Blueberry Galette Recipe

While the Pennsylvania Dutch consider Shoo Fly Pie a breakfast food, I (occasionally) want something a little less dessert-y. Do you ever make breakfast for dinner?

Sometimes, I make quick breads, such as scones, muffins, or if I planned way ahead, biscotti. If you aren’t on the breakfast for dinner train, I highly encourage you to do such a thing (because it’s lovely) and because you can add in something unexpected, such as blueberry galette.

Table of Contents

1. What Is a Galette?
2. What Should You Know About Making Berry Galette
3. Can I Substitute Other Fruit in this Galette?
4. How Do You Up The Presentation Factor of Your Homemade Galette?
5. How Do You Store Homemade Galette?
6. All About Breakfast Cookbook
7. Galette Recipe with Berries or Peaches
8. Other “Joy of Cooking: All About” Cookbooks
9. Related Recipes

What Is a Galette?

I make things I’m not 100% sure how to pronounce, such as the case with this Blueberry Galette recipe. Embarrassing, yes, but that’s the truth. I was pretty sure I knew. After a quick Google search, I discovered I was right. Whew! That’s a relief.

Galette is pronounced: ɡəˈlet — the first part sounds like the “ju” in “just”. Sometimes, words play tricks. Plus, I generally mispronounce words in general. I think it’s a common writer issue. I really do.

It is what it is. I’ve made peace with this (annoying) quirk and also seem to have passed it on to my oldest son. Sorry, kid.

One definition of galette is “A flat, usually round, pastry base for sweet or savory toppings,” according to Carole Walters in her “Great Pies and Tarts: Over 150 Recipes to Bake, Share, and Enjoy” cookbook (Page 459).

A galette is a free-form pie. It’s easier to make an apple galette than the typical apple pie. Although you are rolling out the dough, you then free-form the edges.

While I’m sharing a sweet galette recipe (of which there are an endless variety of fillings to make desserts such as blackberry galette or strawberry galette), there are savory galettes, too.

Potato galette, mushroom galette — even tomato galette — if you want to try your hand at baking up a savory galette recipe, it’s not hard to find them. Bonus: a sweet or savory galette make a great picnic food item.

Nancy Kershner nicely describes a galette:

Rustic desserts are sexy. Instead of making a piece of fruit conform to a pie plate, the pie dough is configured to accommodate the fruit.

Dough is wrapped around a serving of figs and baked for an Individual Fig Crostata. Dough is wrapped around a stuffed apple to create a Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Dumpling.

The preparations require no special equipment or training. Baked fruit fillings are accented simply with honey, cheese, or nuts.

The desserts are inspired by traditional preparations from the countrysides of Europe and America — simple, honest, and delicious.

Nancy Kershner, I Love Pies and Tarts (2005), Page 72.

What Should You Know About Making Berry Galette?

You need to slightly plan ahead. It’s not as bad as it sounds.

This peach or berry galette begins with a fast-to-fix crust, or pâte brisée, if you want to get all fancy. What is Pâte brisée? Simple:

Pâte brisée has a higher ratio of butter to flour than the average pie crust and no added sugar, making it an ideal base for savory creations like quiche or vegetable tarts.

Pâte brisée dough is made by combining sugar, flour, salt, and cubes of butter with ice-cold water.

How to Make Pâte Brisée: Classic Pâte Brisée Recipe, MasterClass, September 2, 2022.

That makes it ideal for this kind of treatment. You know, fruit, a little sugar, and a smattering of butter. For the dough, you will need butter and shortening.

This dough is rich in fat and is thus soft and difficult to handle, but it yields a marvelously tender, flaky crust with a superb butter flavor.

While it is possible to make this dough with butter only, a small amount of shortening makes it flakier without interfering with the buttery taste.

Irma S. Rombauer, Marion S Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker; All About Breakfast and Brunch (2001); Page 101.

Use your food processor or make it by hand. Your choice. Since it’s a free-form pastry, you only need to combine the ingredients and then form it into a flat disc shape.

Either way, it will look a little rough and shaggy.

Then, you’ll chill the disc for 30 minutes. After that, you’ll roll it out and form it into a 13″ round, fill the middle with fruit, fold up the edges, and bake. Yes, it is okay if there are chunks of butter in your galette dough.

Can I Substitute Other Fruit in This Galette?

The original recipe calls for berries, such as blueberries, raspberries, or peaches, but you could use a combination of fruits. I made it with strawberries once.

Ensure your strawberries aren’t super juicy, or you’ll end up with a soggy crust. Or, follow the directions below to help safeguard against soggy galette crust.

Choose fruit that’s too juicy, says [Claire Saffitz, BA‘s associate food editor] . . . and your crust will become a mushy, soggy mess.

Blueberries are a great pick, because they are naturally high in pectin (an ingredient commonly found in jam to help it set). They also have a high skin-fruit ratio, which keeps them from getting too saucy.

If you are using a very ripe or juicy fruit, like summer strawberries, add a thickener like cornstarch.

And here’s a secret tip from Saffitz: You can give yourself extra insurance against a soggy crust by dusting the galette dough with semolina flour or breadcrumbs before adding the filling.

They’ll keep things firm and crispy, even under a small mountain of berries.

Rochelle Bilow, What’s Easier Than Pie? A Galette! Just Don’t Make These Common Mistakes, October 14, 2015, Accessed April 9, 2024.

The trick is to avoid overfilling your galette. Unlike those diner-style mile-high pies, a galette is meant to be flat, the same way a tart is flat. The crust cannot support a tall filling without a change in texture — and no one wants to eat a soggy, mushy mess.

Stick to the cup suggestions provided in a recipe to help guide you if you decide to swap out fruit or play around with an assortment. Thinly slice your fruit so it bakes faster.

Up the Presentation Factor of Your Homemade Galette

The result is a stunning centerpiece for any meal (but it’s particularly welcome at all breakfast for dinner events).

I like to sprinkle the crust with turbinado sugar, or raw sugar, a thick, coarse sugar, for a bit of sparkle and a touch of sweetness I enjoy. You could sprinkle the sugar over the filling, if you so desired.

But what is turbinado sugar? While refined white sugar can be derived from sugar cane or sugar beets, turbinado comes exclusively from the first pressing of sugar cane.

That cane juice is then boiled just once (as opposed to refined a.k.a. granulated sugar, which is boiled multiple times to rid it of all residual molasses and, with it, any brown color).

The boiling process causes sugars to crystallize, and those crystals are then whirled in a centrifuge—or turbine, if you will—to spin off excess moisture. The result is turbinado sugar.

MACKENZIE CHUNG FEGAN, This Ingredient Makes Any Cake Look Like It Came From A Fancy Bakery, Bon Appetit, February 19, 2020, Accessed April 8, 2024.

Quick note here. Turbinado sugar is not a substitute for brown sugar or granulated sugar, just so you know. Turbinado sugar won’t lose its crunch. It doesn’t dissolve how granulated sugar and brown sugar dissolve.

Unfortunately, this simple swap doesn’t go both ways. Due to its large crystals, turbinado sugar soaks up more liquid than granulated, which can result in drier baked goods.

One workaround is to process turbinado sugar in a food processor until finely ground, and then use it as a 1:1 replacement.

Grace Elkus for Food Network Kitchen, What Is Turbinado Sugar?: All The Best Ways to Use This Pantry Staple, Food Network, February 22, 2024, Accessed April 8, 2024.

Save it for a topping. Turbinado sugar stores well, so sprinkle that stuff on everything.

How Do You Store Homemade Galette?

I don’t often have a leftover galette (I have two teen sons). Even though I tend to eat leftovers cold from the fridge (I know that’s weird), the galette is 127% better the day it’s made. It loses something sitting overnight.

Yes, I will still eat a day old galette (I’m a trooper like that), but it’s not nearly so enjoyable. Really, it’s just not the same.

If you somehow have leftover galette, wait until it completely cools to room temperature. Some people transfer leftovers to an airtight storage container and store them in the fridge for a day or two. I don’t recommend it. The flavor really does a dive bomb.

Bring leftovers to a friend or a neighbor the day you’ve made it instead.

All About Breakfast Cookbook

A week before I moved out of a small Indiana town, the one place I’d lived the longest as an adult (nine years), I made one last stop at my local library to grab the kids a few books to keep ’em busy while I finished packing.

I almost missed out on the All About Breakfast cookbook the library discarded. Discarded! I can’t believe it. I haven’t stopped cooking and baking from this one — and either have my sons.

Here it is eight years later, and it’s flour-dusted, batter-spattered, and well-marked with my handwritten notes. Yes, it’s slim. But it’s the kind of slim that includes actual “best of” recipes.

These are the breakfast classics you’ll make on repeat (and no one will mind).

Chapters in the “Joy of Cooking: All About Breakfast” cookbook include:

• Foreword
• About Breakfast & Brunch
• About Beverages
• About Eggs
• About Side Dishes
• About Pancakes, Waffles, French Toast, & Doughnuts
• About Grains
• About Fruits & Fruit Sauces
• About Cobblers, Crisps, & Galettes
• About Quick Breads, Muffins, & Coffeecakes
• About Yeast Breads

The kids and I have made a huge heap of things from the “All About Breakfast” cookbook. Seriously. I think we’ve tried every pancake recipe. It’s the book we always grab when any of us make pancakes.

This galette recipe is one of our many favorite baked or cooked breakfast items from that book.

Galette Recipe with Berries or Peaches

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