Labour of Love / the Love of Labour

Happy birthday mom!

Mom doesn't soft, mushy cakes and dislikes any cakes with rough textures or chunky nuts. A bit too boring in textures for my taste but since it's her birthday you just got to obey the birthday girl. I decided to make a galette for her since she had always wanted to try one.

A simple recipe but it is a labour of love. I spent at least an hour and a half standing at the stove to make all the crepes and another 30 minutes to make the mango custard filling with fresh mango puree, custard and whipped cream.

This time the custard is thicker than the orange filling I made previously so it only took 15 crepes. I sliced up big slices of mango and arranged them every 5 layers.

Thanks to the delicious mango the mango is sweet, rich and delicate. A lovely dessert! The intensive labour is all worth it.

Galette a l'Orange

The following recipe is merely a trial and error. It was late in the evening. With the clock ticking and thinking about an impossible deadline at my daywork, I did some silly mistakes. I whipped cream in a fresh out of the hot dishwasher bowl. If you haven't known this fact, this is basically how to churn butter from cream. Tomorrow I am going to have the by-product of my silliness – hand churned fresh butter on toast for breakfast.

I have seen galette in photos before but I have never tried one. I always wanted to try making one but consider it quite time consuming. At one time I was attempting to make one, only to realize that my crepe making skill sucks and it takes a lot of batter to make a cake big enough for my entire family.

On the past weekend we hosted a house warming party and I got a gift card for a kitchen store. Besides a few other wine gadgets, I picked up a 5” non-stick pan. It's cute and it's good for pan frying small items. I made a galette with this pan.

Since the pan is so small, crepe making was easy. I followed a crepe recipe from Kate Habershon's Pancakes and Waffles book and prepared half a batch of crepe recipe. It might seem like a small quantity, but you can actually cut 4 healthy portions out of it. The half recipe made about 28 crepes, and my galette assembled to a sexy height.

The filling was my own creation, it was a trial and error of putting this and adding that to adjust the taste and consistency. It actually turned out great! I did not follow any recipe so I am actually surprised by the result.

Galette l'Orange

Crepe:

(recipe from Pancake and Waffles page 55)

Filling:

2 tbsp room temperature cream cheese

zest of 1 orange

1 tbsp fresh orange juice

2 tbsp honey

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp cornstarch

¼ cup milk + 1 tsp sugar, scald

¼ cup whipping cream, whipped to stiff peaks

Method:

1. Reserve some long strands of orange zest for garnishing. Finely zest the rest of the orange and mix with cream cheese. Ensure there is no lumps. Set aside.
   
2. In a heat proof bowl, stir egg yolk and cornstarch together until there is no lumps. Temper the egg yolk with hot milk and return to heat while whisking constantly until custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Add orange juice to thin out the texture and add flavour. Add honey and taste to adjust sweetness.
3. Add custard into cream cheese mixture. Let cool completely.
4. When mixture is completely cooled, fold in whipped cream. Keep cool until assembly.

Assembly:

1. Select a good looking crepes to put on the top. Set aside.
2. Layer the crepe using about 1 tablespoon of filling. Spread with a palette knife. Keep stacking until you finished with the crepe. Layer the good looking crepe on top. Keep in the fridge until time to serve. Dust the top with icing sugar. Garnish with candied orange zest and serve with remaining filling.
   
   The galette can be kept covered for up to a day or assemble prior to serving.