It’s October! It’s time for apples and pumpkins! And 100 degree heat with Santa Ana winds! Bound and determined to have some autumn here in Los Angeles, I happened upon beautiful little early crop apples from Washington. Decided an apple galette was in order. Note: Galette is French for make-a-pie-without-the-pie-pan. Gluten-Free Autumn Apple Galette Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and turn on tunes! Last night’s anthem was Van Morrison’s “Moon Dance”. Always reminds me of October in New England.. For the crust:

• 2 1/2 cups Pamela’s Baking Mix
• 3 tbls. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 3 tbls. light agave
• 5 tbls. sunflower (canola or safflower work well too) oil
• 3 tbls. ice water

Mix the flour, butter and agave together in a large mixing bowl with a fork until the butter is the size of little peas in the mixture. You can use your fingers to help out. Then add the sunflower oil and ice water, and mix again. The crust should have a slightly doughier consistency than a wheat pie crust–it needs a little more liquid to help it hold together, since it doesn’t have gluten. Roll the dough out onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Yes it’s hard to roll gluten-free dough. Don’t worry too much about it. You can re-shape with your hands. Don’t roll it too thin–remember, this will be the pie plate as well as the crust. Using your hands, shape the dough into a rectangle and mound the crust up on the sides to make walls for holding in the apples. Pop it in the fridge to firm while you make the filling.

For the filling:

• 6 medium apples of your choice (I used Gala), rinsed, peeled, cored and sliced
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. cinammon
• tiny pinch of cloves
• 1 tbls. organic brown sugar
• agave to taste

Slice the apples, bring the crust back out and arrange the apples on top. Squeeze the lemon juice over the apples evenly. This helps bring out the flavor, and keeps them from turning brown/bruised looking. In a small bowl, mix the nutmeg, cinammon, cloves and brown sugar. Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the top of the apples. Then squeeze a good squeeze of light agave over the whole thing to add a little more sweet. (Squeeze a good squeeze–very technical measurement.) If you’d like, you can brush a little egg wash over the crust to help give it that polished look. Mix one egg with a little water or cream, and use a pastry brush to brush it over the crust.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is nicely browned and the apples are bubbling. Serve plain or with whipped cream or ice cream…Sooooooooo goooooood…xox