SABLE BRETON GALETTE WITH BERRIES
Adapted from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)
Makes 6 servings
For the galette:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
10 tablespoons (5 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 large egg
For the topping:
About 1 cup lemon curd, homemade or storebought
About 3 cups berries
Red currant jelly, for glazing (optional)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)
To make the galette: Whisk the flour and baking powder together.
Working in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until it is soft and creamy. Add the sugar and salt and continue to beat for another 2 minutes, until the mixture is very smooth. Beat in the egg, mix for 2 minutes more, then reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the flour and mix only until it is blended in – you’ll have a very soft dough.
Working with a flexible spatula, give the dough a few turns by hand to make sure you’ve picked up all the dry ingredients at the bottom of the bowl, then scrape the dough onto a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap. Press down on the dough to form it into a disk, then wrap it well and chill it for at least 3 hours (or for up to 3 days).
When you are ready to bake the galette, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9- to 9 1/2-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
Working between pieces of wax paper or plastic wrap, get the dough moving by rolling it into a circle. If it’s too difficult to roll – it’s soft and it has a tendency to break – skip the rolling part and go directly to the patting part: Put the dough in the center of the tart pan and pat and press it into an even layer. Don’t press the dough up the sides of the pan – you want as flat a surface as you can get. Place the pan on the baking sheet.
Bake the galette for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the crust comes away from the sides of the pan; press the galette gently and it won’t feel completely firm, but that’s just fine. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack, let the galette rest for 3 minutes or so, then invert it onto another rack; cool to room temperature right side up.
To top the galette: Just before you’re ready to serve, put the galette on a flat serving plate and spoon over as much lemon curd as you’d like, spreading it in swirls, but leaving a little circle around the edge bare (because the curd will spread when you cut the base). If you’re using strawberries, hull them, leave them whole or slice them in half from top to bottom and arrange the halves attractively over the curd. If you’ve got raspberries or blueberries or a mélange, either scatter the berries over the curd or arrange them neatly in pretty circles.
If you want to give the galette a little glaze, warm some currant jelly with a tiny splash of water until it liquefies (you can do this in a microwave oven). You can either drizzle the glaze over the berries – this is my preferred technique – or use a pastry brush or feather to paint the berries with the jelly.
Serving: If you haven’t glazed the berries, you might want to give them a dusting of confectioners’ sugar just before you’re ready to bring the galette to the table. Cut the galette into wedges and serve as is – nothing more is needed.
Storing: You can make the sablé dough up to 3 days ahead of time and keep it well wrapped in the refrigerator, and you can bake the galette a day or two ahead and it will keep at room temperature. (I put it back in the tart pan and cover the pan with foil.) However, once you put the curd over the galette and top it with berries, it’s best to serve it quickly. If you had to, you could keep the finished galette in the refrigerator for an hour or two, but the base would soften a bit.