Bake

Asian Pear Galette With Cardamom Whipped Cream

by:
February 14, 2020
4.7
6 Ratings
Asian Pear Galette With Cardamom Whipped Cream
Photo by Rocky Luten. Food Stylist: Anna Billingskog. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgpeth.
  • Prep time 2 hours 20 minutes
  • Cook time 45 minutes
  • Makes one 13-inch galette
Author Notes

Asian pear (also known as Korean pear, Japanese pear, Chinese pear, Taiwanese pear, apple pear, zodiac pear, and sand pear) is the secret weapon in much of my mother’s cooking. She uses it as a natural sweetener in her galbi, her kimchi, and even her common-cold elixir: a rapidly boiled tonic of pear, ginger, and cinnamon. In baking, I love this fruit for its crisp, subtle sweetness—and for its gorgeous chestnut skin. I also find that it’s less grainy than regular Anjou or Bosc pears. But by all means, if you can’t source a nice, fat Asian pear, then thin slices of the others will work just fine here.

Perhaps my favorite thing about this galette recipe is that it’s a concretization of the adage, Less is more. The pear is dressed very simply with brown sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice and zest. ("What's nice about the lemon zest," Melissa Clark says about galettes, “is you're not just getting the tartness of the juice, but you're actually getting some of the perfume, which is really pretty.”) The lemon in this pie works well with the lightly floral, citrusy cardamom whipped cream—which is, I’ll be frank with you, totally optional. But should you have some leftover cream or ground cardamom in your pantry, please try it. It’ll change your life.

Lastly, my little touch is rice vinegar and whole-wheat flour in the crust, both of which aid not only in the galette's flakiness, but in its flavor, as well. There's sweetness here, but there's also savoriness and nuttiness.

Note: This recipe calls for a parchment-lined sheet pan. But aluminum foil has its merits, too. With foil, you can fold up the sides and form vertical-ish walls around the galette crust (I like to do this as insurance, just in case the fruit wants to bleed out and burn on the pan). This way, you avoid the burning completely and instead keep any rogue juices contained so that they can, ultimately, reduce and caramelize around the edges of the crust. Even more, depending on how strong your oven is, if your galette crust starts to get too dark too quickly, you can just fold the foil walls over halfway through baking. —Eric Kim

Test Kitchen Notes

Featured in: 3 Easy, Foolproof Desserts for the Weekend. —The Editors

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • For the dough:
  • 1/2 cup (60 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out dough
  • 1/2 cup (57 grams) whole-wheat flour
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 7 tablespoons (99 grams) unsalted butter, very cold, cut into small pieces
  • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
  • Ice water, as needed
  • For the filling and assembly:
  • 1 Asian pear (about 3/4 pound), halved, cored, and thinly sliced into half moons
  • 3 tablespoons dark brown sugar, divided
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
  • 1 pinch kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar
  • Cardamom Whipped Cream, recipe follows
Directions
  1. Make the dough: In a bowl, mix together the flours, sugar, and salt until combined, then add the butter. Using a dough cutter or your fingers, squish and flatten the butter pieces into the flour until you have the texture of coarse meal with pea-sized (and larger) pieces throughout.
  2. Add the vinegar and 2 tablespoons water, and mix until dough comes together into a ball. If the dough seems dry, you may need more water; add an extra tablespoon at a time until you can form a ball.
  3. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
  4. When you’re ready to assemble the galette, preheat the oven to 400°F.
  5. Make the filling: In a bowl (feel free to use the one you just used for the crust), toss together the sliced pears, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and juice, and salt.
  6. On a clean working surface or large cutting board, lightly dust with flour and roll dough out into a flat round, about 1/8-inch thick and 13 inches wide. Transfer to a parchment-lined sheet pan. Place the pears in the center, shingling them over one another like fish scales, leaving behind the accumulated juices. Fold over the edges of the dough so there’s about a 1- to 2-inch border. Carefully pour the juices over the center of the galette (ensuring it remains within the crust). Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon brown sugar over the fruit. Brush the crust with heavy cream and sprinkle with the turbinado sugar.
  7. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the crust has browned and the filling is bubbling. Let sit to cool slightly.
  8. Cardamom Whipped Cream: Use an electric mixer or whisk to whip 1 cup (227 grams) heavy cream, 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom to medium peaks, or to your desired whipped cream texture. Serve dollops of this cream with the cooled but still-warm galette.
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Eric Kim
Eric Kim was the Table for One columnist at Food52. He is currently working on his first cookbook, KOREAN AMERICAN, to be published by Clarkson Potter in 2022. His favorite writers are William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and Ernest Hemingway, but his hero is Nigella Lawson. You can find his bylines at The New York Times, where he works now as a writer. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @ericjoonho.

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14 Reviews

Brandy S.
Brandy S. January 16, 2022
The weighted flour measurements were off for me and my dough was a wet sticky mess, After doing some googling 1/2 cup of AP flour should be 75 grams and 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour is 60 grams. All in all, it came out ok, but i didn’t love Asian pear as a baked treat.
 
Margo
Margo December 9, 2020
Tried this galette recipe to pair with a champagne for dessert last weekend. Wow, so delicious and easy to make! I had a couple medium pears on hand and used both, plus a handful of blueberries to fill in some empty spots. The crust and whipped cream were memorable and perfectly complimented both the fruit and the champagne. I’ll definitely make this recipe again!
 
