"Rustic": the Detail-Challenged Baker's Best Friend

I really like it when a recipe describes something as "rustic." It's an immediate signal that whatever I'm about to produce can be casual in appearance, with flavor being a more important concern. Don't get me wrong, a skillfully latticed cherry pie (for example) is great, but sometimes, it's 8:30 at night on a Thursday and you just have to do something with those berries otherwise they're going to meet a tragic demise wasting away in your refrigerator. The NYTimes had a recipe in June for a Foraged Fruit Tart, that I had printed out for the specific reason that it was "rustic" in the best way a pie/tart recipe can be: make the dough, roll it into a circle, dump the fruit in the middle, and fold up the edges. Bake. Eat. Technically, this style of tart is called a galette, but that just seems to be fancying up something that is really quite casual.

I took the tart pictured above to my coworkers, and it was very well received--it apparently made for a good Friday breakfast. I used the above NYTimes recipe, but tweaked it, mostly b/c I didn't have cream cheese and was a little over ambitious with the eggs (I dumped in two before I realized I was only supposed to put one in the batter...sigh...). I do recommend putting it on parchment paper to bake, just to help contain the juices and aid in transferring it to a plate.

Rustic Berry Pie

Time: 45 minutes, plus approx. one hour chilling

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, sliced into pieces

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)
2 eggs, beaten lightly
4 cups of fruit--berries, stone fruit, whatever's on hand from the farmer's market (in this case, cherries and blackberries)
1/4 cup jelly

1. Combine 1/2 cup sugar, flour, and salt in a food processor.
2. Sprinkle butter pieces over sugar/flour mixture, pulse until combined. Add the eggs, vanilla, and optional extract. Shape dough into a ball, chill in freezer 15 minutes, remove and roll out between two layers of parchment paper, return to freezer for 30 minutes or until firmed up.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove top layer of parchment and place the dough and bottom parchment on a baking sheet. (I actually cut the dough in half and made two smaller tarts, then baked them on the same sheet.)
4. Pile fruit on dough, leaving a 2-3-inch border.
5. Combine jelly and 2 tablespoons water in a small bowl, and microwave for 1 minute to melt jelly. Brush fruit with jelly.
6. Fold border of dough over fruit. The fruit will be only partly covered.
7. Brush on top of dough with whipping cream, half & half, or a beaten egg (I used half & half since it's what was in my fridge). Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar--I used sugar in the raw.
8. Bake for 30 minutes until light brown. Cool tart on baking sheet for 10 minutes, then use 2 spatulas to slide it onto a serving platter.

9. Amaze your friends and co-workers with your casual-cool rusticness!

Mark Bittman's got another galette recipe here. Maybe I'll have to do a comparison study.