Splat 2 |splat| informal noun
a sound of something soft and wet or heavy striking a surface: the 'perfect peach galette' from the 'The Baking Bible' made a huge splat as it hit the bench.
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Splat!!! So went the 'Perfect Peach Galette', with it's fresh peach topping and 'Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust'.
I had the storage container ready for when the galette was cooled and lifted up the cooling rack to feel the bottom of the galette. Why I lifted the rack so high and so quickly I don't know, but there was "height and momentum" involved now.
The galette flew off the cooling rack and hit the edge of the storage container on the way down.
It flipped.
It broke.
It went splat!!!!
So I scraped up some filling and plonked it on a tiny piece of still intact pastry... ta-da... and that's today's photo.
It all started well enough I guess, it's still winter here so purchased imported peaches, American peaches to be exact *mental note to go plant a tree for carbon neutral ness!
The peaches were put into a pot of boiling water (off the stove top) for one minute. I did some extra peaches in case I needed them.
nude peach
Skins slipped straight off once the peaches were placed in a colander and cold water was run over them.
Peaches were then sliced, popped in a large bowl with sugar, salt and lemon juice to macerate. See all that juice? It was time to drain the peach slices of that juice. I got two thirds of cup of juice.
juice was put into microwave safe jug
Butter is added to the juice and the mixture is microwaved (option is there to do it on stove top), until the juice mixture has been reduced to about one third of a cup.
reduced juice mixture
Reduced juice mix is spreadable... oh my, this tastes absolutely like the "essence of summer" or more accurately the "essence of peaches".
The peachy concentrate was added back to the peaches slices with cornflour, almond extract and gently tossed together.
all mixed and ready to be put aside so I can start the pastry
Here comes bad idea two but it doesn't include a "splat!!", I thought since we did this exact same pastry a few weeks ago for 'ElderBlueberry Pie (with not blueberries)'.... I'd use the same photos/text. Yep, then I forgot to take the shaping part at the end but I can redeem myself with pie apple coming up in a few weeks... fresh photos and shaping for that post :)
For now here is the repeat of making the 'Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust'...
Unsalted butter is cubed and then frozen. You can make by hand or with the food processor, I went with the latter. The recipe is a rough puff pastry with a cream cheese/butter combo (rather than all butter or shortening/butter or lard/butter combination).
Your frozen chilled flour, salt and baking powder mixture is removed from the freezer and process it briefly the with cream cheese.
The frozen butter then goes in for a whizz, cream and vinegar are added and the mix is processed until the butter is the size of small peas.
It still looks like crumbs, with visible small bits of butter... you are only using the food processor to cut in the fats/liquid. Remove mixture from the food processor in it's crumb form and pressed together, before wrapping and chilling.
Time to roll... the mottled look showing the tiny pieces of cold butter. I rolled mine between two lightly floured pieces of plastic wrap. Envelope folded, rerolled, chilling happening too!
Ok I was supposed to have used a pizza tray but mine has holes in bottom and I thought it wasn't going to suitable. Instead I put a round of rolled pastry on a silpat, put the prepared fruit filling on base and folded edges over leaving exposed fruit in the center. Sprinkled sugar on dampened edges and baked.
No serving suggestions or opinions on end product today... but umm the pastry was nice, light and super flaky... I could tell from the distance the flakes travelled over the kitchen. Looking forward to the next bake where I won't be lifting any cooling racks!!
Happy Baking :)
How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.
The Baking Bible
You might also be interested in Salt and Pepper Squid recipe.