Galette

This is a dessert you'll make over and over in the fall when interesting apples fill the farmers’ market; but the Calvados sauce ensures it even makes out-of-season apples sing.

Use a wide spatula to peek underneath your galette to make sure the bottom is golden brown all the way across.

One slice of this classic dessert can pack 480 calories, 22 grams fat and 35 g sugar. (No, that's not á la mode.) Crust in time for the holidays.

A thin layer of frangipane, a rich almond pastry cream, elevates this simple, classic French dessert into something special. It's made in the style of many French fruit tarts: thin-crusted and only lightly sweetened to let the fruit truly shine. Americans have eagerly adopted French-inspired freeform tarts, even giving them a French name, galette, a word that the French generally use to describe a round, squat pastry, cookie, or buckwheat crêpe. The most famous galette is Galette des Rois, two disks of puff pastry filled with frangipane and eaten on Epiphany. I considered calling this dessert a tart, but decided against it because that term can put off people who are worried about dealing with fussy doughs and trying to achieve picture-perfect results. This pastry is intended to be rustic, and for that reason, it's often my go-to galette. Or tart. Speaking of tart, if your apples are particularly tart, you could sprinkle a bit more sugar on top of them before baking, but if you serve a sweet accompaniment alongside, as I usually do, additional sugar probably won't be necessary.

Think of it as apples in the buff: Stripped of the usual apple-pie spices, the fruits' natural floral qualities really come through. And free-form as it is, the rustic tart is very easy to make (there's no need for a pie plate)—not to mention refreshingly light.

This recipe was created by chef Traci Des Jardins of San Francisco's Jardinière. It's part of a special menu she created for Epicurious's Wine.Dine.Donate program.

The juicy pears in this elegant tart provide a dose of filling fiber. Each slice also serves up a helping of satiating healthy fat and phytonutrients, which come from the almonds.

Serve this with sweetened whipped cream.