When fruit was on sale I went on a fruit-buying frenzy. I was excited because apricots were on sale, and I wanted to make the Apricot-Thyme Galette from Cooking Light magazine. [Just what is a galette, anyway? I think it’s just French for a tart. After Alex looked at me funny when I tried to tell him what this was called, I just started calling it an apricot tart.]
My kitchen is so well stocked that I didn’t have to buy anything unusual. The crust took flour, cider vinegar, almond extract, turbinado sugar (which I replaced with brown sugar), almond flour, salt, and butter. I had to buy some apricot preserves for the filling, and some fresh thyme, and apricots, of course.
I thought the crust recipe was strange. I’ve seen that some pie crust recipes call for vinegar, so that wasn’t the strange thing, but I’d never had one that called for a slurry before. You mixed together flour, ice water, vinegar, and extract, separately mixed together the other dry ingredients, and added the slurry to it. Somehow, this seemed very different from the usual way of making pie crusts – simply adding the water/liquid to dry ingredients and mixing.
This crust didn’t come together easily. There wasn’t enough liquid in it. I measured the flour with scoops, and not by weight, which may have made a difference. I usually finish off my regular pie crusts by gently kneading the dough together, but this one took much, much longer to get together. The next step was supposed to be rolling out the dough and chilling it. However, this dough wasn’t going to roll out without some rest. I put it in the fridge while I cut up my apricots, and then rolled it out as thinly as I could. I couldn’t get it as thin as the recipe said to. I think I got it to a 12-inch diameter, not 14-inch.
As I made this recipe, I discovered my apricots weren’t ripe! I’d specifically wanted to make this to share at work, but with such tart apricots, I didn’t think anyone would like it. [I like tart fruit, and if I think it’s tart, it’s definitely too much so for others.]
You sprinkle cornstarch and sugar on the dough, then top with apricots. About 2 inches of the edge of the dough is folded over on the apricots, like a free-form pie. You brush with a mixture of apricot jam and honey, top with a little more sugar, and then bake. After you take it from the oven, you sprinkle it with thyme.
Making this was a frustrating experience, with unripe fruit and uncooperative crust. That said, I ended up enjoying this recipe. The apricots were tart, and the preserves, honey, and sugar couldn’t cover that up. I was concerned about the crust being thicker than it should be, and so I overbaked it a little. While the crust seemed different from a regular pie crust, I couldn’t tell you exactly how or why, or even tell you if it was better.
Alex enjoyed this with Cool Whip on top. I found that I liked the combination of thyme and apricot, which I wasn’t quite sure about. Alex didn’t seem to mind it, either, although I only put the thyme on half of the tart. I was able to get past the tart fruit and enjoy this recipe, particularly the edges which had a little more crust.
Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d make this specific recipe again. I think that the filling has its merits, but I’m not sure that the crust was worth trying out again. I’d probably compare this recipe to another apricot tart and see what the differences were before I made a decision. At some point I might experiment with adding almond flour or extract in my pie or tart crusts, too.
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