What do you do when you have a handful of apples you somehow didn’t eat for your snacks last week, puff pastry leftover from online classes and a tiny amount of almond flour that you need to use up so you don’t see the bag in the pantry and think it’s full and realise you’ve run out just when you need it? Why, you take 30 minutes to whip up a Puff Pastry Apple Galette with Almond Cream, that’s what!
Almond cream or crème d’amande as it’s known in French, is a fabulously useful cream used in many pastry treats – almond croissants, galette des rois and fruit tarts, just to name a few. It’s different to frangipane though many people use the names interchangeably (frangipane is the almond cream with pastry cream folded through to lighten it up) and a lot faster (and easier) to make which is a win in my books!
Because it’s a sturdy paste, it’s the perfect vehicle to hold fruits on top of pastry, even in a free-form rustic tart like this one. Though you CAN lay this puff pastry in a tart pan to make it a bit neater, I kind of love the rustic nature of a piece of puff pastry rolled, slathered with almond cream and topped with fruit. Here, I’ve used apples as that’s what I had on hand but lots of other fruits would work too (apples are great because you can use them all year round!). I left the skins on because it was such a pretty colour but you can peel the apples if you like. As there isn’t a lot of sugar in the almond cream, the melted butter/ raw sugar pre-bake and swoosh of jam to glaze post bake are definitely not steps to miss. This is a pretty perfect dessert if you ask me If I do say so myself) – easy to make, pretty to look at and just sweet enough!
Puff Pastry Apple Galette with Almond Cream
Easy apple galette with puff pastry and almond cream
Ingredients
- approx. 250g puff pastry rolled out to a +/- 20cm square
- 2 small apples (approx. 200g), very thinly sliced
for the almond cream:
- 2 tablespoons (28 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons (25 g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup (25 g) almond meal
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
to assemble:
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
- 1 tablespoon raw (brown) sugar
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten, for egg wash
- 1 tablespoon apricot (or other) jam mixed with 1 tablespoon warm water, for glaze
Instructions
- Using handheld electric beaters on high speed, beat the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.
- Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Your mixture may look a little curdled, but that’s okay.
- Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the almond meal and salt until you have a smooth paste. It will be paste-like.
- Cover the almond mixture with plastic wrap and set aside until you are ready to use.
- Pre-heat the oven to 400˚F and line a baking tray wth parchment paper.
- Place the rolled-out puff pastry on the baking tray and spread the almond cream evenly over the pastry, leaving a border of around 2cm. Smooth the almond cream with an offset spatula.
- Place the apple slices on top of the almond cream, slightly overlapping.
- Brush the top of the apples with the melted butter and sprinkle with the raw sugar.
- Use the tines of a fork to mark the border around the edge and brush the eggwash around these edges.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown around the edges, the almond cream is slightly puffy and the apples are baked.
- Brush the apples gently with the jam/ water mixture.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
Make the almond cream:
Assemble and bake the galette:
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You can cut this into smaller pieces if you must but a realistic yield is that it probably serves 4 😉
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Lovely treat for a 30-minute “whisk together”. 😉
I know I’m sounding like a broken record but … yum
Hopefully it will work – will give this a go with hazelnut meal as Mr P is allergic to almonds. Sounds delish 🙂
Hi. I have a question: can you substitute the almond meal for regular flour?
My son is allergic to almond.
Thanks
No it’s a nut cream so no other flour would work. Try this one:
https://www.eatlivetravelwrite.com/2013/12/french-apple-tarts/