Blueberry and Lavender Galette With Vanilla Ice Cream
Galettes are a French, rustic pastry, easier to make than a pie and very charming. Whether you prepare them to eat at home with your family or are bringing them to a party, they are delicious and impressive. We always double the crust and filling recipes in all of our galette recipes. We like the crust a tiny bit thicker, it adds to the rustic charm and of course the more sweet or savory filling the better. Dried lavender flowers add a certain flavor, hardly distinguishable, but an added delight. It is hard to tell exactly what that flavor is because it is very faint, but it does make a difference. It is not strong flavor, as we have used just a little, but it does make it delicious. Lavender in baking has been a very big trend for a few years now, especially after the Prince and Princess of Wales wedding cake used lavender and lemon together. Make sure to pound the dried flower petals for just a few seconds with a mortar and pestle until it is powdery. You do not want a big lavender taste bomb in your food.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients:
Pie Crust Ingredients:
2 ½ cups flour
2 sticks butter, very cold, chopped into little pieces
½ tsp salt
1 Tbs cane sugar
4-6 Tbs cold water
1 egg, beaten with 1 Tbs water
1 Tbs very coarse Turbinado or Demara sugar for topping the crust
Filling Ingredients:
5 cups blueberries
¾ cup sugar
3 Tbs lemon juice
5 Tbs cornstarch
1 ½ Tbs vanilla
1 tsp dried culinary lavender, pounded for a few seconds in with a mortar and pestle until the consistency of powder
¼ tsp salt
zest of 1 lemon
For serving:
Vanilla ice cream
Confectioners sugar (optional)
Directions:
Prepare the pie crust. There are two methods. You can use a food processor with a pastry blade attached or work this by hand. The food processor is certainly easier, but working the pastry by hand is traditional if you don’t have a food processor. It just takes a little longer.
Add the flour, sugar and salt to a bowl or processor. Stir or pulse a few times until mixed.
Add the butter pieces. Pulse a few times until the mixture resembles little peas. Do not work it too hard as the little pieces of butter are what make the pastry crumbly and light. This is the reason you are using very cold butter, or frozen little pieces of butter, so that it does not melt into the flour and your pastry remains light. If you are doing this by hand, just use your fingers to mix the butter into the flour, pinching the butter in, again until it resembles peas.
Add a tablespoon of cold water, 1 at a time until you can form the flour mixture into a smooth ball. It may take 4 or it may take 6.
Roll into a ball with your hands. On a floured surface or floured piece of parchment paper, flatten the ball into a flat disk about 6-8 inches around. Fold the parchment around the dough or wrap in plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for about 1 hour. The dough can be made a month in advance and frozen or 2 days in advance and kept in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove the dough from the refrigerator 15 minutes before baking.
Toss all of the ingredients for the filling in a bowl.
Roll out the pastry, turning it as you roll it out making a uniform circle about 12-14 inches and about ⅛-¼ inch thick.
Turn the dough onto a piece of parchment placed on a cookie sheet.
Place the filling in the middle. Leave a 2-3 inch border not filled. Fold over the sides.
Brush the dough with the beaten egg. Sprinkle the coarse Turbinado sugar on top.
Place in the oven on a middle rack. It may be necessary to actually cover the crust after about 25-35 minutes so it does not brown too much. Do not cover the filling in the middle. You can just tear small 3-4 inch wide strips of aluminum foil to do this and top and form it around the edges of the galette for the rest of the baking time remaining.
Remove from the oven when bubbly and 45-50 minutes has passed.
If you wish, you can use scissors and trim the parchment around the galette after placing it on your serving platter so that you can easily move it without it breaking.
Sprinkle the crust with confectioners sugar and serve with ice cream.