Listen to BA Bake Club’s Podcast on Tiny Tomato Galettes

This month, the Bake Club welcomes its first ever guest recipe developer, Test Kitchen Editor Rebecca Firkser, to discuss her recipe for the oh-so-cute Tiny Tomato Galettes. (For the uninitiated, explains Rebecca, a galette is just “a freeform open-faced pie” filled with…well, whatever you want.) On the latest episode of the podcast, Jesse, Shilpa, and Rebecca take your questions, covering the difference between a pie and a galette, how to avoid a soggy bottom, and why mayonnaise is that girl – at least when it comes to this recipe. Plus, they bestow the honor of Baker of the Month on one talented Bake Clubber – and try to stump each other with unique ingredient combinations. How will soy milk and spam fare in a galette? You’ll have to listen to find out. We’d love to hear from you! Send your questions to BA Bake Club! Find us on Substack or send us a voice memo to [email protected]. Shilpa Uskokovic: I'm Shilpa Uskokovic. Jesse Szewczyk: And I'm Jesse Szewczyk. SU: We're both senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit. JS: And this is BA Bake Club. SU: Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident and curious bakers. JS: We're creating the nerdiest and most wholesome corner of the baking internet. SU: Every month we publish a recipe on bonppetit.com that introduces the baking concept we think you should know. JS: Then you'll bake, send us any questions you have or pictures of your finished creations. SU: And we'll get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe. JS: So the July Bake Club recipe, which is Shilpa's delightfully squiggly corn coconut mochi cake is live now on bonppetit.com. And we'll tell you more about that at the end of the episode. SU: But today, today we're here to talk about June's recipe for the cutest tiny tomato galettes. JS: And in order to talk about this recipe, we actually have a very special guest, our own test kitchen colleague, and our very first guest recipe developer for Bake Club, it's a big moment. Author of the cookbook, Galette! So brought in the big wig, Rebecca Firkser. Rebecca, hello. SU: Rebecca, welcome. Rebecca Firkser: Hey guys. How's it going? SU: Well, let's pretend that we didn't see each other downstairs- JS: Yeah, for the whole morning. SU: ... ten minutes ago. Rebecca, we're really thrilled to have you here. RF: I'm delighted to be here. SU: As our colleague, as our first guest developer, we are- RF: No, genuinely honored- SU: ... very, very lucky to have you. RF: ... like to be in the presence of two such- SU: Stop. RF: ... accomplished bakers as yourselves. JS: Again, not in the presents every single day of our life. RF: We've actually never met before. JS: Yeah. SU: Rebecca, for those of us who listening and who might be new to you, do you want to tell us how you came into this industry, this role as a recipe developer? RF: Sure, sure. Gosh, how much time do we have? I've been working in food media for a while now. I've worked at a lot of digital media publications. But most recently I've been a freelancer actually working on a lot of cookbooks, including my own, as you both mentioned, my cookbook Galette actually just had its first birthday. Happy birthday Galette. SU: Oh, happy birthday, Galette. JS: Oh, happy birthday. SU: What a way to celebrate. RF: I know. What a perfect way to celebrate. But I do more than just galettes. I love budget friendly recipes, I love vegetarian cooking. You guys know about my love of beans. I've had a budget friendly Substack for quite a while. SU: What is the name of your budget friendly Substack? RF: It's called Nickel and Dine. Right now, it's mostly just more of my BA recipes because I was so excited to join the team at the end of last year. SU: Yeah, we're very lucky to have you. RF: It's been a long process. But very lucky to be in your company. JS: Rebecca has eaten every single bake club recipe and has probably influenced them in countless ways. SU: Yes. JS: So she's finally here. SU: Okay. Speak to me a little bit about galettes. What is a galette? RF: What is a galette? I think there's a long answer and there's a short answer, but the short answer is a galette is a free form open-faced pie. So it's basically pie dough filled with sweet or savory fillings. It could be vegetables, it could be fruit, it could be meat even. You're going to pleat up the edges of that pie dough and then you just bake it all at once. So whereas pie, I feel like is more separate crust and then filling. Galette is one entity. JS: Did galette used to be like a catch all term, like historically? RF: Yeah. I mean, galette technically in old French means a flat cake. JS: Yeah, right. RF: So there are so many different things it can be. And if you go to France, even there are many different things today even like it might be a crepe made with buckwheat flour, it might be a cookie. In some parts of the world it's like fried dough even. In the US you might see a galette called a crostata, which is just the Italian word for tart. SU: Yeah. RF: Even though technically crostatas are not that. But yeah, I mean, when I think of galette, I say open-face pie to be the snappiest answer. SU: Yeah. So it's a pie without a pan. RF: Exactly. JS: Pie without a pan. SU: Yeah. JS: There you go. RF: Pie without a pan, though you can bake a galette in a pie pan. SU: Oh. JS: Oh. RF: Just to confuse people. JS: Or a skillet like Shilpa's. SU: Or a skillet, yes. RF: You can do them in a skillet. You can do them in a fluted tart pan. You can even make them in a muffin tin. SU: Check out Rebecca's book for that one. RF: You gotta buy my book for that one. SU: What about galettes made you feel like you could fill a book's worth of recipes? RF: That's a good question. I mean, the cookbook industry, you both know it's very competitive. It's very hard to sell a cookbook if you're not a very famous influencer, which I am not. But a single subject cookbook can be one of those ways to sell a cookbook. And so when I was working on my cookbook idea, it honestly kind of shocked me how many things can become a galette. SU: Wow. Yeah. RF: There were truly ... I actually had to stop myself. I could probably write a second volume now. SU: Wow. JS: Oh. RF: I won't. JS: Would that be good for you? RF: But- SU: Do you think a galette is more versatile than a pie? RF: I do. I really do. I've become quite fond of the galette. Pie can be very intimidating. You kind of need to be really good at baking to make a really good pie. You can make a perfectly fine pie if you're not a very good baker. But I actually think regardless of your baking prowess, you can make a very good galette. JS: So we're going to talk about how you came to be our first guest recipe developer later in the episode. And kind of the genesis behind your tiny tomato galette. Okay, but first we have a tradition here at Bake Club. So let's cue our how-to music. Okay, there it is. Rebecca, can you walk listeners through kind of the broad strokes of how you make your tiny tomato galettes? RF: Okay. So first you're going to make your dough by cutting cold butter into a mixture of flour, sugar, salt, and black pepper. I know that sounds a little strange, but a little bit of seasoning in your dough is lovely. You're going to drizzle that with a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water. And then you're going to use your hands to just fluff it around until it starts to look like a very shaggy mixture. You're going to dump it out onto a work surface and use a bench scraper to fold it over itself a couple of times. Which helps make flaky layers. And it should sort of look like a pepper flecked marble counter by the time you're done with it. Then you're going to pat that into a long skinny rectangle. You're going to wrap that in plastic wrap and then you're going to pop it in the fridge. And this particular shape is going to help you roll it out. But I'll get to that in a moment. You're going to thickly slice a few heirloom tomatoes and season both sides very lightly with kosher salt. And you'll also mix together grated garlic, mayo, parm, and some finely chopped herbs. And then you'll pop that in the fridge. Okay, back to the dough. You're going to cut that long skinny rectangle in half and then roll each one of those out into two more long rectangles and punch six-inch rounds. You can use a bowl to trace those. You'll fill each one with the Parmesan and garlic mixture, cleat up the edges and then top each one with a slice of heirloom tomato. You're going to brush the edges of the crust with some egg wash and then bake them on two sheet pans, switching the pans halfway through until they're deeply golden brown. And then finish with a little bit of flaky salt and more herbs. SU: That was great. RF: That's a galette. So simple, so easy, so straight forward. SU: No, that was great. Okay, Rebecca, tell us a little bit about how the recipe ... How did you come up with this idea for a tiny tomato galette? RF: Well, I feel like to be honest, it started with me eavesdropping on a bake club brainstorming session. You guys were chatting about a lot of different summer things and I asked if you'd done a galette yet and you were like, "Gosh, we haven't done a galette. We've done pie." And I was like, "Well, you should definitely do a galette." And then I think it was Jesse who was like, "Well, you should develop that for us." SU: Yeah. JS: Yeah, I don't want to do that. RF: But I think once we got into brainstorming, we were like, "Okay, it's summer, it's a galette. Is it going to be sweet? Is it going to be savory?" And we were like, "Well, tomato pie, tomato galette." That just feels so summer. And we were thinking about other tomato pastries that we'd had and I brought up Radio Bakery's tomato croissant, which is one of my favorite baked goods in the city. They do this incredible souffle almost of a Parmesan-y cream situation and they use their incredible croissant dough and it's very elegant. And I was like, "What is the home baker's version of this?" And so shout out to Radio Bakery for making that beautiful treat. But this is a totally different thing. It's very straightforward. It's very easy for the home cook to make. And that's sort of how the galette came to be. I mean, I think we realized that Bake Clubbers might be excited to take on that extra challenge of the tiny galette. SU: Yeah, crimping individual. RF: Because they've obviously had so much success making your pie and it's a little bit more work. For your average galette, you roll it out, you fill it, you pleat the edges, you pop it in the oven, you're done. These small ones, you have to get your ruler out. You might have to look at your clock, put things back in the fridge. But we felt like the Bake Clubbers were ready for that next challenge. SU: Yeah. I mean, I actually think it was really clever because having a smaller sized tart, I think it also ... Tomatoes can be watery and I think- RF: Yes. SU: ... it helps you have a crisp crust at the bottom. And