Apple Cinnamon & Hazelnut Galette

Autumn is my favourite season – not only because I celebrate my birthday in October, but also because of the beautiful colours, the crispy weather and of course the amazing spices we tend to use this time around. Close your eyes and imagine you walk into a house that smells like cinnamon, apple, pumpkin spice and cloves! Isn’t it dreamy?

As part of my fascination with autumn, I love making desserts that incorporate apple in any shape or form, whether it is a simple apple crumble with vanilla custard, a soul-warming apple pie or a quick apple cinnamon muffin for a little afternoon pick-me-up. I was keen to try out something different, and I decided to experiment with the galette pastry this time. Well, there is definitely room for improvement to say the least… the end result ended up being quite rustic, but most importantly, it tasted phenomenal.

I served it with some yoghurt on top and a splash of maple syrup for some extra sweetness. You can be creative here and add some custard, cream, honey, vanilla ice cream or nothing at all.

Things to note:

• I decided to add some very finely chopped hazelnut to the pastry mix, which made it extremely crumbly, so I recommend you to skip that part and follow the recipe below.
• I used locally sourced Irish apples, that had that very typical non-commercial apple taste if you know what I mean. You can use any type of apple, depending on what is available at home or in your grocery store.

After all the storytelling, let’s see what is the journey to create this perfect autumn bake.

Ingredients:

Pastry

• 180 g plain white flour
• 120 g of unsalted butter
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp ice water

Filling

• 4 medium-size apples
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1/2 lemon (zest and juice)
• 50 g brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 15 g hazelnut

Instructions

• Whisk the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Cut the cold butter into small cubes and work it into the flour mix until you get a sandy texture. Add the ice water and mix it well together with your hand until your dough holds together. After forming a ball from the dough, cover it with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
• While your dough is in the fridge, prepare your apple filling. After coring the apples, cut them into half, and slice them into thin wedges.
• In a large bowl, mix together the maple syrup, cornflour, lemon juice and zest, brown sugar and cinnamon. Place the apple slices into the mixture and gently stir to make sure that the slices are covered with this delicious autumn-y coat.
• Heat up the oven to 165°C (fan) or 180 °C (without fan).
• After your dough has been in the fridge for 30 minutes, take it out and roll into into a circle on a parchment paper.
• Place the apple mix in the middle of the circle making sure that you leave approximately 2cm dough at the edges. Sprinkle the chopped hazelnut on the top of the apple.
• After you placed all the filling on the dough, gently fold the edges to cover some of the apple filling. Do not worry, the dough might crumble. Use the parchment paper to help folding the dough and gently pinch together the edges.
• Give the edge a nice egg wash and sprinkle some brown sugar on it.
• Bake the galette for approximately 55 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

Enjoy and until next time,

Nora from My Honeycomb Kitchen