Categories
Dessert

‘Galette’ yourself enjoy some tasty, fruit-filled pastry

Strawberry rhubarb galettes are a great summer dessert. The combination of tart rhubarb, sweet strawberries, bright lemon and warm cinnamon creates the perfect sweet to share with guests.

I had a great dinner night with my family over the weekend.

After going out for some greasy food, topped off with ice cream and helping my niece extract every last quarter from my purse so she could eventually win a tiny stuffed turtle from a claw machine, I headed back to my parents’ house, where I spied their ever overflowing garden of rhubarb.

This led, of course, to me climbing over the short fence with a paring knife, ready to extract a dozen nearly two-foot-long stalks to take home to my kitchen. It didn’t even look like I made a dent when I was done, and Mom implored me to come back for more later if I decided I needed some.

In the past, I made my grandma’s rhubarb cake with my garden haul. (It’s on my website if you haven’t tried it. It’s delicious.) This time, I figured I should try something new with at least some of my harvest and stumbled on a great recipe for galettes—basically roughly shaped pies.

This comes from the website for the Mill City Farmers Market out of Minneapolis. It was created by Shahreen Ahmed. You can find the original post at https://millcityfarmersmarket.org/recipes/mini-strawberry-rhubarb-galettes/. I added cinnamon in my version.

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Strawberry Rhubarb Galettes

Strawberry rhubarb galettes are a great summer dessert. The combination of tart rhubarb, sweet strawberries, bright lemon and warm cinnamon creates the perfect sweet to share with guests.
Course Dessert
Keyword cinnamon, galette, lemon zest, pie, rhubarb, strawberry, tart

Ingredients

Crust Ingredients

  • 1 1/3 cups flour
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup very cold butter cubed
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1/3 cup very cold water

Filling Ingredients

  • 2 cups fresh strawberries quartered
  • 2 cups fresh rhubarb cut into half-inch pieces
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • zest from one lemon
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Other ingredients

  • 1 egg beaten
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • additional flour as needed

Instructions

  • For the dough, combine the flour, sugar, salt and butter in a food processor. Pulse a few times to start combining the ingredients and then pour in the water and vinegar. Turn the processor on high and process until the dough pulls away from the sides into a ball. (If it stays wet and sticky, keep adding flour, a little at a time, until the dough comes together.)
  • Split the dough into four even pieces, form them into small discs, and wrap each with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator over night or for at least an hour until the dough is completely cold.
  • When you’re ready to make the galettes, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet by greasing it or lining it with parchment paper.
  • Combine the filling ingredients in a large bowl. Stir until the dry ingredients are well distributed through all the fruit.
  • On a well-floured surface, roll out the first dough disc into a rough circle shape to about 1/8-inch thickness. (Keep picking it up and adding more flour underneath as you roll. It will make picking up the filled galette way easier.)
  • Once it’s rolled out, spoon one-fourth of the fruit mixture into the middle of the circle. Roughly fold the sides in about about an inch all the way around.
  • Carefully transfer the galette to the baking sheet. Repeat with the other pieces of dough.
  • In a small bowl, beat the egg with one tablespoon of water, and brush all of the pastry on the galettes.
  • Bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
  • Let cool before slicing and serving. Store leftovers in an airtight container.

I waited until the galettes were just cool enough to extract from my baking sheet, and we ate them warm. They would have been fabulous with vanilla ice cream.

There was just enough sweetness from the rest of the ingredients in the filling to cut the tartness of the rhubarb, but its flavor still shone through. It was a great dessert.

I still have a glut of rhubarb in my fridge and a lack of quarters in my purse, but it made for the perfect weekend.

This piece first appeared in print on July 28, 2022.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Dessert

Amazing cake recipe is raising the ‘barb’

Rhubarb cake is sweet and moist and features the flavors of coconut and cinnamon along with fresh rhubarb.

A couple years ago, my folks moved into a house that had a huge garden of rhubarb in the backyard.

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if that was an even trade for missing out on the mulberry trees I used to be able to exploit at my childhood home, but I’ve been meaning to figure out what to do with rhubarb since they moved in.

So, a couple weekends ago, my mom helped me chop off a bunch of long stalks, and I brought them home to see what I could do. After letting them sit in my fridge for a bit, I decided to try a cake from my recipe box that I’d never made before, one from my paternal grandma and one I can’t remember the last time I got to have.

And it was awesome.

The recipe I’m sharing this week comes from my grandma, Tillie Miller. I can’t tell you where she got it originally, but it was my grandpa’s favorite, and I think she made it long enough that it became her recipe. I did add a little extra cinnamon and vanilla in my version.

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Rhubarb Cake

Rhubarb cake is sweet and moist and features the flavors of coconut and cinnamon along with fresh rhubarb.
Course Dessert
Keyword cake, cinnamon, coconut, German frosting, moist, rhubarb

Ingredients

Cake Ingredients

  • 1 cup rhubarb diced finely
  • 2 cups sugar divided
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup milk with about 1 tablespoon white vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla

Frosting Ingredients

  • 6 tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 1 cup coconut
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 cup chopped nuts I used walnuts

Instructions

  • Grease and flour a 9-by-13-inch cake pan and set it aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • Place the rhubarb in a bowl with 1/2 cup sugar and set it aside while combining the other ingredients. (If you’re worried about how sour your rhubarb is, give it a taste before adding the sugar. Mine was especially tart, so I added a few extra tablespoons of sugar just to be sure.)
  • Beat together the flour, remaining sugar, oil, egg, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon and vanilla until well-combined. Mix in the rhubarb.
  • Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
  • When the cake is almost done, combine all of the ingredients for the frosting in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the butter is melted and everything is well-combined. Pour the frosting evenly over the cake while it is still warm.
  • Store the cake in an air-tight container.

Despite having a particularly tart crop of rhubarb, this cake was sweet and delicious, with tons of fruit flavor along with coconut and cinnamon. We really enjoyed it, and my dad gave it his stamp of approval, too, so I think I did OK.

I tend to avoid rhubarb a lot of the time, since I’m not a big fan of sour fruits, but I really liked this. It had fantastic flavor.

I guess this means I might need to harvest a few more stalks from my folks’ garden this summer to try some other new recipes. I apparently like rhubarb more than I thought. I’m still really missing that mulberry tree, but a big slice of cake on my plate is helping me get over it.

This piece first appeared in print on June 11, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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