SWEET TEMPTATIONS

GALETTES are generally casual desserts, made with just a rolling pin, a baking sheet and an oven. These free-form tarts can be filled with any fruit and will bake up bubbling and golden, no matter how slapdash you think you’ve been when folding them up.

This elegant galette, however, requires a bit more attention. But those few extra steps — making a two-layer filling of strawberries and pistachios, and using cream cheese to enrich the crust — add a lot to the finished dessert.

Pairing berries and pistachios is an idea I stole from the French, though raspberries are usually the berry of choice.

In patisseries across France, you will see pistachio macarons with raspberry buttercream, and pistachio financiers with raspberries inside.

I chose strawberries because they are just coming into season. Here, some are cooked down with a little sugar until syrupy, their somewhat elusive flavour condensed into a compote that is baked inside the tart.

Use the bruised or ugly berries for this since you won’t see them anyway. Then save the prettiest ones for the top of the galette, piled there just before serving so they maintain their plumpness.

Because getting the most out of all the ingredients was part of my goal, the pistachios are also used in two ways.

A sprinkling of the chopped, greenfleshed nuts adorns the crust, along with crunchy raw sugar, giving it texture and visual appeal.

More pistachios are ground with butter and eggs into a smooth paste called frangipane, which is traditionally made with almonds.

After the dough is rolled out (which, thanks to the cream cheese, is relatively painless to do), the frangipane and the strawberry compote are layered on top.

It’s important to keep the two elements from blending together too much so their characters remain distinct.

The first thing to hit your tongue should be the fruitiness of strawberries, with the richness and crunch of pistachios following in its juicy wake.

Just use a light touch when spreading the syrup from the strawberries over the frangipane, and you should be fine.

The moisture in the compote can soften the crust if it sits too long, so bake this the day you serve it. But the components — the dough, frangipane and compote — can be prepared up to five days ahead.

It does all add up to being a bit more work than your average galette. But this beautiful, complex-tasting pastry is well worth the effort.