I cannot wait to share this one with you all! This galette is divine. The smell while it’s baking… if only I could package it up into a scented candle and send you one. So good. Something I’d noticed when making galettes before is that the sweetener used for the fruit filling is always sugar.

When there are so many other options out there, why just use sugar!? Honey is so underrated and underused in baking, and it has a delicious, almost perfumed aroma and delicate sweetness that pairs perfectly with these rosy apples.

And yes, after weeks of lusting over other people’s pink apples on Instagram, I FINALLY got my hands on some. This variety is called Sunburst, and they actually taste as good as they look. Something else I noticed when cooking with them is that they don’t really brown on contact with the air anywhere near as quickly as regular apples. Win! So to honour these beautiful specimens, I had to give them a cozy pastry bed and the finest flavours.

The crust is really easy. “Whizz it up in the food processor in under 5 minutes” easy. A little pumpkin pie spice and lemon zest in there give it a lovely warm and aromatic flavour, perfect for Fall. The two best things about a galette are: a) the crust is zero effort to shape and no pie-tin is required, and b) you get to cover all visible crust with delicious, crunchy sugar. Mmmm. The textural contrasts are perfect. Soft, yielding apples surrounded by flaky pie crust, topped with crunchy crystals of sugar. Pop a dollop of whipped cream on top and you’re in sensory heaven.

Because I’m one of those people who is absolutely hooked on salt, I had to see if the contrast between the sweet, perfumed honey and a little flaky sea salt would work. And boy did it work. I’m not one for overly sweet desserts, so this is ideal. Really well-balanced and not too heavy after a big wintry dinner. If you’ve got a glut of apples on your hands and you want something bigger, take a peek at my apple cake pie. Yes, you read that correctly. Enjoy!

Recipe

• Serves: 8 slices
• Time:
  • Prep: 20 mins
  • Cook: 30 mins

    Ingredients

• For the pastry
  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 lemon zested
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 1 stick butter cold
  • 1/4 cup ice-cold water
• For the filling
  • 3 small apples cored and sliced
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • 1/2 lemon juiced
  • pinch flaky sea salt
  • 1 egg
  • handful turbinado sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350f convection, or 375f regular. Begin by sifting the flour, sugar, salt, and pie spice into the food processor. Add the lemon zest, then pulse once or twice to combine.
2. Cube the cold butter, and add it to the food processor. Pulse several times until it looks like breadcrumbs.
3. Add the water bit by bit, pulsing between each addition. When the dough is starting to clump together, turn it out onto the worktop and form it into a ball with your hands.
4. Lay the pastry onto a sheet of baking parchment, and cover it with another sheet. Roll the dough out until it is about 1/8 inch thick, into a rough circular shape.
5. In a bowl, combine the apples, lemon juice, cornstarch and honey and stir well to combine. Remove the top sheet of baking parchment and lay the apples onto the pastry, leaving at least a 2 inch border free of fruit. Drizzle any remaining juices from the bottom of the bowl onto the fruit. Sprinkle with sea salt.
6. Fold the pastry border back onto the fruit to form a crust. Beat the egg with 1 tsp water, then brush this onto the pastry. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar and bake in the centre of the oven for about 30 minutes.
7. Rotate the tray halfway through cooking. The galette is done when the fruit is soft and the pastry is a deep golden-brown.
8. Serve with whipped cream if desired.