The great thing about puddings is that the very best ones are actually the easiest to make. No faffing around. Just throw it together and enjoy. And the galette certainly falls into that category.
Now, you may never have heard of a galette. Well, it's a rustic French fruit pie, which can be made in no time at all and with any fruit you wish to use. Think of it as a kind of French crumble. In fact the humble English crumble has taken the French by storm. They can't get enough of le crumble. Also, just like our crumble, it doesn't matter if your galette has a haphazard look about it as this adds to its charm. This is a pudding for home, a pudding for family and friends, a pudding to make everyone happy.
You will only need five ingredients so give it a go:
220g granulated sugar
1 pack of ready roll puff pastry
750g red gooseberries or other tart berries
2 slices of white bread
1 egg, beaten
1. Firstly, remove your pastry from the fridge and let it warm up a bit as this helps stop it cracking when you unroll it.
2. Set the oven to 180C fan / 200C conventional
3. Top and tail your gooseberries with kitchen scissors. I'll be honest, this takes ages, so pop the radio on and crack on. The end result is totally worth the effort so don't start questioning life decisions half way through the process.
4. Rinse the gooseberries under cold running water and throw into a pan with 120g of the sugar and two tablespoons of water. Cover the pan and boil on a medium heat until the fruit starts to to go soft but not mushy. Set aside to cool a bit when done.
5. Roll out the pastry. Leave it on the greaseproof paper that it comes on as it will save you from having to dust your work tops with flour.
6. Tear up the white bread slices and put in a food processor. Blitz until you get breadcrumbs then mix in the last 100g of sugar.
7. Spread the breadcrumbs evenly over the pastry, but leave one inch free all around the outer edge of the pastry. Brush this outer edge with the beaten egg.
8. Drain the excess liquid from gooseberries and spoon evenly onto the breadcrumbs.
9. Now we need to fold over the pastry edges. I find that you get a much neater result if you fold in the corners first, brush them with beaten egg, then fold in the sides.
10. Brush all the pastry with the beaten egg and generously sprinkle the entire pie with sugar. Three tablespoons should do it.
11. Slide the galette (including the paper it is stuck to) onto a metal baking sheet and put into the oven for around 20 minutes or until the pastry is puffed up and golden brown.
12. Slice into portions straight away and serve with ice cream. Delicious!
Or, if all that seems too much hassle then order some Togri Bakery chocolate brownies, warm them up in the microwave and serve with ice cream. Haha!