I love it. I think it's a nice frame for a beautiful in season tomato. RF: And they're just so cute. SU: That feels so special. RF: You just like- SU: Yeah, they are very cute. RF: ... just pick it up with your hand, like a little pastry. SU: They're super cute. RF: No fork needed. JS: Okay. So the main thing I want to talk about is I always talk about dough, pie dough. That we all have different ways of making it. SU: Yeah. JS: Even if we make the same dough recipe, we're going to make it different. So Rebecca, I want to know about your dough and also I want to know, maybe this is a dumb question, but is galette dough different than pie dough? RF: This is a very good question. Okay. I think my ultimate galette dough is sort of like something in between Pate Brisee and puff pastry. Which are two standard pastries that folks use. Pate Brisee is a shortcrust pastry, it's an all butter dough. I think that's maybe the distinction between American pie dough and Pate Brisee officially is that sometimes American pie dough can have other fats in it. Shilpa's incredible pie crust has cream cheese in it or there are many pie makers that like to use lard or shortenings. Whereas I think officially Pate Brisee is all butter. And then puff pastry obviously involves a butter block. It can be very complicated, but you have to wrap your dough in butter and roll it out and press it. And I like to do something in between those by using all butter, but I just cut up little pieces of cold butter. And I kind of leave them a little bit bigger than you might if you were making like a super crumbly pie dough. I like to say around the size of a chickpea is what I like to go for. And then that will continue to kind of hydrate the flour as you're rolling it out, making these flaky layers. Because ultimately when your dough hits the hot oven, you want those bits of butter to steam when they get into the oven. So then it encourages the dough to puff up and rise. Sort of like a croissant or a puff pastry. And ultimately I think the layering, what I like to do is cut the dough in half with a bench scraper and then just stack it on top of itself. So sort of like if you've made a biscuit before, it's a similar technique to that. And you're sort of mimicking that but with a little bit more safety and security and you can do it in a more contained area. JS: Okay. So we have the dough and how do you use it? How do you form it? Because you kind of plead it in a way that reminds me of like a perogy almost. RF: Totally. So this was part of that extra challenge that I wanted to give Bake Clubbers because if you've made a galette before, part of the way that they're sold is you just fold up the edges and you're done. JS: I kind of like rips in a nice way. RF: It like rips, it looks very rustic. And if the filling oozes out, that's all part of their charm. For these, I definitely wanted folks to get a little bit more precise with their pleating. Obviously you can just fold it together and it's just fine. But to show off the beauty of that tomato, I didn't really want to encase it in the crust. I wanted the tomato to be laid on top of a beautifully pleated galette. So once you've added your filling, you instead sort of fold up the dough with your thumb and your finger. It's almost like a rope crimp. JS: I think that's what I'm call it, yeah. RF: It's like for a pie dough, it looks a little bit like an empanada. You're sort of twisting and pleading and you're pressing it down as you're moving around the perimeter of the crust. And it takes a little time, but I think that once you see it done, I'm a very visual learner. So if you look, we have a video on the BA Instagram. So if you take a look at that, you'll be able to see it's much simpler than it sounds, but also- SU: You make it look really effortless, I will say. RF: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. But this is one of those things where after you've done it 700 times, it's much easier than the first time. SU: Okay. That's about the shaping. I want to talk about the thing that everybody talks about when it comes to pies, how to avoid a soggy undercarriage. I'm really tired. I'm really tired of the phrase soggy bottom, I will say. RF: It has been really overused. SU: Shout out to Great British Bake Off or whatever it is under there. JS: [inaudible 00:13:48] Pride month. SU: I'm borrowing a term from the pizza world. RF: I love that. SU: And I'm going to call it an undercarriage. RF: Is that what they use in pizza? JS: [inaudible 00:13:57] worse. That's honestly way worse. SU: Whatever. I'm referring to it as a soggy undercarriage. JS: All right, all right. SU: How do you avoid that? How did you, or rather, in your tomato galette? RF: Okay, so, I think there are two ways to avoid a saggy undercarriage. JS: You guys, Jesus. RF: Something worthy of a Paul Hollywood handshake. And this can really apply to any galette you're baking. These for sure, but also for other sweet or savory galettes. Is the first one I like for there to be a little bit of insurance in terms of the filling fruit and vegetables, but more so fruit like tomatoes are very juicy, they're full of water. And so even if you salt them and kind of let out some of that moisture ahead of time, you can still run the risk of it just becoming kind of a soggy bottomed mess. No one wants this. So in my vast exploration into avoiding the soggy bottomed galette, I found that having some kind of filling or even just like a layer of something in between the fruit or vegetable and the crust is actually incredibly helpful for making that first barrier between the two. So for this one, for example, it's a mixture of mayonnaise. What is mayo if it's just oil and egg? It's not super watery at all. It's mostly fat. And then Parmesan and garlic, which are two other solid ingredients that are going to form this nice base in between the crust and the juicy fruit that goes on top of it. I don't know if folks have seen my kind of cheaters galette made with puff pastry dough, also on ba.com. That one has a mixture of cream cheese and some other seasonings. Cream cheese is another really great barrier between garlic- SU: We love cream cheese in Bake Club. RF: Cream cheese is a fantastic product. SU: Yes, Philadelphia. RF: Shout out Philadelphia. Like are they- SU: Yes. You know what, no shout out to Philadelphia- RF: ... a sponsor? SU: ... because they haven't sponsored us yet. RF: Where are you, Philadelphia? JS: Rebecca, I have a question. What about the people who brush their bottom with egg? What's up with that? RF: Okay. I don't believe in it. JS: I don't believe it either. RF: I don't believe in it. It just doesn't work. JS: I agree. RF: Like folks say like, oh, lightly beat egg white and it'll form- JS: It does something. RF: It maybe does something. But I think it really works more if you're like par baking a pie dough. SU: Yes, yes. RF: You know what I mean? For insurance between like a custard-y filling. SU: Yes. I think it's like not a no bake, but a pie that you put a refrigerated filling on top. JS: Sure. RF: Exactly. SU: Maybe. But yeah, I'm with you. RF: But it just doesn't work for the galette because it's all in one. Or like any kind of pie that's baked all in one, I don't think ... Because that egg is not going to set. JS: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. RF: So I don't believe in that. I'd be much more likely ... I mean, literally crumble up cookies and put that on the base of your galette. JS: Yeah. Sure. SU: I love that. JS: What about breadcrumbs? RF: Breadcrumbs work too. JS: All right. RF: I actually really like toasting panko and garlic. So the second tip for avoiding a soggy bottom. I'm never going to not think soggy undercarriage in Shilpa's British accent. Well, the other tip, it's very important. You want to make sure to bake your galettes a lot longer than you might think. Most people see like a golden brown crust. Maybe they think the color of a croissant or the color of a biscuit perhaps. And I think you really need to bake galette deep. They need to be like the color of almost like a cappuccino. SU: [French 00:17:24]. RF: [French 00:17:25]. So this is what you have to go for and you have to say it with the French accent or it's not correct. But genuinely that's what you're going for for a galette. It's much darker than you think. It looks almost burnt, but it's not. It's actually [French 00:17:40]. So a good way to test that. I use my hands, but if your hands are sensitive to heat, you can use like a wooden spoon or a spatula or something. And just sort of nudge the galette while it's in the oven. Your timer has gone off. You've baked according to the recipe. You think it looks deeply golden brown, [French 00:17:58], whatever term you prefer. Give them a little nudge or you can even like use your side towel or your pot holder and shake the sheet pan a little bit. And if the galettes dislodge themselves, they're probably done. SU: Oh, you want them to slide on the sheet tray? RF: Yeah. You want them to slide around in the sheet pan. Because if you don't ... If they're still stuck to the pan, they're probably maybe a little bit more moisture. Have you done this before? JS: For regular pies, I feel like the same thing. Yeah. Your regular pie should pop right out. RF: It should pop out. Exactly. You want to be able to like- SU: Spin. RF: ... swirl the pie crust around in the tin. JS: Yes. RF: Otherwise it wasn't baked through. It'll probably still taste fine, but it's not as crispy. SU: Oh, I like that tip. Okay. On that note, we are going to take a quick break. JS: And when we get back, we're going to answer some listener questions about Rebecca's tiny galettes. RF: Stick around. JS: Welcome back to BA Bake Club. SU: Okay, Rebecca. Are you ready for some listener questions? RF: Oh, I'm ready. SU: Okay. First up, a question from Christina. "What a fun idea for summer. We generally don't get great tomatoes here for another month or two. Would you recommend waiting or does it not matter as much since the tomatoes get baked?" RF: Well, I feel like there are two answers here. The first one is obviously, wait for those beautiful, perfect heirloom tomatoes, warm from the sun of the farmer's market. SU: Yeah. RF: But realistically, of course not. You can make these with any tomatoes that you have. I brought some props with us today made with truly the most hideous plum tomatoes. They've been in the refrigerator for two weeks. So I want folks at home to know that they can use truly any tomato ... You could use little guys. I mean, I like to bake with Campari tomatoes year round. I think they're kind of the best ones. But I'm going to show- SU: Here's proof. Everyone- JS: You need an ASMR scrape. RF: Oh, yeah. Wait, wait, let's see. Okay. No soggy bottoms here. JS: Undercarriage. RF: But you'll see I should have brought the ugly plum tomato that I used. JS: This is like a bodega tomato. RF: Calling it red would be an insult to the color. SU: Yeah. JS: Sure. RF: This is a bad tomato. It's going to taste fine. SU: It tasted really good. RF: Once it's solid and baked- JS: Yeah, [inaudible 00:20:27] great. RF: ... like truly. SU: Wow. So to answer Christina's question, do not wait for the good tomatoes. Start making them now and then you can do a comparison, I suppose. RF: Yeah. Make several different batches and then compare and contrast with the same friends that you've served your first round to. JS: There you go. Okay. Next up is from Tim. Not related- SU: Not related. JS: ... Szewczyk. And for those who don't know, Tim and I, we're not related, surprise, even though we share our last name. And Tim writes, "Do you have any recommendations for people who don't like mayo?" RF: Well- SU: Timothy. JS: Come on, Tim. Tim's kicked off. RF: Tim. JS: I'm not related. SU: His grandfathered in. JS: I don't even love mayo. I'm fine with mayo. I tolerate mayo. It's fine. SU: Yeah. RF: Oh my God. SU: I don't think any of us really like- RF: Oh, no- SU: ... would take a bullet for mayo. RF: ... I love mayo. SU: Oh, you would? JS: Oh. SU: Oh, nevermind. RF: Have we not talked about this? JS: Are you just going to eat it? SU: I don't think so. RF: No, this is TMI, but one of my favorite snacks growing up was a slice of turkey and a slice of provolone cheese filled with mayo rolled up. SU: Oh, wow. RF: Absolutely disgusting. Use that to blackmail me. SU: You need to make that more fancy. JS: I don't know what about that one. RF: So I would say that even if you don't think you love mayo, I really want you to give it a try here because I do think this is the kind of mayo recipe that is going to convince people that mayonnaise has ... There's a time and a place for mayonnaise. SU: Yeah. RF: This filling does not taste like mayonnaise. JS: It doesn't, yeah. RF: It really tastes like the sum of its parts. It tastes like richness, it tastes like salt. It tastes like also the garlic and the parm and the beautiful fresh herbs that you've added. So it'll taste like basil, it'll give you pesto vibes. Or one of the Bake Clubbers used tarragon and that's like a really beautiful, elevated, very chic direction flavor wise, like a little more N-easy. But I do understand that there are some folks, like we have a wonderful colleague who can genuinely smell the mayonnaise and is truly offended by it. So if you are deeply, deeply offended by mayonnaise, you can use other ingredients. So I actually tested with ricotta. JS: Wonderful. RF: It'll be very different. You will notice a difference in texture. Ricotta obviously has- SU: Would you use the same quantity, Rebecca? RF: I would, yeah. SU: Okay. RF: And I feel like it would be totally fine. It'll bake off a little bit differently. I think baked ricotta is a little bit more dense and obviously it has more of a cheese flavor. But you could use cream cheese. You could use cottage cheese probably. I haven't tried it, but I feel like the cottage cheese heads out there, the protein girls might want to give that a try. Another Bake Clubber actually used oil instead of mayonnaise- SU: Oh, just straight up. RF: ... which honestly shocked me, but they look beautiful. JS: Oh, wow. RF: So I was like, got to give that a try. But something like maybe even a Boursin cheese. JS: Oh. SU: Oh my God. RF: I feel like that would be really lovely. SU: I love that cheese. JS: That'd be tasty. RF: Because ultimately you're making that barrier. JS: Chevre. RF: Chevre. I think that would be really nice too. I actually feel like that was something I was noodling on and then- JS: I think you might have tried it. Maybe. RF: Yeah, I think I did try it. And feta. SU: Okay. Next up from Sarah, "Between my husband and mom who aren't big tomato fans and my stepdad who is in a dieting phase. Any tips for cutting this in half? Or will the dough still work just cutting everything straight down the middle?" RF: Well. I would say even if you're on a diet, treat yourself to a galette every now and then, folks, life is short. Eat the galettes. But if you're not a big tomato fan, there are a lot of different toppings you can use. But first to address the second part of this question, I actually wouldn't recommend cutting the dough in half. I would recommend making the full batch of dough, make half of the galettes for sure, but then keep that other half of your dough wrapped in the freezer and just make another galette with it. Make a pie with it, make little galette crust cookies. SU: And would you store it as like a ... The other half, will you store it as a block? Or do you think we should roll it out, cut circles and freeze them like that? RF: I would store it fully as a block. SU: Okay. RF: And then you don't have to necessarily make more tiny tomato galettes. If your tomato hating family decides, okay, these first four were fine, but we don't want to make them again. Maybe you want to make a zucchini galette, maybe you want to make an apple galette. It would still all work even though the dough has a little bit of black pepper in it. It's not seasoned to be sweet or savory. It's just kind of balanced. And I really love making sweet fruit galettes with the pepper flecked dough. It's really great with plums. SU: Plum. RF: Oh. SU: What? RF: Jinx. JS: How long does it last in the freezer? RF: Officially, I would say you could keep it in the freezer for about three months. If you have a good freezer, I baked them a year later. SU: Wow. RF: I had a lot of excess dough in my parents' freezer in New Jersey because that's my prop storing and my deep freezer. And