Sourdough spiced pear galette

Sourdough spiced pear galette

Ooh.

Well. Hello? It's honestly been a while since I've written on here, however, life has been a bit chaotic these last few months. So rather than writing a long prose, I thought I would give a sparknotes version of what's been happening in my neck of the woods:

1. I got offered a new job, meaning that I'm no longer in academia

   2. I moved to London!

   3. I've found myself working on several projects outside of work, some that I'll be able to talk about more with due cause.

In addition, I've also admitted to myself recently that since I've finished writing my PhD thesis, writing is a struggle for me. I've always found writing to be hard and consequently, I'll find every reason under the sun to do verbal communication (for example, I've now started a TikTok account which I'm absolutely loving). With all the above, I'm going to try and take a lot of pressure off me when it comes to me updating this blog. It'll be a lot more informal, which works better for my style. The informal aspect will also lead to the photos being more "rustic" (don't judge please). I'll also talk more foodie thoughts which won't unnecessarily lead to a recipe, but maybe it will?

That said, I talk about not writing a recipe and yet here is another recipe. Which in this case is another galette! Only this time the pie crust is a sourdough discard recipe that I've been experimenting with. I also chose to go seasonal by using pears and stuff. Let me know if you give it a try!

Ingredients

For the pastry

• 140 g plain white flour

• 110 g sourdough starter

• A pinch of flaky sea salt

• 120 g unsalted butter cubed from the fridge

• 1 tbsp demerara sugar

• 1 large egg lightly beaten

For the fruit

• 3 large pears

• 50 g dark brown sugar

• 40 g caster sugar

• 10 g ground cardamom (you can switch this for cinnamon)

• 5 g mixed spice

• 2 g chilli flake

• Flaky salt to finish

Instructions

1. To make the pie crust, combine the flour, sugar, salt and butter in a large bowl. Break the butter up in the flour until your mixture resembles small breadcrumbs and you can see small pieces of butter left. Pour in the starter and begin incorporating it using a knife. Once the mixture begins to come together, pour the contents on a clean surface and bring them together to form a disc of around 20 cm. Wrap in clingfilm and allow for the pie crust to chill and hydrate in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.

2. Whilst the pie crust is chilling, prepare the fruit filling. Cut the ends of the pears off, cut them in half and finely cut the pears into slices. Set aside. Next, prepare your sugar spice mix by adding all the ingredients into a bowl and mixing together until fully combined. Set aside.

3. Remove your chilled pie crust from the fridge, ensuring that it’s firm but pliable. Using your rolling pin, roll out the pie crust from the centre to form a large disc with a thickness of around 4 mm (size of a pound coin). Once rolled out, place on a lined parchment paper baking tray. Place a layer of sugar spice mix at the base of the galette until you’re left with a 4 cm border. Next, place the sliced pears over the spice mix base, ensuring that you fill every gap. Carefully fold over the border, doing this step in sections to get an overlapping effect. Add another layer of sugar spice mix over the top of all the pears. Place the entire galette in a freezer for at least 10 mins.

4. Preheat your oven to 195 degrees Celcius/175 fan. Take your galette out of the freezer and brush over a layer of beaten egg wash around the border of the galette. Sprinkle demerara sugar across the entire galette and place it in the oven. Bake for 35-40 mins until the galette is deep in colour and can come off the parchment paper without resistance.

5. Remove from the oven and let the galette completely cool. Add flaky salt to finish and serve. The galette will keep for 2-3 days at room temperature.