Had you hoped I would stop making things from Smitten Kitchen, a website you may in all likelihood already follow? I am sorry to tell you today is not the day your wish will be granted.

But this is not a story about the recipe so much as it is a story about the durability of the recipe. I have a bad habit of diving headlong into recipes I think sound simple enough, only to get into it and realize that something has to be marinated for three hours or chilled overnight. I am sure many people do this from time to time, but these days when I find something I want to make I try to sit down and read it through a couple of times before I begin, just so I won’t screw it up.

Anyway, I dutifully read this zucchini and ricotta galette recipe from top to bottom and while I did catch the bit where you chill the dough for an hour, I missed the part about giving the zucchini slices 30 minutes to sit and give up some moisture. I also made a poor decision regarding the oven temperature and trying to bake the galette at the same time we roasted a small chicken (we were able to use the oven yesterday due to milder temperatures, although the kitchen still got blazing hot).

And yet! It turned out well, very well I would say. I put the galette into a 450 degree oven, 50 degrees higher than the temperature called for, and this did result in some of the butter in the crust melting away. I reduced the oven temperature after about 10 minutes (the chicken was dictating things at this time), but because the racks were too close together there was also a lot of moisture collecting on the bottom of the roasting pan and falling back down on the galette.

Once we got the chicken out of the oven I put the galette back in for about 5 minutes at the proper temperature and while the crust was probably not ideal, it was shockingly fine, and still very crispy and flaky. The filling was delicious, and I looked forward to making this again later this week with the extra zucchini and ricotta I have.

I didn’t take any pictures because it seemed like my galette was going to look pretty sad, but to be 100% honest with you it did not, in the end, look that different from the lovely one pictured on Smitten Kitchen.

Ultimately, I think I got lucky this wasn’t a complete disaster (yes, I know better than to toy with temperatures and timing in baking, buuuut…) but the forgiving nature of the crust was impressive and will lead me to try this again very soon.

One tip: I really, really don’t like the business of cutting butter into small pieces and using a pastry blender. I guess hundreds of years of experience can’t be wrong, but this never works well for me. I just freeze the butter and grate it.