This red currant peach galette makes the perfect summer dessert with sweet, juicy peaches, and tart, lip-smacking currants in a crunchy, flaky, buttery pastry.
When it comes to stone fruits, peach is hands down my favorite for both snacking and baking. I love a good peach cake, peach pie, and peach tart especially galette. Galette is a French free form tart that has all the delicious elements of a pie: flaky, crisp crust, and tender baked fruit but without the labor. I'm so excited to share a red currant peach galette which combines sweet peaches and tart red currants for a delicious sweet and sour combination with cornmeal blended into the crust for a wonderful crunch.
Ingredient Notes
- Peach: peach season peaks from July to August. Pick freestone peaches that are slightly firm to touch so they'll hold up during baking. Freestones have pits that are easily removed, a coarser and more fibrous texture, and a richer flavor due to more time developing on the tree. My favorite peaches are the O’Henry varieties known for their beautiful orange skin and bright red blush with sweet and juicy flesh. If you can’t find peaches, nectarines and apricots make great alternatives.
- Red currants: currants are tiny berries from the Ribes family. They have a sweet and sour berry flavor with bright acid kick to balance out their sweetness. You can find currants at farmers markets and specialty produce store. Blackberries and raspberries are great substitutes if you can't find currants. I have found red currants at Lazy Acres and Specialty Produce in San Diego.
- Cornmeal: cornmeal is dried and ground field corn. For this recipe, use medium cornmeal. If you can't find cornmeal, you can also use polenta.
Tips for Making the Crust
Galette dough is very similar to pie dough. For my galette crust, I used a simple recipe of all purpose flour, unsalted butter, powdered sugar, iced cold water, and distilled white vinegar with cornmeal blended in to add some crunch. The dough came together in minutes with the help of my trusty food processor. Adding vinegar to the pie crust helps tenderize the dough by inhibiting gluten formation, makes it easier to work it, and creates a flaky, buttery crust.
Other things that I find helpful for getting a good crust is keeping your equipment and butter as cold as possible so the butter does not melt and becomes overworked. Once the dough came together, I let it rest in the fridge for an hour for the gluten to relax before rolling it out. With the scorching summer heat, it might be easier to make the crust at night when the temperature drops. You can leave the unbaked crust in your fridge or freezer until ready to bake.
How to Assemble the Galette
Roll the dough to a 12 inch circle on a cold, floured surface. Sprinkle the cornmeal and almond mixture over the crust leaving a 1 ½ inch border to prevent the bottom from getting soggy. Place the fruit mixture over the cornmeal mixture. Fold the dough over to enclose the fruits, pleating it as you go. Press firmly on the pleat, patching ay cracks. Chill the galette for 15 minutes in the freezer to firm up. Just before baking, brush the dough with the egg wash and sprinkle the entire surface with demerara sugar.
Tips for Baking Galette
Place the red currant peach galette on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake the galette at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes until the crust is a deep golden-brown and the fruit is bubbly and cooked. Once baked, transfer the galette to a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing, about 25-30 minutes.
I could hardly wait to cut into the red currant peach galette as it came out of the oven. The fragrance of baked peaches with buttery crust was tantalizing. I love the contrast between sweet, juicy peaches and tart, lip-smacking currants in a crunchy, flaky, buttery pastry. My favorite way of enjoying this galette is topping it with vanilla ice cream while it's still warm. Every bite was pure bliss! Make this galette while peach season is still here!
For more summer dessert inspiration, check these recipes: cardamom cherry cake, peach raspberry olive oil cake, blueberry and mascarpone galette, roasted strawberry cream pie.
Red Currant Peach Galette with Cornmeal Crust
Ingredients
Galette Dough
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ¼ cup cornmeal
- 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into big pieces
- ¼ cup iced water
- 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
- 1 medium egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tbsps demerara sugar
Cornmeal almond mixture
- 1 tablespoon cornmeal
- 1 tablespoon almond meal / ground almond
Fruit mixture
- 1 pound peaches, cut into ¾" thick wedges
- ½ cup red currants
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
Instructions
- To make galette dough, pulse flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt together in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment until combined. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, 7 to 10 pulses. Do not over-process. You need pea-size chunks of butter.
- Whisk iced water and vinegar together. Drizzle in vinegar and water mixture and pulse until dough is crumbly in texture but holds together when squeezed, about 6 pulses. If the mixture is dry, pulse in half a tablespoon of ice water at a time.
- Transfer dough on lightly floured counter and pat it together to make one uniform piece. Flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill for 1 hour, or up to 2 days.
- Unwrap the dough and place it on a piece of parchment paper. Cover with a second piece of parchment. Roll the dough into 12-inch round about ⅛-inch thick. Refrigerate dough for 15 minutes.
- In large bowl, toss together peaches, currants, sugar, lemon juice, zest, and cornstarch. Set aside.
- In small bowl, mix cornmeal and ground almond together.
- Slide the parchment and the dough onto a baking sheet and remove the top layer of parchment.
- Sprinkle cornmeal mixture over dough leaving a 1.5 inch border.
- Pile all the fruit in the center of the dough, leaving a 1.5-inch border. Press the fruit gently to make sure there are no large open pockets. Fold the edges of the dough up and over the fruit and press gently to seal the folds.
- Brush the dough with the egg and sprinkle demerara sugar over the whole galette. Refrigerate the galette for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes on the middle rack, until the filling bubbles up vigorously and the crust is golden. Cool for at least 25-30 minutes on wire rack.
- Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream.
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