When you are the daughter of a bargain hunter


(Strawberry apple muffins)

One of the enduring food memories from my childhood is of my father taking us to the markets each Sunday to buy fresh food for the week. He often purchased cases of navel oranges, apples, nashi pears and my favourite, persimmons, with the reasoning that buying in bulk meant you were theoretically saving money even when you didn’t actually need that 5kg of oranges. Dad loved a bargain then especially when it came to food.

Being my father’s daughter unfortunately did not teach me to be particularly money-wise when I was a student. I had a penchant for 2 for $30 dresses that were poorly made and didn’t last beyond several washes (but so cheap!) and more than once I bought expensive lamb cutlets instead of rather essential toilet paper. Needless to say, we now always have mind-bogglingly large packs of toilet paper squirreled away at home. B can’t understand my obsession with having “enough” toilet paper.

When you are the daughter of a bargain hunter however, you may sometimes find yourself in possession of a quantity of some food item greater than what you could possibly consume or want. In this case, the thrill of buying cheap strawberries got the better of me last week. After the novelty of eating them by the handful wore off, it came time to make quick use of the remaining punnets.

A dozen strawberry muffins, flavoured with a hint of vanilla and orange peel and topped with buttery crumble, were served up for second breakfast one morning. The following evening, we had this strawberry galette for dessert. Fruit galettes are one of the simplest and most delicious things you could ever bake with fruit. Berries in particular. Soft oozing berries and crisp butter pastry form one of those happy friendships that will hopefully always transcend food trends and the test of time.

Forget lamb chops and toilet paper. We all need more strawberries and sweetness in our lives, and despite not being much of a sweet tooth, I have a sneaky feeling dad would approve.


(Strawberry Galette)

Strawberry Galette :
(enough for 4)

1 quantity tart pastry (recipe below)
1 1/5 punnets strawberries (about 380g)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cornflour
2 tablespoons sugar (more if the strawberries aren’t sweet enough; plus extra for garnishing)

Preheat the oven to 175’C.

Hull the strawberries and cut into thirds widthways (or quarters, if they are particularly large). Toss the strawberries in sugar, vanilla extract and cornflour and set aside.

Roll the pastry out to a rough circle about 5mm thick. The pastry does not need to be a perfect circle as the edges will be folded in. Rustic is good, in this case. Pile the sliced strawberries into the middle of the pastry circle, leaving a 3cm border all around. Fold the border over to partially cover the fruit. Sprinkle the folded edges with the extra sugar. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden brown. Allow to cool a little before dusting the top with icing sugar, slicing and serving.

Tart pastry :

60g cold unsalted butter, cubed
110g plain flour
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1-2 tablespoons cold water

Place the butter, flour, salt and sugar in a food processor. Blitz until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water and pulse until dough almost comes together. Tip the dough out, flatten with the palm of your hand to form a rough disc. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 30 minutes before using.

Tags: , , , ,

15 Comments »

  1. Rosa said,

    October 10, 2012 @ 9:11 pm

    A beautiful galette and wonderful way of using an overload of strawberries!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

  2. Hannah@cake-for-breakfast said,

    October 10, 2012 @ 10:48 pm

    haha the toilet paper! love!
    xx Hannah

  3. leaf (the indolent cook) said,

    October 10, 2012 @ 11:08 pm

    Loving the look of both the muffins and the galette! I’ve been enjoying punnets upon punnets of cheap strawberries lately, too.

  4. Hannah said,

    October 11, 2012 @ 2:11 am

    Oh, such a gloriously beautiful tart! However, as much as I adore dessert, I’m with you that it’s better *not* to forget the toilet paper. Tissues will only get you so far…

  5. e / dig in hobart said,

    October 11, 2012 @ 9:43 am

    my mother has cupboards full of toilet paper; we tease her about her fear the great global toilet paper shortage (yet to occur).
    i love a fruit galette! (isn’t ‘galette’ a wonderful word?) sadly i never have an abundance of strawberries, but i often make them in the summer with stone fruit like nectarines or apricots, from either my trees or my father’s. they are simple, and glorious.
    ps i’ve listed you on my blog under ‘favourite things’; please let me know however if you don’t wish to appear.

  6. Julia | JuliasAlbum.com said,

    October 11, 2012 @ 11:34 am

    I love when desserts are all about fruit, like your strawberry galette.

  7. faithy said,

    October 11, 2012 @ 12:43 pm

    Looks delicious! Our home too have a lot of toilet papers..LOL!

  8. Russell at Chasing Delicious said,

    October 12, 2012 @ 1:19 am

    I love galettes! That looks fantastic!

  9. Cindy said,

    October 12, 2012 @ 4:10 pm

    Simple, delicious, and – dare I say it – frugal! I just spontaneously bought strawberries for muffins too.

  10. Y said,

    October 13, 2012 @ 4:40 pm

    e / dig in hobart : Now that you’ve mentioned it, I can’t wait for stone fruit to truly come into season here too. Love nectarines and cherries in particular. It’s a shame that I rarely come across really good apricots here. Thanks for listing me on your blog!

  11. Helen (Grab Your Fork) said,

    October 15, 2012 @ 12:08 am

    lol I always scratch my head over people who run out of toilet paper because I always have about 20 rolls on hand at any one time. i was taught by one of the best bargain hunters around and I think she, too, would heartily approve of your galette as well 🙂

  12. Hannah said,

    October 15, 2012 @ 1:26 am

    Oh dear, I’m exactly the same way. There is nothing more thrilling than getting an awesome price on a huge haul of produce, even if I have no plans on how to use them. That’s part of the fun, actually! An over abundance of anything helps spur creativity, since there’s so much raw material to play with.

  13. e / dig in hobart said,

    October 16, 2012 @ 3:26 pm

    i only discovered the full magnificence that an apricot can achieve when i moved to tassie. come back in a few months time!

  14. kat said,

    October 16, 2012 @ 11:32 pm

    This was so easy to make and so amazing delicious too. I’m not much of a cook but I couldn’t say not to something with strawberries, it was demolished within minutes of coming out of the oven. Will definitely create with one again for the friends. Thanks for sharing.

  15. Heidi Leon Monges said,

    December 15, 2012 @ 7:00 pm

    Oh, I think I will make this tart tomorrow,I have two large baskets of fresh strawberries in my fridge because, hey, they were a bargain! 2×1! 😉

    I´m happy there´s people who know what life priorities are. Like lamb chops and strawberries. Agree 100%.

RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI

Leave a Comment