Yogigirl
Yogigirl November 27, 2020
I had some asian pears that were overripe and a little mealy. I found this recipe and wow! I could have eaten this in one sitting. So delicious! The whipped cream was nice but I also added freshly ground nutmeg. My pears were little so I weighed them out and used 1 lb. This is a new favorite recipe. Thank you Eric for such a lovely recipe.
 
Erin
Erin July 3, 2020
made this last night and it was utterly spectacular! actually debated skipping the cardamom whipped cream until i read these reviews -- so glad i listened! would highly recommend grinding up cardamom pods instead of using preground too! also the crust was perfect -- wouldn't change a thing. can't wait to make the whole thing again!
 
Jane P.
Jane P. April 7, 2020
Eric Kim says of the cardamom whipped cream, "It'll change your life." I laughed and went about the business of making this dessert. Now I know he was right. This is so good, I've shared the recipe with anyone who means anything to me. And with that first bite, I felt my world rock. Thank you, Eric Kim.
 
Eric K.
Eric K. April 7, 2020
<3
 
Jane P.
Jane P. April 7, 2020
Eric Kim says of the cardamom whipped cream, "It'll change your life." I laughed and went about the business of making this dessert. Now I know he was right. This is so good, I've shared the recipe with anyone who means anything to me. And with that first bite, I felt my world rock.
 
Inyoung H.
Inyoung H. February 24, 2020
I’d recommend rotating the galette halfway through but otherwise, amazing recipe! Don’t skip the cardamom whipped cream! It may be my new favorite thing.
 
Smaug
Smaug February 14, 2020
As a rule, a galette needs a stronger crust than a pie, for obvious reasons. There are many ways to go about it, but a few suggestions; ingredients that are generally used to tenderize a pie crust dough, such as vinegar, lemon juice or (especially) sour cream are not so helpful. This dough is pretty high fat- I'd cut out a Tb. or so of the butter. This is a huge amount of sugar- I suppose as a matter of taste, but 1/2 tsp. with this amount of flour will produce a distinctly sweet crust (small amounts of flavor, such as a few gratings of nutmeg or a pinch of cinnamon have a major effect in a pie crust). I believe the large amount of sugar will produce a stronger crust, but it will be awfully sweet. It may be a good idea to make the crust slightly wetter than usual (avoiding alcohol as a wetting agent) and to handle it a bit more, but you need to be cautious with that stuff. I'm not up on whole wheats- old fashioned grinds tended to have pieces of chaff in them that interfered with gluten strands, but I think modern milled WW pastry flours, at least, avoid that. Some use "breaking off" (fraisage in French, which French people insist is a real language) to combine the butter and flour; small pieces of dough are broken off and smeared across the counter with the palm of the hand. This is a useful method for combining dry doughs that are reluctant to come together; on a galette dough it produces a flaky but strong result. As an extreme, you might use egg yolk to moisten the dough, as do some European tart pastries; I don't remember ever trying it with a flaky type of pastry, but it might be worth a try- I'm all about experimental science (or, as our Scottish brethren might say, "muckin' aboot").
 
judy
judy February 15, 2020
I don't necessarily agree about it requiring a sturdier crust.. I am not a pie crust maker. Decades on I still don't make a very good pie crust. Galettes are easy and provide for so much opportunity, without needing to have the skill to make a nice fluted edge, which I also have never figured out. (I can bake a bunch of other amazing dessert-so go figure!).So I rely on the refrigerator pre-made dough. I like Immaculate Bakery organic, but whatever works. I happen to have a bunch of apples right now. I can'e eat pears, which I love. But will do this with apples. I love cardamom. Altering the traditional American Apple pie spices will be a good foil for this. Thanks for a great idea. I no longer have an oven, but a great toaster oven, so I bak in an 8"square pan that works great!
 
Smaug
Smaug February 16, 2020
It would, naturally, be a question of "sturdier than what"- you really should be able to pick a slice up to eat. I've never bought a pie crust, but I would imagine the store bought ones would be pretty strong. Much of the technique people apply to crust making is aimed toward a tender result, but it can go too far-I had a recent experimental crust that rolled and baked (blind) beautifully, but simply fell apart when I took it out of the man. I ended up mooshing it up with the lemon curd I had already made; it actually made a pretty good "pudding"- had anyone asked I'd have told them it was English. By the way, I mostly abandoned the search for the "perfect" rim sometime ago as uninteresting and not very suited to my talents; I now concentrate on trying to roll out the dough neatly enough to use without any trimming- a skill that translates well to galette making.
 
Michelle D.
Michelle D. March 14, 2020
I've made galettes with both a standard pate brisee recipe and one substituting vodka for some of the ice water for many years, with beautiful, pick-up-able results. Whole wheat pastry flour can add a lovely flavor to pie crust, though I generally stick with white flour because I prefer the delicacy of the texture it provides.
 
Mike R.
Mike R. September 24, 2023
Smaug ... Did you try this recipe? You technique comments are interesting, but it would be more valuable to get your report on how the given recipe turned out for you.
 
Smaug
Smaug September 24, 2023
No. I've made a lot of pastry and that's what interested me about the recipe.