This Mulled Wine Apple Galette will really make your home smell fragrant and spicy, a bit festive, almost like it’s Christmas. This is why, as the end of the year approaches and temperatures go down, I feel it’s a perfect way to set the mood and get ready for the festive period. After all, apples are amongst the seasonal fruits to celebrate and make the most of. And if instead, like me, you make this while you live in the Tropics, it will make you feel nostalgic of autumnal days, when you don’t want to leave the house and stay at home and eat galette while sipping tea and reading a good book or scroll your TikTok feed.

Mind you, once you discover galette, you will find yourself making it at all seasons, because it’s simply a flakey pastry that you can make sweet or savoury and fill it with ingredients of your preference: be it mushrooms, juicy summer tomatoes, or sweet poached pears. It basically provides you you with a canvas to enhance the freshness and flavour of any ingredient.

Ingredients

For the galette (sweet flakey pastry):

• 200g flour
• 2g salt
• 15g sugar + some extra for the final touches
• 100g butter
• 2-5 tbsp ice cold water
• 1 egg for the washing

For the filling:

• 3 apples
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 star anise
• 4 cloves
• 4g black peppercorns
• 375ml merlot wine
• 60g sugar
• 18ml water
• 0.5 lemon juice

For serving (optional):

• Vanilla ice cream

Step 1 – Start by making your flakey pastry for the galette. Mix all the dry ingredients. Then add the butter and mix until the dough is crumbly.

Step 2 – Add ice cold water and knead. Start with 2 tablespoons and keep adding water (up to 5 tbsp max) if you feel that your dough is too dry and not becoming homogenous.

Step 3 – As soon as it keeps all together (you don’t need to knead for too long), form a disc, cover it in cling film and and let it rest in the fridge.

Step 4 – Clean your apples, peel them and remove the core. Chop them into fine slices. Place them on a plate and drizzle them with lemon juice so they don’t become dark.

Step 5 – In a sauce pan, heat up the wine with all the spices and sugar on a medium heat. When the sugar has melted, add the apples and bring to a boil.

Step 6 – Lower the heat and let it simmer for 20-30 minutes. Then remove the apples, setting them aside to cool down.

Step 7 – Sieve the wine mixture to remove the chunky bits, and place the liquid back into the sauce pan and again on the heat. Keep simmering until it reaches a syrupy texture. Then put it aside.

Step 8 – Turn the oven on at 180°C.

Step 9 – Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a floured surface. Stretch it with the help of a rolling pin, obtaining a round shape with a diameter of roughly 30cm.

Step 10 – Place the apples in the center of your dough tidily, creating the shape that you prefer and leaving a margin of about 3cm.

Step 11 – Fold the margin towards the inside to create your galette shape. This has to be rustic, don’t worry too much about how it looks. You can brush the edges with an egg wash and cover with granulated sugar, it will give your galette a glossier look.

Step 12 – A final touch – brush your apples with the remaining mulled wine syrup, sand save a bit to repeat this when it’s out of the oven.

Step 13 – Place the galette in the hot oven and bake it until the dough is evenly golden brown, it should take around 40-45 minutes.

Step 14 – Serve still warm, and it’s delicious topped up with your favourite vanilla ice cream!