Summer · Free-form · one 12″ galette

Cherry
Galette

A free-form tart — the same technique as the nectarine galette, retuned for sweet cherries. Most of the time is hands-off chilling and cooling; the effort is real but spread out.

~1 hr 30 min total 1 hr chill 40–45 min bake

Effort ●●●○ Time ●●●○ A Project

Vegetarian

Slicesamounts scale to match

Units

Ingredients

Never cut the chill, the extra lemon, or draining the juice. Warm dough bakes greasy and tough; Bings run sweet, so they need the acid; and a wet center is the one thing that ruins a galette. You can buy the pastry, though — good store-bought butter pastry is genuinely fine.

Easier, if you like

Use a cherry pitter for fresh cherries — pitting by hand is a stained, sticky slog. A cheap handheld pitter does the job; a spring-loaded or multi-cherry model is worth it if you cook cherries often.
Frozen pitted cherries skip the biggest chore — the pitting. Don't thaw them; toss them still-frozen with the sugar and cornstarch (bump the cornstarch to about 18 g, since frozen fruit sheds more juice), and add a few minutes to the bake.
Store-bought crust is genuinely fine here. A rolled refrigerated all-butter pie crust — Pillsbury refrigerated Pie Crusts (widely stocked), or Trader Joe's frozen pie crust / Dufour puff pastry for a butterier, more premium result. Let it come to cool-room temp, then fill and fold as written.

Method

Cook's notes

The number-one galette failure is a soggy bottom from too much juice. Lift the cherries out with a slotted spoon and leave the pooled liquid behind — the cornstarch sets whatever clings to the fruit.

Keep everything cold for a flaky crust — dough, butter, even the bowl. If the kitchen is warm, chill the shaped galette 15 minutes before it bakes.

The roll-out size and number of rounds update with the slice count, holding the crust at about ⅛ inch: it stays a single galette through 9 slices, then splits into two so no round outgrows a half-sheet pan.

Don't rush the cool — straight from the oven the juices are liquid and need the rest to set.

Make it vegan, dairy-free, or gluten-free

Vegan / dairy-free: use cold vegan butter (a block, not a soft spread) in the dough; brush the crust with plant milk + a little maple syrup instead of egg wash. The cherry filling is already vegan.

Gluten-free: a 1:1 GF pastry blend (one with xanthan). Chill well and handle gently — GF dough is more fragile.