Easy Peach Tart (Peach Galette) with Vanilla Pastry

I’ve been thinking about making a tart like this for the last two weeks while we’re surrounded by lovely peaches.  These are the white variety but any will do including swapping them for nectarines so long as they’re ripe.  When I made these yesterday I ate two of the small tarts and quite a bit of the large tart.  Buttery morish pastry and ripe peaches, what’s not to like?  

Buy the sweetest variety of peaches you can.

Peaches should be ripe enough to be juicy but not collapsing.

Don’t do what I did

When I was lying in bed late one night thinking how I would make this tart, I imagined the peaches would produce too much juice during baking and make the pastry soggy, a bit like tomato tarts.  My solution was to sprinkle the base of the pastry with a fine layer of ground almonds or for those with allergies use fine breadcrumbs.

I made the large tart using breadcrumbs to catch peach juice which it did.

And I made the little tarts with adding nothing, placing the peaches direct on top of the pastry, to find out which turned out better?

I would like to report back the little tarts with no breadcrumbs tasted better and actually crispier than the large tart.

The breadcrumbs made the big tart damper in the middle and gave an unwanted texture of slight goo between fruit and pastry.  Don’t add the breadcrumbs!

With the little tarts I found the best way to get a crispy bottom was to put them in the oven at a slightly higher temperature, and turn oven down halfway through baking preventing the peaches from burning.  Let the pastry dry out in the oven more than you think you should.

How to make the peach tart

Now that you have your pastry ready and it has been chilled, the recipe in this post here

Remember to add the lovely vanilla paste or extract, just look at those little black specks of seeds in the pastry.

Roll out the pastry thinly.  Decide if you’re making large tarts or individual ones.

If making larger ones use the tin as a cutter.

Press down really hard to make sure the pastry is cut through.

For the individual ones use a super large cookie cutter like I have here, or look around the house for a little bowl or dish with the right circumference.

By the way, nothing stopping you from picking a square or rectangle shape.

Use a spatula to lift the pastry gently.

Start taking away the pastry around the circles.

If you find the markings are not cut all the way through, the best way to deal with it is by pulling away the outside pastry…

…like this.

Use the spatula to gently loosen the pastry from the surface.

Gently place it on a baking sheet lined with baking paper (not greaseproof paper).

Put in the fridge while preparing the fruit.

Using a sharp knife…if your knife doesn’t cut through the skin of the peach…go and sharpen it now.

Cut all the way through the peach until hitting the stone, into quarters.

Cut in the middle of those quarters, essentially you’re cutting the peach into 8 segments.

Some peaches will easily release the segments without a fuss by a little jiggle with the knife…

…but if it doesn’t, then use the point of the knife to cut around the stone.

To remove the skin if they’re ripe it will peel off easily…

…eitherwise use a knife to cut it off.

Now you need to cut each segment into half, start by using the tip of the knife to make a clean cut, gently.

Brush the edges of the pastry with a beaten egg, it will give the pastry a nice colour.  Arrange the slices on the pastry.

Bake and put the timer on, it’s easy to forget…I should know!

Halfway through baking, turn the tart around in the oven to bake evenly.

When the the tart is ready, glaze it to give it a shine and make it look pretty.

A classic way is to brush it with a little diluted sieved warmed jam, such as apricot flavour because it won’t colour the fruit.

But if you’re a clever clogs…and this is quite rare in this household…you might have made the matching jam to the tart which empathises the flavour.

If you don’t have jam, here’s a good way to give the tart a pretty finish…

…while the tart is warm using a mini sieve dust some icing sugar over the tart.  Sieve at a good height to get an even scattering.

Now for those of you who have a little blow torch, you can burn the edges slightly…in an artistic sort of way, here and there.

If you’re making the small individual tarts and they’re so cute, only bake 4 at a time in the oven otherwise they produce too much steam and won’t let the pastry crisp up.

Again when baked and while warm…

…sprinkle fairy dust from a good height…

…like so.

Give the tarts a few minutes and they’ll start to sparkle.

Finish cooling them on racks.

When no one is looking…eat one while warm.  I don’t even need a plate for them.

Easy Peach Tarts (Peach Galettes) with Vanilla Pastry

• 1 x vanilla pastry, recipe here
• 4 ripe peaches
• 1 whole egg, beaten
• icing sugar for dusting

Tin Sizes

This pastry will make:

2 tarts x 20 cm (8 inches) each.  Need 2 peaches per tart, 4 peaches in total.

OR

8 tarts x 10 cm (4 inches).  Need 1/2 peach per tart, 4 peaches in total

Vanilla Pastry

– Once the pastry is made and chilled, roll it out thinly and cut it to the tart sizes you want.  Put the tarts on top of baking sheet that has been lined with baking paper (not greaseproof) and put them in the fridge again while preparing the peaches.

Assembling the Tarts

Pre-heat the oven to 190˚C Fan / 390˚F / gas 6.

– Cut the peaches as above.   Brush the edges of the pastry with the egg, and arrange the peaches overlapping on top of the pastries.

– Bake in the pre-heated oven at that temperature for 10 minutes.

– After 10 minutes turn the tart around to bake evenly, and turn the oven temperature down to 160˚C Fan / 350˚F / gas 4 and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

– While the pastries are warm sieve the icing sugar over the tarts using a mini sieve over a good height.

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