Summer Food: Berry Galette

Easiest Dessert Ever

I don’t spend a lot of time making desserts. I normally will leave it to the more sweet minded enthusiastic chefs, like my daughter Clara. But that being said, there are a few desserts in my recipe arsenal that I will make—ice cream, frozen fruit sorbets, flourless chocolate cake and a berry galette! When there is a surplus of summer berries at the farmers market, I make great use of them with this simple seasonal dessert. It really is like summer on a plate, and this very simple dessert paired with a scoop of ice cream or a vanilla infused whipped cream has a lot of wow factor.

THE CRUST

You can use a frozen dough or puff pastry, but making this pie dough (or pate brisee) is a cinch in a food processor. You can also do this by hand like my grandma did.

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 ½  sticks cold unsalted butter (cut into cubes)

¼ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup ice water

Add flour, salt, and butter into the food processor. Turn on and slowly add the ice water until the dough comes together. Do not overprocess; you want to keep the butter cold and not too integrated for a flaky crust.

Turn dough onto some plastic wrap, collect it into a ball, cover with plastic wrap, and press it down into a disk. Stick it in the fridge until needed.

BERRY FILLING

One pint each of blueberries, raspberries, strawberries (quartered unless small)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

¼ cup sugar (I use Turbinado) and a bit more to sprinkle on top

4 tablespoons apricot preserves

1 egg (beaten in a small bowl for egg washing the crust)

In a large bowl, add fruit, cornstarch, and sugar – toss together.

THE BUILD

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Get out your dough and roll it out on a floured surface big enough to accommodate the fruit. Roll to a uniform thickness but it does not have to be perfectly round.

Place dough on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Spread apricot preserves in the center of dough.

Spoon your fruit mixture on top of the preserves. Do not add any additional liquid from the bowl or you will have a juicy, fruity mess on your hands.

Fold the dough edges around the berry mix, leaving most of the fruit exposed in the middle.

Brush the top edges of the dough with your egg wash, and sprinkle the edges and top with sugar.

Bake until the crust is golden and the fruit is cooked, about 30 to 40 minutes depending on your oven.

Let cool and then serve with ice cream or fresh whipped cream.