but I think I may well go with mixed berries like we did at school this week.
I appeared with a recipe and some scribbled notes and had the boys help me with the questions I had – How many berries did we need to fill an entire recipe of pastry? How many berries per galette? How many mini galettes does the pastry actually make and how big are they?
So many questions…
I’d made some pastry at lunch time for the boys to work with straight away since it needs to be refrigerated for at least 30 minutes if not more..
Meanwhile Team Berries reported that they didn’t need to juice the lemons and limes I had suggested because there was enough liquid in the filling as it was. Hmmm… something to do with the boys taking their stirring duties very seriously, I think 😉 (but great to know for the book notes!)
And then we got to filling our galettes, measuring the filling carefully…
We cut away some of the excess pastry (and figured out how many more it would have made) and the boys practised their pastry pleating skills.
The great thing about this dough is that it is so forgiving and responds well to a bit of pinching and pressing 😉
While the galettes were in the oven, the boys made some more pastry (gotta keep those hands busy!) while I cleaned up. I just gave them the ingredients and they got to work.
The dough came together beautifully and is currently sitting in my freezer awaiting more experiments 😉 Yes, pastry so easy a bunch of Grade 3 and 4 students can make it…
Speaking of beautiful…
I love the look of rustic galettes…
I am FAIRLY sure none of these made it home…
Success on all levels – my recipe questions were answered, the boys made beautiful desserts, everyone was happy!
Stay tuned to see what recipes we test from In the French kitchen with kids in a couple of weeks (it’s Family Day weekend here next Monday so no school)!
Fabulous post… these boys are fun to follow. Well done Mardi and LPCs.
The boys are fun to work with as well!
Funny how they stirred so much you didn’t have to add any juice! You are very lucky to have such hard working testers!
They take their job very seriously!
What great test subjects. Their pleating skills are top-notch – much better than mine, that’s for sure! Measuring the fruit is a good key point, especially because berries tend to be different sizes depending on the kinds that are used and whether they are frozen or fresh, etc. I always have to stop myself from going overboard when making galettes. Somewhere in my mind I always think that more fruit = better which is not always the case!
Yes if I’ve learned anything from this book writing malarkey it’s that precision is really helpful, especially for beginner bakers!
Mardi these galettes are calling to me. They’re saying “make us…. maaaaaake usssss noooowwww”… 😉 Seriously – writing a cookbook IS hard but if all the recipes look as good as this one, you’re doing a fabulous job, darling. Now give me a galette, please.
Ah thanks so much – every little bit of encouragement helps! xo