Another day at the market and "galette d´abricot"

Poached eggs for breakfast and another exciting day to discover new towns and places...

On the 4th day of the vacation, our excursion took us to the nearby lying village called: Buis les Baronnies. Every Wednesday there is a big market and we wanted to see that. The whole city was full with big and small stands where nearly everything could be bought...starting from fruits, vegetable cheese and ham, throughout spices, ceramic ware, bags and clothes. Buis les Baronnies is another small sleepy town in a valley surrounded by mountains, which takes you back in time to the medieval era.

We made our way through the crowd enjoying the buzz around us, listening to the market sellers how they would price their goods. The whole experience is just incredible, if you love markets as much as I do, this place would certainly makes you happy. I could not resist and bought another bunch of apricots, cherries, olives, muskmelon, watermelon, spices and much more. Everything grown and made by the farmers in that area. By the time we were ready,our bags piled up enormously and it was on time to do a small pause and have something for lunch.

We started our way,  trying to find a restaurant for our purposes. Again if you are not from that town, you will find yourself in a very uncomfortable situation to find a good restaurant. So we followed the simplest rule what exists...try to avoid any fancy looking locations filled with tourists only, but rather look for a place which is filled with locals. Those places would often do not look very fancy, they would be rather humble and small. We were lucky and found such a restaurant on our way...it looked not very inviting from the outside, I have to admit that....but we certainly got the best lunch ever. Typical french homemade dishes with a perfect price to pay, we paid around 33 Euros for 2 three course lunch menu and coffee. The waiter as well as the chef, who would always run out and speak wit the people sitting in the restaurant or passing the street (they all seems to know each other) were just as adorable as the whole restaurant flair....fitting so perfect inside....the name of the local is: Chez Max...humble and simple..you see.

My recipe for the 4th day of the challenge is another simple desert dish done with apricots, mainly because I had a full bag of them and because now is the time to enjoy them. Inspired by our trip to the lavender fields the day before, I wanted to add a small Provence twist to the very known rustic galette d´abricot recipe...

Their is the base, done of the sweet shortcrust dough and fresh apricots....Simple right? I added some fresh lavender flowers to it, to lift up the taste and make it a bit more special...

Galette d´abricot with rose wine and lavender syrup

• 1 cup (coffee cup) flour
• 1 tea spoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
• vanilla sugar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 egg

In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla sugar and sugar together. Add the butter and mix it quickly with your hands, till all butter is incorporated. Finally add the egg mix well till a ball of a dough will get formed. If you will have to much flour left add a spoon of water or milk....should be the dough to runny add more flour. The dough should still be soft and silky, but not sticking to your hand. Cover it with plastic wrap and put it into the refrigerator to rest.

• 8-10 apricots
• 3-4 tablespoons sugar
• vanilla sugar
• 4-5 fresh lavender branches
• small cup of rose wine

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Wash and half the apricot, take the stones out. Add the sugar, vanilla sugar, lavender and rose wine to a frying pan and let it bubble away....ca. 10 minutes, till syrup will form. Put the apricots face up into the pan, have another good splash of rose over it and let it bubble away for additional 5-7 minutes.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and roll it out to a round circle. With a spoon take out you apricots from the pan and arrange them on the dough circle...let some space to the edges, which will be flipped over in the later stage. Take the lavender branches out and pour the remaining syrup over the apricots. Put the galette into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, till golden brown.

You will notice a light perfumed taste of the lavender eating the cake, which goes very well with the apricots. Note if the apricots are not that sweet yet, you may use more sugar to the recipe... The apricots we bought, were sweet/sour and I found the amount of the sugar appropriate...

Enjoy!