I don't know about you, but making an entire pie from scratch (yes, the crust too) scares the heck out of me. With the holidays here I want to serve guests or bring a desert that will WOW my family and friends yet NOT make me cry while kneading dough. I want to say "yes, it's homemade" and NOT be lying through my teeth.

Jess Dang from The Petite Pig is showing us her amazingly simple Rustic Apple Galette that is guaranteed to have your holiday guests calling you the best baker in town.

Jess Dang's Rustic Apple Galette:

Galette Dough
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
12 tps. butter divided into two
1/2 cup ice water
1 egg yolk

Filling
3 medium sized apples of your preference
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 tbs. butter, cut into cubes

Topping
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup almonds, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tbs. butter

For the dough:
Combine flour, salt and sugar in a large food processor.

Use butter has been resting at room temperature for about 10 to 15 minutes so it’s not cold and hard but not softened either. Add half the butter into food processor and pulse until mixture becomes grainy. Cut the other half of the butter into 1/2 inch cubes and add to flour/butter mixture. Pulse about 3 times. Drizzle in cold water and pulse until evenly distributed.

Form a ball with the dough and cover in plastic. Gently knead the dough through the plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

For the filling:
Slice apples into 1/4 inch slices. Mix with sugar and cinnamon.

For the crumb topping:
Combine sugar, flour, chopped nuts and cinnamon. Melt butter and using a fork, add to the dry mixture forming large crumbs.

For the galette:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

When dough is ready, remove from refrigerator and roll out on a lightly floured surface. Fold in half (for ease of transfer) and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet. You can either arrange the apples or just pile them up inside the dough. Fold the sides over and lightly coat in egg yolk. Arrange butter so it’s uniformly distributed over apples. Spoon over crumb topping, allowing some of the apples to show through underneath.

Bake for 35 minutes. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Host and Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest also blogs at Queen of Spain Blog