I had every intention of posting this in August when mangos were abundant, yet here it is, February…. It looks as though it will be a good mango season this year. All the trees in the neighborhood are full of flowers and keiki fruits right now. So when the time comes and you have a few pounds of mangos and want an easy to assemble dessert, this mango galette is the perfect choice. It is a beautiful dessert to bring to the table after dinner or to serve with your morning coffee.
Between the two types of mango trees we have, the White Pirie is the one I use most often for making jams and preserves as well as for baking. With its sweet, intense, mango flavor and relatively firm texture, it holds up well when chopped or sliced for recipes such as mango bread, cake, streusel muffins, and this galette.
The wonderful thing about a galette is its free-form shape. Roll it out, add your ingredients then tuck up the sides. You will use the entire piece of pie dough since there’s no need to trim the edges of the crust.
Serve a slice all by itself, or top it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.
- Crust:
- 1½ cups (204g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 stick (8 tablespoons, 4 ounces, 113g) frozen Earth Balance Buttery Sticks cut into about 16 pieces (if using regular unsalted butter increase salt to ½ teaspoon)
- ¼ cup ice water
- Filling:
- ⅓ cup (heaping) granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 cups (about 2½ pounds) mangos, peeled, seeded, and cut into ⅓-1/2-inch-thick slices
- mango jam for glaze (can substitute with apricot jam)
- Dough: Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a few times to blend. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is cut into the flour. The mixture will look like coarse meal. Continue to pulse until you get small flake-size pieces and some larger pea-size pieces. Add a little of the ice water and pulse, add some more, pulse and continue until all of the water is in. Now work in longer pulses, stopping to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl if needed, until you have a dough that forms nice bumpy curds that hold together when you pinch them. Heads up. Just before you reach this clumpy stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change.
- Gather the dough into a ball, flatten it into a disk and put it between two large pieces of parchment paper. Roll the dough into a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Don’t worry about getting the exact size or about having the edges be perfect.
- Slide the rolled-out dough, still between the parchment papers onto a baking sheet and freeze for about 15 minutes or refrigerate for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove chilled dough from freezer or refrigerator while you prepare the fruit. The dough should still be cold but pliable and not prone to cracking.
- Filling: Place sliced mangos in a large, wide bowl. Combine sugar, corn starch, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Sprinkle sugar mixture over mangos and toss gently with a wide spatula.
- Remove top layer of parchment paper from dough round. Starting 1½ to 2-inches from the edge of the round, arrange the mangoes in a single layer in concentric circles, creating overlapping folds as you work around the perimeter. If your mangos are extra juicy, leave the extra juice in the bowl so the filling does note overflow in the oven. Gently lift the border of the dough up and around the filling, making pleats as you go. Brush the border with half & half or milk. Sprinkle with turbinado or coarse sparkling sugar. This is optional but makes for an attractive and crispy crust.
- Bake on the parchment lined baking sheet for 45 - 50 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling. Remove the galette from the oven and brush the fruit with warmed mango jam. Let cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack. Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.
