Mini Cherry Almond Galettes

I got an email this week from a woman in Vancouver, BC, who reads my blog. She said my post about cooking through anxiety changed how she thinks about her own kitchen — that she had been treating cooking as a chore and my writing helped her see it as a practice, a meditation, a way of being present when presence is hard. She said she made miso soup from my recipe and sat at her table and felt, for the first time in months, like herself.

I read the email three times. I saved it in a folder. I do not know this woman. I have never been to Vancouver. But her words reached across the border and into my kitchen and told me that the thing I am doing — this small, weekly practice of writing about food and feeling — matters to someone. One person. One kitchen. One bowl of soup. That is enough. That has always been enough, but today it feels like enough in a way I actually believe, not just in a way I tell myself.

I made sakura mochi this week — cherry blossom rice cakes, the traditional spring sweet. Pink-tinted mochi wrapped around sweet red bean paste, enclosed in a pickled cherry leaf. They are delicate and floral and taste like Japan in April, which I have never experienced firsthand but have experienced through Fumiko's hands, through the cherry blossoms in Sacramento, through the pink light of spring filtered through memory and inheritance. I made them for no reason other than the desire to make something beautiful, and sometimes that desire is the only reason you need.

Miya's birthday is coming — she turns one next month. One year old. Three hundred and sixty-five days of keeping a human alive, of feeding her and holding her and watching her become a person. I am planning a small party — Portland friends from yoga, a couple of Brian's work friends, Lin and baby Mei. I will make onigiri and a small cake and something Japanese that the children can eat. Nothing elaborate. Everything intentional.

I look at Miya and I see a year compressed into a walking, talking, rice-demanding person, and I think: I did this. Not alone — Brian helped, my mother helped, Fumiko helped from across the state — but I did this. I showed up every day to the kitchen and to the baby and to the writing and to the anxiety and I am still here. I am still here. The miso soup did not save me. The practice of making it did. The daily insistence that there is beauty in a bowl, that there is meaning in repetition, that the ritual holds even when nothing else does. The ritual held. I held. We held.

The sakura mochi were the thing I made just to make them — no occasion, no audience, only the desire to bring something beautiful into the week. That impulse didn’t leave when the mochi were gone, and I found myself at the counter again a few days later with cherries and a block of cold butter, making these small galettes for the same reason: because spring deserves to be marked, because Miya’s birthday is coming and I am practicing the art of making things with intention, and because almond and cherry together taste like an afternoon that is entirely your own.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
3–4 tablespoons ice water
1/3 cup almond flour
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 egg, divided (1/2 for almond cream, 1/2 for egg wash)
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups fresh cherries, pitted and halved
1 tablespoon granulated sugar, for topping
2 tablespoons sliced almonds

Instructions

Make the dough. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, and salt. Add cold butter cubes and use your fingertips or a pastry cutter to work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time, mixing gently until the dough just comes together. Divide into 6 equal portions, flatten each into a disc, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
Make the almond cream. In a small bowl, stir together almond flour, powdered sugar, softened butter, half of the beaten egg, and almond extract until smooth and well combined. Set aside.
Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 400°F (200°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Roll and fill. On a lightly floured surface, roll each dough disc into a rough 5–6 inch circle. Spread about 1 1/2 teaspoons of almond cream in the center of each, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border. Pile a small handful of pitted cherry halves over the almond cream.
Fold the edges. Fold the pastry border up and over the edges of the filling, pleating as you go, to create a rustic rim. Press gently to seal any cracks. Place on prepared baking sheets.
Egg wash and finish. Beat the remaining half egg with 1 teaspoon of water. Brush the folded crust edges with the egg wash. Sprinkle sliced almonds over the crust and dust the cherries lightly with granulated sugar.
Bake. Bake for 26–30 minutes, until the crust is deep golden and the cherry filling is bubbling. Rotate the pans halfway through baking. Let cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mini Cherry Almond Galettes — Making Something Beautiful Just Because You Can