Ever since I brought home the first cherries of the season I wanted to make a cherry galette. I didn’t jump right on it though as I knew the season was just beginning. I instead enjoyed the fruit just as they are.

Then a couple weeks later I indulge in more cherries. Again the desire to toss these little guys in sugar and wrap them in freeform pie arose. This time though I thought I could make them for friends. Will was going to be out of town over a weekend so why not invite the girls over for some brunch and mini cherry galettes. Thwarted once again, no one was available. In hindsight I should have just made myself a cherry galette right then and there. But I didn’t… I wanted someone to share it with.

Another week went on and another batch of cherries came into the house. I was going to make a cherry galette! Now came a whole new dilema… I wasn’t finding any cherry galette recipes that made me go “yes, I am making that!” I knew it was going to be one of those recipes I put together from a collection of recipes. So I decided to try Martha Stewart’s Pate Brisee for the crust… I cut the recipe in half. I didn’t take any pictures of the process but it came together very nicely and was pretty easy to work with.

Now for the filling I kind of whittled things down to what seemed like the essentials… cherries, corn starch, some sugar, pinch of salt, a little lemon juice and a few dots of butter. Toss toss and spread out over the crust. Wrap up the edges, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with decorating sugar.

Finally I had my cherry galette and I didn’t care if it was a thursday evening!

But it wasn’t everything I was hoping it to be. The crust was too thick, there wasn’t enough cherries, could have used a bit more sugar and I really could do without the corn starch. I still ate it though… peeled off quite a bit of the crust, warmed it up in the microwave and put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. It just wasn’t as good as I knew it could be.

For a moment I was determined to start doing some hard core recipe development to get the best possible cherry galette. But then reality set in. I didn’t have time to spend several days (if not more) on this one dish. Nor did I want that much pie crust in my house at one time. This was good enough for now. And is good enough to share with you. They don’t always turn out as good as you want but that is how we learn, right? So in the mean time, I’ve made my notes and am moving on to the next dish.