we baked them surely a year after we shot some of the book and they were great. SU: Okay. Next question from Santiago. "I'm trying to think of additions or variations of the recipe. Any ideas? I'm thinking maybe pear and goat cheese. Apple and Brie are using sun dried tomatoes or baking them with no topping and finishing them with smoked salmon." JS: Jesus, Santiago. RF: Okay, Santiago. SU: Wow, Santiago. "Help, I have so many scattered ideas and I'd love to hear all of yours." RF: Wow. SU: Wow. Wow. RF: Okay, Santiago. Well, you're welcome at tasting anytime. SU: Yes. RF: I love all of these ideas. I mean, like I was just saying, you can 100% use this dough to make any kind of galette you want, big or tiny. You could certainly bake the galettes with no tomato and top them with smoked salmon. Or even with this tomato and top with smoked salmon. I think that would be very bagel vibes. Add some red onion. I feel like that would be- SU: That'd be fun. RF: ... really incredible. But now I want to know what are other toppings that you guys think would be good? Because I brought two examples with me. Again, I brought my props. Do you want me to spoil it first or I want to know what you would put on top of this galette? SU: I think I would do the same galette and just put crumbled bacon on top for a- RF: Oh, yes. SU: ... BLT sort of texture. RF: I love that. SU: What else? JS: Like basil and mozz? SU: Oh. RF: Yeah. Pizza. SU: Yeah. Caprese. RF: Okay, so we have BLT and you have Caprese. JS: Yeah, I just made a pizza. RF: That's perfect. Okay. Well, neither of you mentioned ratatouille or Tian. JS: Ratatouille is smart. RF: But that's what I have done here with two other options. I have one with little pieces of zucchini and one with little pieces of eggplant. SU: Wow. And you just slice the vegetables and then you season them or how do you- RF: Thinly sliced and seasoned with salt, just the same way that you do big slices of tomato. JS: And same base. RF: Same base. But I actually think any of ... Like brie would be lovely as a base, I think. Like we were talking about cream cheese earlier, I feel like that would be really great as a base. But you could just do a little brush of mustard. And I feel like that would be really lovely. Kind of any vegetable that you would enjoy roasted would be delightful here. It's the beauty of it. SU: Yeah. Or no topping and then use like fresh peas and- JS: Like a raw topping. RF: Totally. SU: ... like a raw topping or- RF: Like a fresh salad. SU: Yeah. Yeah. That would be fun. Yeah. RF: Love that. JS: Here's one from Quilia. "Made these for supper last night. Loved how flaky the dough was and the mayo garlic Parmesan was delightful. They ended up a little too salty. I used diamond kosher salt, but maybe I went too heavy-handed when salting the tomatoes?" RF: Okay. Well, I will say that I think we have a little bit of a salt tooth in the test kitchen. JS: Salt tooth, yeah. RF: I definitely used diamond crystal kosher salt as well, which is less salty by volume than something like a Morton kosher salt. So you were certainly on the right track there. But I have a feeling that you probably just salted a little bit more. So there isn't a measured amount of salt called for salting the tomatoes. The filling itself is quite salty as well and doesn't actually call for any additional salt. It's just the salty parm doing most of the work. So you might have actually used a really high quality Parmesan cheese. And perhaps it was so high quality that it was a little too salty for your filling. So I would say feel free to taste your filling if you happen to make these again and maybe pull back a little bit on the parm. Don't use it all at once. And then maybe hold back on two tablespoons because that won't run the risk of messing up your filling at all. And then I would also recommend being a little less heavy-handed when you're salting the tomatoes. Ultimately, a little can go a long way when drawing that liquid out. And then you can always skip the flaky salt seasoning at the end if you're sensitive to salt. SU: That makes sense. JS: Yeah. SU: And finally, Roberto asks, "Do you think the galettes will work with gluten-free one-to-one flour?" RF: I definitely think it will. I would recommend purchasing one of those wonderful store-bought versions of a gluten-free one-to-one AP flour. Bob's Red Mill makes a really great one, King Arthur Baking Company makes a great one. I feel like there's Cup4Cup is another brand. Because those are the ones that tend to have a nice blend of different flours at different absorption rates, different grains, I suppose I should say. And they sometimes have a little bit of stabilizer, like a xanthan gum in them. You're going to know that those have been tested enough to work really well as a swap for all-purpose flour. I wouldn't recommend just dumping in buckwheat flour or almond flour. You can absolutely make your own wonderful gluten-free baking ratios. But I feel like for this one, just to know that it's going to work. Because galette is a little bit finicky. JS: Yeah. It's not like it's like a pancake. RF: And like a pancake, you can kind of get away with it. JS: It's different. SU: Different structure. RF: Exactly. You can thin it out with water, figure it out. But I feel like you might want to pay attention to the hydration while you're using these gluten-free flowers because sometimes they are still really absorbent. Even if they're labeled as a standard AP one-to-one, you might need a little