Plum Galette with Ricotta and Spelt Pastry
This plum galette is a gorgeous and versatile rustic French fruit tart. It’s made with all-butter wholemeal flaky pastry, layered with cinnamon ricotta and sweet dessert plums. The free-form shape makes it wonderfully unfussy to assemble, with no tin to line and no need to make it look particularly neat. It takes less than half an hour to assemble, which makes it a straightforward way to turn a few ripe plums into a delicious seasonal tart.
We were given a stash of the most perfect black plums last year – the best I’ve tasted for years. After we’d eaten our fill and I’d made these roasted plum bruschetta, I had just enough left to make this galette. And yes, this has been sitting in my drafts for a year now.
Dive Right In
- Why This Plum Galette Recipe Works
- Plum and Ricotta Galette
- Ingredients, Additions And Substitutions
- How To Make Plum Galette
- Top Tips For Making A Delicious Plum Galette
- Other Fruit Tart Recipes You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- Pin It
- The Recipe
Why This Plum Galette Recipe Works
- All-butter wholemeal spelt pastry – The pastry is flaky and buttery but has the nutty, slightly earthy flavour of wholemeal spelt, which works particularly well with sweet plums.
- Cinnamon ricotta layer – The lightly spiced ricotta sits between pastry and fruit, adding creaminess and a gentle warmth without making the galette overly rich.
- Sweet, juicy plums – Dessert plums provide plenty of natural sweetness and soften beautifully as they bake, so there’s no need for a heavily sweetened filling.
- A free-form tart – There’s no tart tin to line or pastry to trim. You simply pile the filling into the middle, fold the edges over and bake.
- No pastry waste – Because the pastry is rolled into a rough circle and all of it is used, there are no scraps left over to save or throw away.
Plum and Ricotta Galette
Sometimes, quite often I find, you want to make a delicious dessert that doesn’t take too long to put together. This plum and ricotta galette is ideal, because although you have to make pastry, the shaping of it, filling and topping are all really easy.
All you need to do for the filling is mix a couple of ingredients into the ricotta, which takes less than a minute. And for the plums, you just need to take out the stones and slice them.
When it comes to the pastry, it doesn’t matter if it isn’t perfectly round or the folds aren’t uniform. It’s meant to be a rustic tart and the more relaxed it looks, the more appealing it becomes. It has the added advantage of being zero waste, as all of the pastry is used.
Wholemeal Spelt Pastry
The pastry recipe I’ve given at the bottom of the post is my absolute favourite homemade pastry. It’s easy to make, rolls well and produces a beautiful flaky crust. The secret to its success, is wholemeal spelt flour and yoghurt. The yoghurt binds the dough together, but keeps it light and the spelt gives a nutty and slightly sweet flavour.
Ingredients, Additions and Substitutions
Once you’ve made the pastry, you need relatively few ingredients to make this most delicious late summer or early autumn tart.
Cheese
Ricotta is a low-fat whey cheese, so it keeps the filling relatively light, helping to balance the buttery pastry. It’s also quite high in protein. However, if you prefer something richer and creamier, you can use mascarpone instead.
Plums
Any ripe dessert type plums are good to go, but black or red ones will give the best colour. I’m no plum expert, but greengages, Victoria, Excalibur, Opal and Czar are all delicious.
Ideally, you want freestone plums rather than clingstone. This basically means the stones come away from the flesh really easily. As the name suggests, clingstone clings to the flesh, making them difficult to remove. Moreover, you tend to lose quite a bit of the flesh along with the stones.
Sugar
I prefer demerara sugar for sprinkling over the fruit and pastry as it retains a bit of crunch and has a delicious flavour of its own. But you can swap it for granulated sugar or even caster sugar if that’s what you have.
For the filling I use soft brown sugar or light muscovado sugar. Crunch is not what you’re after for the creamy ricotta and again it adds flavour.
Aromatics
I’ve used cinnamon to give a light spicy note to the ricotta and fresh thyme leaves which adds interest and warm herbal tones. If you don’t fancy the thyme, just leave it out.
If cinnamon isn’t your thing, swap it for nutmeg, allspice or a pinch of cloves. For an almond note, which pairs really well with plums, use a few drops of almond extract. Grated lemon zest is another option that works well.
The pastry is delicious all by itself, but add the grated zest of an orange and you’ll get an enhanced flavour profile which works well with plums.
How To Make Plum Galette
The key to this tart is the delicious flaky pastry that holds all those juicy plums together. To make good pastry you need a light hand and a cool kitchen.
Step 1. Make Pastry
Cool conditions works best for pastry making because you don’t want the butter to melt into the flour. Keeping the butter solid makes the dough easier to work with, prevents the finished pastry from being tough and creates flaky layers.
Top Tip – Take the butter out of the fridge only when you need it, so that it’s as cold as possible.
Put the flour and salt into a large wide mixing bowl. Place the cold butter on the flour and cut it into small pieces with a knife. This minimises contact with warm hands. Then either rub the butter and flour between your finger tips or pulse in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Top Tip – It’s fine to leave small lumps of butter in the mix, they will help with the overall flakiness of the pastry.
Add the yoghurt. Using a flat bladed knife, or food processor, stir it in until the mixture starts to come together. If it’s too dry, add a little water, but go carefully as you don’t want a wet dough.
Top Tip – If you want to get ahead, the dough will keep in the fridge for three days.
Gather the dough up with your hands and form it into a ball. Place in a plastic bag or cover with a wax wrap and leave to rest in the fridge or a cool place for half an hour.
On a sheet of baking paper, roll out into a rough circle. This negates the need to use more flour. Place the baking paper and pastry on a suitable sized baking tray.
Step 2. Prepare Filling
Whilst the pastry is resting, prepare the plums and filling.
Using a sharp knife, halve the plums by slicing lengthways around the stone along the natural indentation. Give a small twist to separate the two halves, then remove the stones. Most should come out easily, but if not use a teaspoon to help ease them out.
Depending on how big the plums are, slice into quarters, sixths or eighths. I quartered mine.
If using, remove the thyme leaves from the thyme sprig. Place them in a small bowl together with the ricotta, cinnamon and brown sugar. Mix together until they’re thoroughly combined.
Step 3. Assemble Tart
Spread the ricotta filling over the pastry, leaving about a 4-5 cm (1½ inch) border.
Lay the plum slices over the ricotta in a single layer. Then sprinkle most of the demerara sugar over the plums.
Fold the edges of the pastry inward over the plums, leaving the centre open and pleating it as you go.
Use a pastry brush to brush the pastry edges with milk then sprinkle the remaining demerara sugar over the top.
Step 4. Bake
Bake in a preheated oven for around forty five minutes when the plums should be soft and the pastry crisp and golden.
Allow to cool a little on the tray, then cut into slices and serve warm. It’s delicious all by itself, but even better with cream, custard or ice cream.
Any leftovers will keep in the fridge for the next day or two. Just make sure the tart is in an airtight container and bring it to room temperature before tucking in. Alternatively, you can leave it on the counter top at room temperature for up to twenty four hours.
Top Tips For Making A Delicious Plum Galette
Don’t overload the galette with plums. Plums are very juicy and if you have too many the juice will spill out of the pastry. If you don’t mind this, add as many as you like. You can see one I overloaded in the image below, but surprisingly the pastry underneath stayed crisp.
Choose ripe dessert plums for preference. You can use tarter plums if that’s what you have, but you’ll need to sprinkle them with a bit more sugar.
Keep the pastry dough crumbs coarse. It’s the little lumps of butter that create the steam when baking which causes the pastry layers to push apart. If you rub the butter into the flour too much, you’ll likely end up with a less crisp, less flaky and greasier crust.
Leave a wide pastry border. You need something substantial to hold the filling properly when folded over. Again, if you take a look at the image above, you’ll see the border isn’t quite big enough.
Best served whilst still warm from the oven. But any leftovers are almost as good served at room temperature the next day. A dollop of whipped cream, crème fraîche or clotted cream make a fine accompaniment as does a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
It’s a flexible fruit dessert. So whilst it’s a particularly good way to use up a glut of plums, you can use the same approach with other seasonal stone or orchard fruits too.
Swap the ricotta filling for a frangipane one. If you fancy something almondy, rather than creamy, frangipane is a good one to go for. Use half the amount I’ve used for this plum almond tart recipe.
Other Fruit Tart Recipes You Might Like
- apricot frangipane tart
- double apple tarts with white chocolate
- fig tarts with white chocolate & mascarpone filling
- plum almond tart
- quince tart
- rustic rhubarb galette
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this plum galette, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or tips for making fruit tarts?
Please rate the recipe too. And do tag me @choclette8 on Instagram with your images, I love to see your take on my recipes.
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Choclette x
Plum Galette. PIN IT.
Plum Galette
Ingredients
Pastry
- 200 g wholemeal spelt flour
- 120 g unsalted butter fridge cold
- 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
- 3 tbsp natural yoghurt not Greek yoghurt
Ricotta Filling
- 125 g ricotta cheese
- 25 g soft brown sugar
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 sprig fresh thyme (optional) leaves only
Assembly
- 12 plums (about 250g (8oz)) – sliced
- 1 tbsp milk
- 25 g demerara sugar you may need a bit more or less depending on how tart your plums are
Instructions
Pastry
- Cut the butter into the flour and salt with a knife, then either rub between your finger tips or pulse in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.200 g wholemeal spelt flour, 120 g unsalted butter, 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
- Stir in the yoghurt with a knife until the mixture starts to come together. If it's too dry, add a little water. Gather the dough up with your hands and form it into a ball.3 tbsp natural yoghurt
- Cover and leave to rest in the fridge or a cool place for ½ hour.
- Roll out, on a piece of baking parchment, into a rough circle to about 4mm (0.15 inch) in thickness.
- Place the parchment and pastry on a baking tray.
Filling
- Preheat the oven to 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4).
- In a small bowl, mix the filling ingredients together until thoroughly combined.125 g ricotta cheese, 25 g soft brown sugar, ½ tsp ground cinnamon, 1 sprig fresh thyme
- Spread the this over the pastry, leaving about a 4-5 cm (1½ inch) boarder.
- Lay the plum slices over the ricotta in a single layer.12 plums
- Sprinkle all but 1 tbsp of the sugar over the plums.25 g demerara sugar
- Fold the edges of the pastry inward over the plums, leaving the centre open and tucking it in as you go.
- Brush the pastry edges with milk then sprinkle with the remaining sugar.1 tbsp milk
- Bake for around 45 minutes by which time the plums should be soft and the pastry crisp and golden.
- Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then slice and serve.