Peach Galette with Puff Pastry, Honey & Thyme

This peach galette with puff pastry is the perfect balance between sophisticated and simple. Puff pastry seems extravagant, but it has nearly identical ingredients to pie crust – just prepared in a different way. Peaches, honey, and thyme are all flavors that remind me of “the country.” Classic ingredients that don’t need a lot of hype.

You can always buy sheets of puff pastry, but “rough puff” is really easy to make and just as good as the real deal. All-butter puff pastry is significantly better than other varieties, so get yourself to a Trader Joe’s and stock up! Their puff pastry is only $4 per box, while the other all-butter brands can run as high as $15 per box (hell no). Last Christmas, I was faced with paying for expensive puff pastry or trying my hand at a rough puff. Now I’m a die-hard rough puff girl.

How to make rough puff pastry

If you’re making the rough puff, start the day before or early on so your pastry has plenty of time to chill. You’ll start by loosely mixing the flour, butter, and water together, chilling, and then rolling out and folding the dough three times.

Start by combining two cups (250g) of flour with 1 teaspoon of kosher salt. Roughly break 1 1/8 cups (250g) of butter into the flour and use your fingers to loosely combine it with the flour. The butter needs to be really chunky; the mixture should be coarse. Make a well in the bowl and add 1/2 cup of cold water. Cover and chill for 20-30 minutes.

On a lightly floured board, shape the dough into a smooth rectangle. Roll the dough, in one direction only, until it is about 5×15 inches. Try to keep the edges even, and as you roll you should see streaks of butter that aren’t mixed in. As the butter melts in the oven, it creates steam between the layers, which cause the “puff.” Fold the top third down, then fold the bottom third up over that to make a 5×5 square. Give it a quarter turn, roll it out to a 5×15 sheet, fold it in thirds, and repeat once more. You’re going for layers, like so:

Wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes but preferably overnight. This recipe makes two sheets of puff pastry, so you can freeze the other half for up to a month (or use it in my upcoming apple dumplings with puff pastry recipe!).

How to make a peach galette with puff pastry

Make sure your puff pastry has thawed if it’s storebought. Wash, peel and cut your peaches into 1/8 inch slices. In my experience, if your peaches are perfectly ripe, the skin will come right off. If that’s not working, peel the peaches with a knife or blanch them so the skins come right off.

Mix the peach slices with honey, thyme leaves, tapioca or corn starch, and a pinch of salt. Roll out your puff pastry to a 12×12 inch square on a piece of parchment paper. Next, stack the peach slices in an 8-inch circle in the middle of your pastry. Fold the edges of the dough over the peaches however you’d like. The spirit of the galette is “freeform,” but I folded it into a honeycomb shape because I couldn’t help myself.

Transfer the galette and parchment paper to a baking sheet. Finally, brush the pastry with an egg wash and bake it in a 400º oven for 20-25 minutes.

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream if you’re feeling it!

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