Baseball Been Berry Berry Good to Me
This past weekend I found some time to indulge in two of my favorite pastimes. Baseball and baking. The season has finally started and I can’t think of a better way to spend a drizzly gray weekend than watching the Giants play the Dodgers and baking something delicious. I took the morning before the game to head over to the Farmer’s Market.
I found beautiful ripe strawberries, plump juicy blueberries and ruby red raspberries. Time for a berry galette (fancy name for a single crust rustic pie) yum. I also found leaf lard …so once again my curiosity got the better of me and I tried a new crust recipe using butter and lard. I normally use a recipe by Julia Child, which calls for butter and a tiny bit of shortening which makes it tender and flaky. Her secret step is fraisage, smearing the dough to create elongated pieces of butter. The recipe I used today was almost 50-50 butter and lard, it tasted okay but the crust did not hold up well while baking and actually seemed to melt and collapse. I might just send an email to Kenji Lopez-Alt of the Serious Eats & Food Lab with my pie crust woes. But for this post I included Julia Child’s tart dough recipe instead, its a keeper.
So while I watched the Giants beat the Dodgers (yes, yes, yes) the galette baked away. The aroma of butter, sugar and berries filled the house. I pulled the galette out of the oven, let it cool (I stood over it which was a mistake because everyone knows a watched pie never cools), cut a slice and plopped a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream next to it. Giants win, Dodgers lose and I’m eating pie…..all is right with the world. Hum, baby!
Triple Berry Galette
Ingredients
Tart dough Julia Child Cooking at Home
- 2 cups ap flour 10 ounces
- 7 ounces unsalted butter chilled cut into 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 T vegetable shortening or leaf lard chilled
- 1/2 t salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/3 cup ice-cold water plus a little more
Filling
- 3-4 cups mixed berries raspberries, blueberries and strawberries
- 3 tablespoons sugar a little more if the berries are tart or if you like it sweeter
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- juice from half a lemon about 1 tablespoon
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon water
- coarse sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425
- Place flour, salt, sugar in bowl of food processor. Pulse a couple of times to blend. Scatter butter and shortening over flour mixture. Pulse 8-9 times, mixture should be crumbly with visible pieces of butter. Reserving 1 T of water. add ice water to flour-butter mixture through chute. Process until dough begins to come together (5 seconds). If it doesn't add reserved tablespoon of water. Process only until dough begins to clump or barely come together.
- Remove dough from processor and place on a lightly floured surface or parchment paper. Using the heel of your hand push dough away as if smearing it (fraisage) this spreads the fat particles and incorporates it in the dough.
- Gather dough into disc and chill for approximately 30 minutes to an hour.
- Meanwhile prep filling. Pick through berries and remove stems. Slice larger strawberries in half or thirds. Combine berries in a large bowl and add sugar, lemon, cornstarch and pinch of salt. Set aside while you roll the dough out.
- Roll dough on parchment paper into an 16 inch circle about 1/8" thick, you may have too much dough, trim excess. Doesn't have to be perfect, this is a rustic tart. Place fruit in the center, leaving 2-3 inch margin. Fold dough over fruit. Brush dough with milk or egg wash (1 egg yolk mixed with the teaspoon of water) and sprinkle with sugar.
- Silde tart and parchment onto a baking sheet. Bake for 30-40 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Allow galette to cool for at lest 15 minutes before serving.
- Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. EAT.
