Pear Plum Galette

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 This Pear Plum Galette is sweet and tart. Flaky pastry crust is filled with juicy pears and plums, then brushed with a red plum and honey glaze. This fresh summer dessert is ready in about 30 minutes and is fabulously easy to make.

Sometimes people forget they like things. Whether it’s time or circumstance, the fact that we liked a particular thing fades away, a forgotten memory. I had a couple forgotten memories surface this week. We are well into summer vacation now, past the point where it’s acceptable for my kids to be laying around watching Netflix everyday, and they need to be prompted to be kept busy. Last week the weather was gorgeous so I urged them to go ride their bikes.

It would have been a great plan except for two problems; a broken bicycle air pump and a broken bike. Now,  if there’s one thing I hate, it’s working on bikes, but I sucked it up and fixed the pump and I even mostly fixed the broken bike (I had to stop at 95% percent fixed because I was ready to throw that sucker off a cliff. My husband finished it when he got home.) Once we had everything all aired up, cleaned up, and ready to go, we went on a family bike ride.

 I love the feeling of whizzing down a hill on my bike, there’s really nothing like it.  A good breeze billowing about, hair blown back out of your face, the sun warm on your skin–the exhilaration of a good hill makes me feel just as carefree as it did when I was a kid. And every summer when I dust off my bike for that first ride it surprises me that I still enjoy it just as much.

 I had my galette all  planned out. I wanted to make a nectarine galette. But as it was time to do the shopping, all the nectarines at the grocery were just awful.  Peach, I decided,  would be good, but none were ripe enough. And the apricots were so expensive. I moved on to the humble little plums beside them and found them to be just ripe enough and not too expensive, so I bought a bag full, though I wasn’t pleased about it.  Something told me I was sure that I did not like plums, but I knew they’d make a pretty galette. I grabbed a few pears so there’d at least be some flavor I did like.

I’m not sure why I’d given plums such a bad rap in my mind. Sweet on the inside, but tart near the skin, these little jewels are actually pretty delightful. I remember my mother planted a plum tree at our first house out in the country. That little tree was as crooked as could be after a tornado came by, but it grew beautiful plums. I don’t know how I’d forgotten that I did actually like them. Once I started preparing the fruit for the galette I ended up calling my husband to bring home more plums because I’d eaten so many there weren’t enough left for the galette!

Today’s galette is the epitome of easy peasy. It is the perfect bake for summer because it’s in and out of the oven in 15-20 minutes, so you’re not heating up the entire kitchen. This recipe uses purchased puff pastry dough because A) it’s incredibly easy to work with and B) it looks so pretty when it’s done. Getting the pastry crust ready is literally just unfolding the puff pastry, doing a little cutting and refolding it in a different way.

The filling is made from plums and pears  that have been thinly sliced, tossed with lemon juice, sugar, and cornstarch, then arranged in the center of the pastry. I peeled the skin off the pears for mine, but left the skin on the plums. Leaving the skin on the plums will make them more tart, giving this pear plum galette a nice balance of sweet and tart. To finish it off, the freshly baked galette is brushed with a glaze of honey and red plum jam. This glaze sweetens the pastry and gives it a nice shiny appearance. Pear plum galette looks, sounds, and tastes like something fancy, but with a prep/bake time of right around 30 minutes, it really is so simple.