If I were a perfumer, I’d take my inspiration from the kitchen. One of the rewards of cooking is carrying away a trace of the scent of the ingredients you’ve been working with, unless it’s something like garlic or onion. But consider lemon, ginger, or tarragon and that’s a different story. Perhaps the best kitchen aroma of all comes from buttery sweet dough, especially if it’s been flavoured with a dash of vanilla.
That’s the perfume filling my house this evening, mixed with traces of pineapple, coconut, lime, and rum. I baked a jammer galette filled with piña colada jam this evening and it tasted just as wonderful as it smelled.
The reward was out of proportion to the work involved – the cookie base and buttery streusel came together quickly and the jam was already on my pantry shelf. The hardest part was waiting an hour while the rolled out dough rested in the freezer. This jam tart is essentially an enormous cookie – much less work than conventional cookies, with an extra reward in its pretty presentation. This is the second giant cookie that Dorie Greenspan has introduced me to and I’m looking forward to more when her new cookbook comes out this fall.
In the meantime, I’m going to work my way through the galette over the rest of the week. It’s my reward for evenings of weeding and digging in new soil into my garden beds. Its butter vanilla scent makes an especially lovely contrast to the heady earthiness of the garden.
You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here or here, along with posts about this month’s other selected recipe, Cocoa Crunch Meringue Cookies.
One Wet Foot 
Hi Teresa, the Jammer Galette looks amazing, along with your written description that sets it over the top! Enjoy your garden preparation the rest of the week!
Thanks so much, Peggy!
I have to put this one on my to-bake list (like you and the meringues, I am waiting for a time when I have a few more people to feed). I can practically smell it through the computer screen thanks to your wonderful descriptions!
It’s so worth making and it keeps well in the fridge for several days, too.
That looks soooo delicious!!! I kind of wish I’d kept the cookbook out of storage!!
I’m so glad I could send you the recipe. A champion jam-maker like you should always have this one on hand!
So many fabulous jams have been used in the making of this treat. I’m not much of a jam maker but I’m going to have to give that pina colada jam recipe a try!
I hope you do try this. The book is by a Montréal jam-maker and everything I’ve tried from it has been spectacular.
Yum, a pina colada jammer galette. It looks and sounds terrific.
It was really good, Gaye. I was hard-pressed to save some for my mother’s visit, in fact.
I will take a slice of that, sounds delicious. We loved this galette too. I love it when my husband comes home from work and says the” house smells so good” when I’ve baked.
Me, too! It’s so welcoming.
Oh wow – I can only imagine how that buttery streusel crust perfumed your entire home! Looks delicious, Teresa.
Who needs air fresheners when you can have the smell of baking, right?
Completely!
Oh my gosh, if you ever make that perfume, I’d so line up to buy it! Great description and post!
Thanks, Margaret! I know that there was a perfume called – I think – Cake that smelled like cake, but I’d take straight up butter and vanilla over that, too!
Pina colada Jam! What a great idea, sounds delicious and heady!
Thanks, Summer – it’s a great jam, as are all the ones I’ve tried from the book it comes from.