No. 3306

Galettes Puffed and half Puffed

Galettes Feuilletees et Demi-Feuilletees

Arrange a pound of flour in a circle on a table; in the center put a pinch of salt, two ounces of butter, and sufficient water to form a smooth but not too consistent paste; leave it for some time, then roll it out to the thickness of three-quarters of an inch; on the middle of it place three-quarters of a pound of butter, wrap it in the paste, and roll it once more; give five and a half turns to this paste, mold it into small balls weighing three ounces, then to a perfect round three-eighths of an inch in thickness; lay them on a baking sheet, egg over, trace lines on top to form a lattice work. Festoon all around with a small kitchen knife, and bake in a medium oven. Half puffed galettes are made with puff paste parings (No. 146).

← No. 3305 Francillon Cakes Small Cakes for Entremets No. 3307 Genoese Cake—Light →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is classic French puff paste worked into small round cakes, written for cooks who already knew how to laminate. The proportions are the giveaway: three-quarters of a pound of butter to a pound of flour is a rich, full puff, not a shortcut dough.

The hinge: keep everything cold and rest between turnsRanhofer says only to "give five and a half turns" and specifies no chilling beyond leaving the first paste "for some time"; modern practice is to rest the dough in the cold between turns. If the butter warms and merges into the dough, the layers weld together and the galettes bake flat and greasy rather than rising in leaves.
Weights in modern terms1 lb flour is about 450 g (roughly 3 1/2 cups); 2 oz butter for the détrempe is 55 g; the 3/4 lb butter block is 340 g. Water is unspecified, as it must be, but expect 200-240 ml for a dough that is smooth and slightly slack, "not too consistent."
"A medium oven"The book gives no temperatures. For puff paste the usual modern reading is a moderately hot oven, somewhere around 400F (200C). Much cooler and the butter leaks out before the steam can lift the layers; much hotter and the lattice scorches before the center sets. Bake until deep gold all through, not merely browned on top.
Festoon and latticeAfter the egg wash, score shallow diagonal lines each way with the point of a knife — cut into the surface only, never through, or the pastry vents and collapses. "Festoon" means notching or scalloping the edge at intervals with the small kitchen knife, as Ranhofer directs.
Egg wash disciplineRanhofer says only "egg over"; brush it thinly on the top alone. Egg running down the cut edge glues the layers shut on that side and the galette rises lopsided.
Half puffed galettes"Puff paste parings" are the offcuts from earlier lamination, stacked flat (never balled up) and re-rolled. They rise perhaps half as high, with a shorter, flakier crumb — the thrifty version, and still worth making.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summing-up of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its pastry chapters read as straight transcriptions of French professional practice — the cross-references to numbered base preparations, like the puff paste parings at No. 146, are the tell. Galette is an old French word for a flat round cake, generally traced to galet, a smooth water-worn pebble, and it has been attached to everything from buckwheat pancakes in Brittany to the frangipane-filled galette des rois eaten at Epiphany. What Ranhofer describes here is the plainest and oldest form: puff paste, egg-glazed, scored, and baked with nothing in it at all, served as a small cake alongside an entremets.