— Rozanne R-P

So let me start by defining what a galt is for anyone here who might not know what that term means. So a gt is a pie, a flat pie, a pie, a pie dough with a fruit, with a filling, often fruit. And then the edges are just folded up and around. So there is no pie plate needed, no need to do any fluting is actually my favorite way to do a pie. And, um, you do it right on a baking sheet and it's just, it's beautiful, particularly for the summer. So if you are doing it with fresh fruit, you're going to have less juices, you know, to deal with. But the frozen fruit is going to release. So what I do is, and I do this with fresh fruit too, I just do more, I add more of a barrier when I'm working with frozen fruit. Do not thaw your fruit. That's the first thing you're going to make your filling using the still frozen fruit. If your strawberries are very large, if your frozen strawberries are very large, you can cut them very easily with a sharp knife while they're frozen. Blueberries, blackberries any kind of berries, you want some little bits of peaches, but don't thaw your fruit. And you want to waterproof the bottom of the pie crust so that it doesn't get soggy. The pie crusts that we teach in essential vegan desserts is made with oil, very cold oil, not with butter. So it tends to be, it's still delicious. It, it's still delicious. It still can be flaky, but it's not, it tends to be more waterproof. That said, you want to add a layer underneath your fruit of something to absorb the liquid that's going to come from the fruit as it bakes in the oven. So that's the first thing. It can be cake cru cookie crumbs. It can be chopped nuts or often you used, but any kind of crumb graham cracker cookie crumbs. So you get that and then you pile your still frozen fruit over that. And then you put the dough up and over. These gts are also known as freeform pies and rustic pies 'cause that's what they look at when you are making a filling. Fruit fillings like this are made with a bit of starch like corn starch or arrow root. Uh, you wanna use a little bit more when you're using frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit. And then the last thing that I do is I increase the temperature by about 25 degrees when I'm baking with frozen fruit. And I increase the time that the galt bakes by about five or 10 minutes. So that's it. It's, you know, for years I thought frozen fruit was inferior, but that, excuse me, really isn't the case at all. Uh, frozen fruit, fruit is frozen at its optimal temperature, uh, peak of freshness. And so it's really nice to have around. Now this time of the year, I'm still gonna go to my local purveyors and buy my fresh berries, but in a pinch I always have frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries. What else do I have? Pineapple in my freezer. I have some mango in my freezer, so it's super handy.