Fall was always my favorite time of year when I was growing up in Vermont. The leaves turned into jewels hanging on the trees and that meant apple season was in full throttle.
The warm apple sauce, cider doughnuts, apple butter, and apple pies were all plentiful and made the chilling nights tolerable. To this day apple pie is my ultimate comfort food, I think it’s essential for the soul.
This Apple Almond Galette is just an apple pie without the plate or a top crust. So, it’s even easier to make than pie and I think just as beautiful in a fruit forward, rustic way.
It seemed the exact right dessert to make when JK Adams sent me a dreamy baker’s package with a rolling pin, pastry board and walnut Lazy Susan. All made by craftspeople in Dorset, Vermont.
I’ve admittedly had a certain nostalgia for all things Vermont ever since I moved to the Midwest. There is something fundamentally stalwart about that state and the handmade products (and food) that are made there. JK Adams’s obsession with quality and sustainability speak to me in a profound way and why they have a lifetime guarantee on everything they make. Most importantly, their products just feel good in my hands, which is key to baking wonderful desserts.
, which Michelle wrote while she was the pastry chef at Trotter’s, and convinced the team to make everything out of it. Her style was entirely about the food, elegant, but not architectural and overly fussy. I did manage to bake and cook my way through her book and probably landed the Executive Pastry Chef job as a result. Fast forward a decade and I was introduced to Michelle by a mutual friend. Michelle had just moved to Minneapolis from Chicago with her family to create the desserts for a national bakery. It was one of the finest days in our fair city’s history of sweets. We became fast friends, not in the kitchen, but on the playground with our kids. The very first day I met her we talked about her dream of opening her own bakery, which seemed as inevitable as snow in Minnesota.