This Puff Pastry Apple Galette is filled to the brim with tender granny smith apples wrapped in a crispy, buttery, flaky puff pastry crust. The filling includes cinnamon, vanilla, brown sugar, and granulated sugar for a perfectly cozy mixture to get the most out of fall baking. It’s a beautiful addition to any table, especially when served with big scoops of ice cream.
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Ingredients
This puff pastry apple galette comes together with staple ingredients plus a few extras that are so easy to find especially in the fall season!
- Apples: Granny smith fall apples are the best apples to bake with – they’re firm and tart so when combined with the sugars and baked they don’t get overly sweet or mushy.
- If you don’t have or can’t find granny smith apples, other good types of apples to bake with are honeycrisp apples, pink lady apples, and gala apples, among others.
- Puff pastry: A delicious buttery cheat-sheet. Pre-made puff pastry is great for baking tarts and pies. Full-butter is my favorite – Pepperidge Farm or DuFour. Pepperidge typically comes with two puff pastry sheets, you only need one!
- Cinnamon: Truly cannot have apple galette without cinnamon for the warm fall flavor.
- Vanilla: Helps bring all the flavors together.
- Light brown and granulated sugar: Balance the tart apples with the sugars. I like the combination because brown sugar has a deeper, more caramelized flavor and granulated sugar is more basic sweetness. The combination of them is great.
- Lemon juice: A bit of acidity to balance it all out.
- Salt: Kosher salt to bring out all the flavor.
- Egg: Whisked together for an egg wash to help the pastry get golden brown.
- Raw sugar: Optional, but sprinkled on the pastry crust before it gets baked for a nice sweet crunch. If you don't have raw sugar, white sugar also works for this.
Step by step instructions
This is such an easy apple galette recipe it comes together pretty quickly – think of it as an easier, open-face apple pie!
Overview
Roll out the puff pastry, slice apples thin and combine with cinnamon, vanilla, sugars, lemon juice, and salt. Place in the puff pastry, fold the edges over and brush them with egg-wash and sprinkle with raw sugar. Bake at 400F for 40 minutes until deeply golden.
Detailed instructions
1. Slice the apples. Peel the apples, cut them in half vertically, remove the core, and slice ¼-inch thin slices.
2. Make the filling mixture. In a large bowl, toss the sliced apples with the cinnamon, vanilla, light brown sugar, granulated sugar, lemon juice, and salt.
3. Assemble. Lightly flour your surface and roll the sheet of puff pastry out with a rolling pin to fit a 10-inch cast iron with some overhang. Place it into your cast iron pan and add the sliced apple filling. Then fold over the edges, and brush them with the beaten egg using a pastry brush, and sprinkle them with raw sugar (the egg wash will help the sugar stick).
4. Bake. Bake the galette at 400F for 40 minutes until the puff pastry deeply golden brown. Serve with a scoop of ice cream.
Tips and tricks
Galettes are quite an easy dessert to make, but below are some tips to help nail it:
- How to defrost puff pastry:
- Overnight: put it in the fridge and it should be defrosted and ready to go the next day
- Same-day: leave it on the counter at room temperature to thaw for about 30 minutes until pliable. Then flatten it out and leave at room temperature as needed until fully defrosted
- If you defrost it this way, roll it out and put it in the cast iron skillet as the first step, then put it back in the fridge while you slice the apples and make the filling mixture. This will re-chill the butter which is necessary to get the puffy flaky layers
- Cut the apple slices very thin – this bakes up in just 40 minutes and if the apple slices aren’t thin enough, they won’t cook through fully.
- Make sure your oven is at 400F and stays there – this is a perfect temperature to bake the pastry quick enough so layers and a sturdy crust forms, while also making sure it cooks through and isn’t doughy.
- Don’t handle the dough too much – the warmer puff pastry dough gets, the more the butter melts, and the less flaky it becomes.
- Put the prepared galette in the oven quickly after you add the apples. The longer it sits the more of a chance you have of it getting soggy on the bottom.
- If you don’t want a melty mess, wait until the finished galette cools a bit to room temperature before you scoop ice cream on top!
How to serve
This puff pastry galette is absolutely delicious on its own, but half the fun is serving something delicious on top. A few of my favorites:
- Vanilla ice cream
- Maple ice cream
- Cinnamon ice cream
- Homemade whipped cream
- Coolwhip
- Drizzle of caramel sauce
Storage
If you have leftover apple galette, let it cool to room temperature then cut it into individual slices and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
To reheat, warm in the oven at 350 for 10 minutes.
FAQs
Galettes originated in France and are pastries with a flat crust base that gets folded up over either sweet or savory filling for a rustic look. More on this here. The only real difference between a pie and a galette is that a pie is also usually topped with a crust or crumble, whereas galette just has the folded edges.
The only thing different is the dough! A traditional galette uses a dough more similar to pie dough, whereas this uses puff pastry. But both will yield a delicious buttery crust.
Yes! It won’t be as “puffed” but it’ll still be buttery and delicious.
Sure! I haven’t tested the recipe with other fruit so I can’t say for sure if any other ingredients would need to be swapped or added. But pear, blueberries, strawberries, peaches, would all make a great fruit galette. For some of the juicier fruits (such as blueberries/strawberries/peaches) I’d recommend adding 1 tablespoon of cornstarch to thicken up the juices.
Nope!
I wouldn’t recommend fully prepping it as the apples will make the puff soggy, but you could prep just the apple mixture the day before. If you do, cover it and keep it in the fridge.
More fall baking recipes
Recipe
Puff Pastry Apple Galette
INGREDIENTS
- 1 puff pastry sheet
- 4 granny smith apples
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoon lemon juice about ½ a lemon
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon raw sugar
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat your oven to 400F.
- Peel the apples, cut them in half vertically, remove the core, and slice ¼-inch thin slices.
- In a large bowl, toss the sliced apples with the ½ teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon vanilla, ¼ cup light brown sugar, 2 tablespoon granulated sugar, 2 teaspoon lemon juice, and ½ teaspoon kosher salt.
- Lightly flour your surface and roll the sheet of puff pastry out with a rolling pin to fit a 10-inch cast iron with some overhang. Place it into your cast iron pan.
- Add the sliced apple filling to the puff pastry-lined cast iron skillet. Then fold over the edges, brush them with the beaten egg using a pastry brush, and sprinkle them with raw sugar (the egg wash will help the sugar stick).
- Bake the galette at 400F for 40 minutes until the puff pastry deeply golden brown. Serve with a scoop of ice cream.
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