I live close to The Little Tart Bakeshop. I still remember the excitement and anticipation of their first brick & mortar shop opening in Grant Park in 2011 (I'd been lucky enough to sample their fares at the EAV Farmer's Market). If you're not familiar with their offerings, The Little Tart blends traditional French pastry techniques with local and seasonal ingredients. One item that spoke to my heart- and my taste buds- was their muscadine tart. I grew up with muscadines; they grew wild in the woods by our house, our neighbor made muscadine preserves, and my father loved muscadines (and scupernnongs too). He loved them so much, in fact, that he'd stop and pick them whenever he saw them growing. Come late Summer you could count on there being an upcycled milk jug full of muscadines in our fridge- so of course I fell in love with their delectable muscadine tart.
One of our weekend pleasures is a Sunday morning stroll to The Little Tart in Summerhill for coffee and breakfast, but with the COVID pandemic and a state-wide shelter in place, life is anything but normal. Like many of you, I've found solace in baking and other creative pursuits (gardening, sewing, painting). Since an impromptu walk for pastries is out of the question, I used Jacques Pépin's recipe to recreate one of The Little Tart's signature items: a galette.
The 3-part process was easy to follow and should have taken less than 30 minutes to prepare, but I made a major mistake. The recipe calls for 1/3 c. ice-water, but I misread it and added 1 1/3 c. The result was a very wet dough. Throwing it all out and starting over was an untenable option, so I compensated by doubling the amount of flour. The dough remained quite wet and kneading, as a result, was unnecessarily messy. Refusing to be wasteful, however, I stuck with it (and it literally stuck to me too). In spite of the sticky situation, the final galette was delicious. Now I know how to make a galette, and I'm pretty confident that I'll pay much closer attention to the recipe next time.
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