splash of extra water as you're rolling out the dough. SU: Okay. And before we take a break, it's time for our new tradition, the Baker of the Month Award. In which you don't win anything but a shout-out on the podcast. Rebecca, do you want to crown a Baker of the Month from our Substack? RF: I would love to. My winner is Katie who shared the following comment, "These turned out so good. They were so yummy and perfect for a light brunch-y dinner on a hot Texas day. It was my first bake postpartum so I love that I could work on it in phases throughout the day." Katie, you are just a champion. I am sometimes too lazy to bake and I am not recently postpartum. This is a stunning galette. We have a beautiful goblet of sparkling beverage nearby. We have a lovely, I think it's like a chive topped tomato. SU: Yeah. Like a giant hefty heirloom tomato. RF: A beautiful slice of heirloom tomato. I think you did a phenomenal job. And the fact that you did that with a newborn baby nearby is just hands down, gold medal, in my opinion. SU: We're going to take another break. JS: And when we get back, we're going to play a little game. Welcome back to BA Bake Club. SU: Okay. So to wrap things up here, we're going to be playing a little game. Let's call it Galette Roulettes. JS: Okay. We know from our discussion today and Rebecca's book that perhaps you can make anything into a galette. We'll see. So each of us has a list of ingredients that we think would be pretty difficult to galette-ify and we're going to try to stump one another. SU: Okay, Rebecca. JS: So, let's go. SU: Rebecca, since you're our guest, we're going to turn to you first. RF: All right. SU: And can you galette farro? RF: Ooh. Sure. Why not? Okay. How would I galette farro? You know what I think I would do is I would make one of those creamy fillings that we've discussed earlier, cream cheese, Boursin, maybe chevre. I'll finally get my chevre moment. And then I would make a beautiful farro salad topping. Maybe it's a little bit of a cheat, but I don't think so. SU: No, I like that. RF: Because I wrote a book of galettes, so I say it's not cheating at all. I would make a lovely grain salad with fresh veg and I would fold farro into it and I would probably do a vinaigrette of sorts. SU: Yeah. RF: And then I would just top my finished galette with the farro salad. SU: Elegance. JS: Green salad galette. SU: Green salad galette. RF: Yikes- SU: Green salad galette. RF: ... I would get kicked right out of the test kitchen if I pitched the one. JS: You're great. Okay. How about hummus? And I'm talking about the bad kind. You kind of get a little plastic container. RF: Okay. I'm going to say make a falafel galette. JS: Oh. All right. SU: I might try it, actually. JS: You can keep your job. RF: Yeah. JS: That first one dicey. RF: Yeah. That first one maybe not. But I feel like if you take your shitty grocery store hummus, you do a spread of that in the base of the galette. Maybe I would add an egg or something to help it- SU: Bind. RF: ... bind and not be so dense. It would aerate a little bit. And then I would probably do falafel toppings. Iceberg lettuce and onion and- JS: And yogurt. RF: ... like yogurt sauce and chopped cucumbers. JS: Herbs. RF: Herbs. Yeah. I don't know. We'll give that a try. JS: You last another day. RF: All right. All right. I'm going to try to stump you guys. SU: Okay. RF: Soy milk. SU: Oh. JS: Shilpa take this one. SU: What if you made a custard out of soy milk, like a pastry cream- RF: Oh. SU: ... and then schmear that at the bottom- RF: I love that. SU: ... of your pie dough and then it's finished with black sesame. Brittle. RF: [inaudible 00:34:26] say brittle. Okay. JS: Soy milk custard galette. RF: Okay, pastry chef. Beautiful. SU: Soy milk and the- JS: You're on probation for that one. RF: Jesse says, "I don't think so." SU: I think it's wonderfully innovative. Very cool. RF: I love that. I love that. Okay. All right, Jesse. JS: Oh, God. RF: How about cucumber? JS: I think I would make one of the creamy, like a feta creamy bake on the bottom. And then make ribbons with like mint and peas on top. SU: Oh. RF: Oh, cool. Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. JS: We're just topping shit with salad. We're cheating. RF: Yeah, I know. I was going to say, I feel like you can make anything into a salad. SU: I feel like we should make a cucumber stir-fry. RF: Okay. SU: And then put this on. RF: There we go. That's the creativity that I was hoping for. SU: Okay. RF: Let's go back down to the kitchen and give that a try. SU: Okay. I have one that's explicitly for Jesse, I feel like. RF: Okay. JS: Oh, God. SU: Protein powder. JS: Shilpa, what? I'd say make a protein shake and then make a galette on the side. RF: Do you think you could use protein powder as some of the AP flour? Because you've recently made a ... You've had success with a protein powder baked good. JS: You're outing me. You're outing me, this is a personal project. Yes. Okay, I would make cookie dough with the protein powder and then make a cookie dough galette. RF: Yeah. JS: That's like a protein cookie dough galette. RF: Oh. SU: Whoa. JS: We've lost the plot at this point, but that's my answer. RF: No, I love it. I feel like the people are going to make that, for sure. SU: Yeah. Remember how everybody was doing the croissant and cookie dough thing? RF: Yes. JS: Yeah. Kind of like that. RF: This is the next one. Yeah. I love that. All right, Jesse. Your turn. JS: I'll give it to both of you. Diet Coke. SU: Oh. JS: Let's go. Come on. RF: Okay. My new favorite beverage. SU: Yeah. I feel like it's part of the liquid. RF: Yeah. SU: Why not? RF: Yeah. SU: It's a little bit acidic. RF: Why not try it in the crust? Yeah. I feel like people use vodka in their crust. Why not? JS: Okay. So the girl's answer is use a tablespoon. RF: One tablespoon- SU: Oh, and drink the rest. RF: ... and drink the rest. SU: Drink the rest. JS: There you go, there you go. RF: You get to have your fridge cigarette. JS: The fridge cigarette. RF: You can't bake it. You got to drink that bad boy. SU: Yes. RF: I would maybe make a syrup. JS: Or like a caramel. RF: Like reduce it. Yeah. SU: Diet Coke caramel. JS: Or like with peanuts. RF: That sounds fantastic. JS: You know like coke and peanuts? SU: Yeah. RF: Oh, yes. SU: Okay. RF: Guys, we're all going to write Galette volume two. SU: We'll contribute to your book. RF: Okay. This is actually a fun one. I feel like I want to hear both of your answers for this because this is more of a fun than a stumper. Spam. SU: Oh. I would candy the spam. RF: Yes. SU: I think I would still make ... Well, yeah, we're going back to the same formula of something creamy that's baked and then something on top. But I think I would make something creamy with corn- RF: Oh. SU: ... in that creamy filling and then put candied spam- RF: Yes. SU: ... and nori on top. RF: Yum. SU: Oh, that's what I would do. RF: Yum, delish. JS: I would ditch the crust and make a sticky rice crust. And then make a musubi galette. RF: Okay, fantastic. JS: Is that a galette? I don't know. Might just be a [inaudible 00:37:19]. SU: If he says yes. RF: Anything can be a galette if you call it that. JS: Or like a pineapple and spam galette would be really nice. RF: That would be delicious. I actually love that. That's a great idea. JS: Okay. I have one for both of you. Popcorn. RF: Ooh. SU: I'm thinking about your popcorn caramel bars. JS: Oh, like a Chicago style galette. SU: Yeah, yeah. RF: That would be nice. SU: That would be really fun. RF: Okay. I love that. SU: I think I would grind it up. Why can't you grind the popcorn up and include some of it in that? RF: I would grind it up and use it as the base, as that soggy bottom barrier. SU: Popcorn from Japan. JS: Whoa. RF: Oh my God. Yes. SU: That's what we would do. RF: Okay, incredible. JS: Whoa, okay, chef. RF: I'm like yelling into the microphone because I want- SU: Chef with esque. RF: ... popcorn from Japan. SU: On that note, thank you, Rebecca, for joining us. Okay, Rebecca, we can find you in the test kitchen every single day alongside us. But where can readers find you? RF: You can find me on Instagram @RebeccaFirkser, just my first name, last name, but good luck if you can spell it. SU: Tell everybody, Rebecca, tell everybody how to spell your name. RF: F-I-R-K-S-E-R. K comes before the S. SU: The K comes before the S. RF: Spelled like its sounds. Just like Jesse's last name. JS: Just like my last name. SU: Just like Jesse's last name. RF: And you can also find my column, Good for You, which is a healthy but not diet culture-y column in 10 ingredients or less on bonapetite.com. SU: Amazing. Thank you. RF: Amazing. SU: Thanks for being here. It's actually- JS: Yeah, thanks [inaudible 00:38:43]. SU: ... truly a delight. RF: Thanks for having me, you guys. JS: I'll see you downstairs in five minutes. RF: See you back in our shared work space. SU: Yes. JS: And that's it for this month's edition of BA Bake Club. And Shilpa, can you tell our bakers about the July Bake Club recipe? SU: I feel like I have to mentally get ready for this one because the name is a bit of a tongue twister. But it is a sweet corn coconut crunch butter mochi cake. We will need what makes this a mochi cake, which is sweet rice flour, also called glutenous rice flour. I love KODA FARMS brand of sweet rice flour. But if it's not readily available, you can also use Bob's Red Mill and fresh corn. I've done this with frozen corn and it works really well, but fresh is best. This is my ode or plea rather to use corn in desserts. I truly think corn is one of the last super hyper seasonal ingredients that we have left. I feel like you can get decent tomatoes in the middle of winter, you can get asparagus even starting as early as February. But corn I think is still in the realm of summer vegetable and I really wanted to celebrate this in pastry. RF: It's really good. JS: It's very good. So, Bake Clubbers, once you bake through the cake, you can send us your pictures and questions. There are so many different ways to get in touch. SU: You can comment on the recipe on the Epicurious app or on the Bon Appetit website. You can comment on our Substack or you can email us at [email protected]. And if you've made it and loved it, rate and review the recipe on our site. JS: We're your host, Jesse Szewczyk. SU: I'm Shilpa Uskokovic. JS: This month's episode was produced by Michele O'Brien, but all the credit for Galette Roulette goes to our producer, Emily Elias. SU: Pran Bandi is a studio engineer and we had editing by Rhiannon Corby. JS: Research editing by Ryan Harrington and Lillian Syme. SU: This episode was mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. JS: If you like this show, leave us a rating and review and hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. SU: And if you're not already part of the club, head to bonppetit.com/bakeclub to find all the information you need to join. JS: Thanks for listening to BA Bake Club and we'll see you next month.