BLUEBERRIES BLUEBERRIES BLUEBERRIES. The best berries (second only to the blackberry) and whenever they’re in season, I stock up with pints and pints of it. The best way to enjoy blueberries is to shovel them into your mouth, without shame or decorum. But another excellent vehicle for blueberry delivery, if you need to eat in a manner that is more socially acceptable, is the blueberry galette.
Golden, crispy crust and sweet, warm blueberries oozing out here and there — what’s not to like? Better yet, if you’ve got as much of a delicate hand as a herd of cattle, fret not because galettes are supposed to look messy and wild. It’s rustic.
The most difficult thing will be waiting for it to cool before you slice into it. And sharing it with others. And not staining your hands, your face, and your pants with heavenly purple goop.
An additional thing to keep in mind is the sweetness level of your berries. When I used to make this with out-of-season blueberries, the original recipe (linked below) was absolutely perfect. But with my most recent haul of very much in season and local blueberries, the blueberries were already so plump and sweet all on their own that I dialed down the sugar content. The adjusted recipe is what I have for you today.
Blueberry Galette
Recipe from Lottie + Doof — adapted to make it slightly less sweet
Yield: 1 galette, about 8 generous slices
Total Time:
For the crust:
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal (or polenta)
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
For the galette:
1/2 recipe for the crust (use the other half to make another!)
3 cups blueberries
3 tbs granulated sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out dough
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tsp Demerara sugar (I used Turbinado because it’s all I had and still turned out great)
Make the crust:
Beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed with the paddle attachment until fluffy. Scrape down the sides, then beat in the buttermilk and vanilla extract until it’s thick and combined.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, and salt. Add this to the butter mixture in two additions, beating just to combine.
Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a flattened disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour, or overnight.
Assemble the galette:
Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Unwrap one of the dough disks and roll it out into an 11″ circle. Put this on the parchment-lined baking sheet and pop this back into the refrigerator for 5 minutes to firm it up again.
In a bowl, combine the blueberries, sugar, flour, and lemon juice. Then, using your hands, crush about half of the blueberries and give it another mix. According to Alton Brown, this will help the blueberries “gel” more easily, and who am I to argue? Mound the blueberry mixture in the middle of the dough circle, leaving about 2″ all along the sides.
Fold the dough inwards, taking care to not tear it (though if it does tear, don’t worry too much about it — remember, it’s rustic!). Sprinkle the entire thing with the Demerara sugar. Pop this back into the refrigerator for 25 minutes to firm it up once more.
While the galette is firming up, preheat the oven to 375* F.
Bake the galette on the baking sheet until the berries are bubbling and the crust is golden brown, about 40 minutes, turning the sheet 180* halfway through. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes.
If your galette has leaked jammy goodness everywhere, after 10 minutes on the baking sheet, use a large spatula to move (or just carefully slide) the galette to another sheet of clean parchment to cool more. I do this because if you let it cool completely surrounded by the leaked jam, it tends to glue itself to the parchment, making serving kind of a pain. Moving it before this happens seems to solve that problem, though!
Serve warm or at room temperature.
