Stone Fruit Crostata

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know at what point I got the inspiration to make this. I’m not one of those people who go ga-ga over summer fruit. I pretty much prefer a chocolate dessert any time of the week (or year). And the work involved in making a crust, rolling it out, refrigerating - usually too much for my lazy self. But I went to the farmers market this past Sunday and OD’ed on my fruit purchases. There were just so many different kinds of plums. And nectarines, and peaches, oh my! Or maybe it was the barrage of emails I was getting about galettes (french for crostata) from other food bloggers. This may be a good time to mention what this thing is: a free form pie. A rustic dessert that can be filled with pretty much any fruit of choice. Anywho, I thought, now is the time. Except making the crust wasn’t the labor intensive part…cutting all this fruit was! The peaches were fine but the plums and nectarines were impossible to pit without turning it into mush. So, you have to cut out each wedge, one by one, with an exact motion away from the pit in order to get decent slices. This is an example of how not to fill the dough: on the wooden board where you roll it out as opposed to on the parchment paper itself. Transferring it to the parchment paper lined baking sheet was a nightmare. It got so wet and soggy from the fruit juices that we (my sister and I ) just barely made the transfer without turning the whole thing into a giant fruity baked donut. This pastry has wonderful buttery crumb topping. And the crust is perfect in its simplicity. No vanilla, no cinnamon. Just pure butter, sugar, flour (and a bit of salt). Keeps me coming back for more! Though I did not excel at the folding over and pleating part. And given this batch of fruit, it needed a bit more sugar for our taste. So, we topped it with some powdered sugar and served with a scoop of ice cream (white chocolate raspberry truffle to be exact). The day was coming to an end by the time I got around to taking these pictures, so the only sun filled surface left was the kids’ toy chest. I think that’s ok. As long as you can see the food, right?Recipe just barely adapted from Ina Garten. Keep in mind, this makes two crostatas so if you planning on freezing the other dough for later, make sure to cut down the prepared fruit by half. I only pictured one here since the other one came out not so pretty from the transfer.

Summer Fruit on Kitchen3N

Stone Fruit Crostata