Rebecca Firkser's 'Galette!'

An excerpt and two recipes

29 Oct 2025 — 5 min read

Photograph by Jessica Marx

As I mentioned last week, I moderated an event recently at one of my fave bakeries on the planet, Sofra, a celebration of Rebecca Firkser's wonderful new book, Galette!. In the downtime between Sofra's Maura Kilpatrick demo of recipes from the book, Rebecca and I chatted about the inspiration behind it, the recipes it contains, and the challenges and joys she experienced making it. After that, the guests got to dig into nearly a dozen of Rebecca's galettes, both savory and sweet. Everyone—me included—left the event with a copy of the book in hand, eager to put its wisdom and wonders to use in our own kitchens.

Galette! contains 50 recipes for galettes, neatly organized by filling: stone fruit; apples, pears, and citrus; black, blue, and red berries; chocolate and other sweet things; winter squash and roots; nightshades and summer squash; greens, brassicas, and alliums; and pantry staples.

Now, 50 recipes alone is an abundance, but the secret to this deceptively slim volume is that the true number of dishes it contains is nearly infinite. There's one simple dough formula, but also a half-dozen variations on it, using spices and whole grains to mix up its flavor, texture, and appearance. There are a half-dozen-or-so recipes for toppings, drizzles, and sauces to pair with the galettes at your whim.

There's a multi-page guide to choosing a galette to suit the season, that helpfully suggests alternative fillings to use at other times of year:

There are methods for shaping and baking galettes of various sizes and stature: simple, round ones baked freeform; larger-format ones baked as a rectangular slab; tall ones set into a springform pan or a tart ring; smaller ones baked two or three to a pan; and teensy hand-galettes baked in muffin tins.

Rebecca's wonderful doughs are quick to make, and easy to stash away in the freezer, so you can make a galette for a weeknight supper or a special occasion with little effort. But, as it turns out, the book is not merely one for when you are in the mood for a galette. Many of the fillings—particularly the savory ones—are self-sufficient served as a salad, side, or main, sans crust.

More than a few would be lovely set onto a bread-based dough rather than a tart shell, and several wear this fact on their sleeves. There's a "pepperoni pizza" galette; a caramelized onion, olive, and anchovy one that is a nod to pissaladière; and a "White Pie With Salad (And Maybe Mortadella)," inspired by pizza bianca. Others would make great fillings for squishy brioche buns, and I plan to ~~steal~~ borrow a few of them myself.

Galette! is truly a cookbook for all seasons and many moods, and would make a wonderful gift for a friend or yourself (or both!) Galettes are simply pies without the fuss, and even if your dough rolling and shaping skills are lacking (for the time being, at least), they need not be feared—even your "failures" are bound to be delicious. Here's Rebecca discussing her very first galette in the introduction:

I timidly rubbed the butter into flour, used a wine bottle to roll out my best approximation of an even round, and tucked the filling into its pastry blanket. As it baked, a crack in the dough swelled, plum juice oozing out and around the crust. The galette was ruined.

Or so I thought! Lo and behold, the bottom turned out crisp, while the fruit baked so soft I could cut it with a spoon. A bite was a symphony of buttery crust and honey-sweet plums, tempered with gingery warmth. I rejoiced.

All these years later, having made food the center of my career, I still think of galettes as an ideal bake for home cooks. The dough, made in advance, offers the opportunity to take your time; and unlike many baking projects, galette fillings don’t necessarily require hyperspecificity when it comes to ingredients. Run out of peaches? Make up the difference with those cherries in the back of your freezer. Toss in extra cinnamon (or what the hell, swap in cardamom if that sounds better). Go ahead and use grapefruit juice when the recipe calls for lemon. It’s difficult to mar a galette to the point of inedibility.

Rebecca has generously shared her master crust recipe with Wordloaf readers, along with two galettes from the book, a spiced cauliflower, chickpea, and date one (which I chose because a) it is delicious and b) it is one that is nice even in the absence of a crust), and—exclusively for paid subscribers—a crumble-topped kabocha squash one (pictured above) that might just take the place of pumpkin pie on your T-day spread this year: