maple cream cheese pear & pistachio galette
alright you guys i hope you like pie because today we are having a pie partayyyy! thanks to nate from terminator kitchen me and 10 other amazing foodie bloggers came together to bring you some holiday pies!
i love collabs like this, it is so fun seeing all the creations everyone comes up with. there are soooo many pies to choose from you will sure find one for your taste buds. definitely bookmark this page to come back to over the holidays...you never know when the need for a pie might arise am i right?
Cloudy Kitchen - Chocolate Cream pie with whipped peanut butter cream
Cook Til Delicious - Pear Cranberry Frangipane Tart
DisplacedHousewife - Five-Spice Cran-Apple Handpies
The Farmer's Daughter - Apple Ginger Pie
Feed The Swimmers - Apple and Persimmon Pie with Bourbon Caramel and Hazelnuts
Harvest and Honey - Apple Apple Pies
Salvialimone - Tarta Tine with White Chocolate Caramelized Pears
TermiNatetor Kitchen - Brown Butter Chai Pumpkin Pie with Sugared Sage
Topless Baker - Apple & Blackberry Flower Lattice Pie
i almost wasn't sure if i was going to make it into this collab...like usual i left things to the last minute and my first pie idea was a total flop...then my second pie idea, yup a flop again. i was panicking and almost threw in the towel when i was getting some veggies for dinner at my favourite little market on monday and saw, ok actually smelled, their pears. how i didn't just think to go with pears from the beginning still shocks me but they were so beautiful and i could even smell their sweetness that i was like that is it, pears it is, and i am going to make them work!
at this point in the game i really just wanted something simple and easy. truth be told, i kinda think pies are a bit overrated when it comes to simplicity. but galettes, galettes on the other hand really are easy. they are fun to make and honestly you hardly have to measure anything for them. they are kinda that throw a little of this and a little of that into the mix and voila a galette is made.
the other thing i love about galettes is that you don't have to worry about par-baking any crusts, which if you have ever tried to do, is not always that easy. so as long as you have an awesome flakey pie pastry recipe (hint hint: I give you the only one you will ever need again down below), some fruit, maybe some sort of sweet cream cheese or pastry cream (or skip that part and just go with fruit) you are on your way to a delicious, easier, version of a pie.
you can either make one large galette or make individual sized ones like i have done here. either way when presented they look beautiful (i may be bias but these pear ones made individually are even extra beautiful).
when choosing fruit for galettes you don't want them too ripe, especially if using apples (which would be a great alternative here to pears if they just don't float your boat) or pears. you want them to still have some firmness to them or else they will just turn to mush when baked, which no one wants a mushy galette. so get those in-between ripe, not too soft, not too hard, i actually like to eat apples and pears that way fresh too.
like i said the great thing about galettes is the measurements don't have to be exact (apart from the pastry dough). i used maple syrup for sweetener here but you could use honey if you prefer.
don't like pistachios just garnish with another nut of your choice, walnuts, pecans, almonds, all great choices. or skip the nuts all together. a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream goes a long way here, just saying...
maple cream cheese pear & pistachio galette
pastry
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp turbinado sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ tsp Himalayan salt
11 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter
8-10 tablespoons ice cold water
pears
6 semi firm bosc pears (another variety would work too)
5 tbsp maple syrup
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp cinnnamon
maple cream cheese
1 cup cream cheese
3 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp vanilla
seeds from half a vanilla pod
garnish
1/2 cup chopped pistachios
icing sugar
directions
preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
pastry:
in a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. cut the butter into cubed pieces and then cut them into the flour mixture using a pastry blender or like me your fingers until the butter is slightly crumbled and mixed with the flour (you still want some slightly big chunks of butter in the pastry as this adds to the flakiness).
spoon 5-8 tablespoons of ice cold water over the flour, mixing gradually with a fork or your fingers until the dough comes together. knead the dough a few times and then form the dough into 6 balls. cover with saran wrap and place in the fridge for at least half an hour or overnight.
pears:
thinly slice the pears and mix them with the cinnamon, maple syrup, cornstarch, lemon zest and juice.
if you want to get fancy you can slice the pears in half like i did and then on the half with the stem only slice the pear partly to the top so that you can fan out the pear slices with the stem intact. then with the other half fully slice through the pear but keep the pear slices together so they can be easily fanned as well (you can then place these extra pieces around the intact fanned pear half). rub on the above ingredients over the pears keeping the pieces together as much as possible so that you can fan them out easily and evenly.
this makes for a very pretty presentation but you could also very easily just mix it all and place the pears onto of the pastry.
maple cream cheese:
in a standing mixer add the cream cheese, vanilla bean, vanilla extract, maple syrup and mix on medium/high until the mixture is smooth and creamy. set aside. you can add more maple syrup if this is not sweet enough for you.
assembling:
once the pastry has set in the fridge, flour a flat clean surface. coat your rolling pin in a little extra flour, place one ball of dough in the middle of the floured surface and roll it evenly from the center to the edge, until the dough is about 1/8 inch thick and around 6-8 inches in diameter (this does not have to be exact). place the rolled out dough on the parchment lined baking sheet.
spoon 1/6 of the cream cheese mixture into the middle of the first rolled dough and spread out, leaving a 1 inch border (this is what you will fold over), then top with one intact fanned out pear and cover the edges with some of the other fully cut pear slices (fanned out again), evenly disbursing them on top of the cream cheese.
fold the sides of the galette over the cream cheese and pears, covering the mixture by one inch. wash the top of the pastry with the pre whisked egg wash and do this same process with the remaining balls of dough.
i highly recommend making sure to fill each galette on the parchment paper as moving them afterwards can be quite messy.
sprinkle the pastry and top of the galette with a little more turbinado sugar.
bake at 425 for 35-40 minutes until the crust is nice and golden and the cream cheese has started to bubble. 5 minutes before taking them out of the oven you can spoon about 1/4 tsp of maple syrup on top of each and bake for another 5 minutes to give them a pretty glisten. cool for 5 minutes on the pan and then move them to a cooling rack.
serve with some chopped pistachios, a sprinkle of icing sugar and a dollop of fresh whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream!