Personal blueberry pockets, a.k.a galettes, encased in buttery, flaky pastry, drizzled with hot honey, a dash of lemon zest and ginger sugar. These blueberry ginger galettes are most definitely a good idea.
Ever since preparing for The Great American Baking Show, my baking has noticeably improved. My favorite improvement by far has been PASTRY! I can’t get enough of it! This previously daunting task has turned into an easy and enjoyable frontrunner in my baking. Fortunately for everyone, that means I’m writing more recipes that involve this buttery, flaky melt-in-your-mouth delight. Today, it’s coming to you in the form of Blueberry Ginger Mini Galettes.
Looking for more galettes?
Check out my Peach and Thyme Galette!
Blueberry Ginger Mini Galettes. Where to begin? Besides being wrapped in seriously to-die-for perfect pastry, these galettes are packed with blueberry ginger flavor. The filling features the following ingredients:
Blueberries–use fresh or frozen, I use fresh! If you do use frozen blueberries, be sure to let them sit for a bit so that when you fill the pastry disks with the filling the frozen blueberries don’t affect the pastry. If they’re too cold it can cause the pastry to not fold properly.
Granulated Sugar–this dessert is perfectly sweet, meaning it’s not too sweet at all. A little granulated sugar helps bring out the flavor of the blueberries, and counter the spicy ginger nicely.
Cornstarch–to thicken the blueberry mixture while it bakes in the oven, leaving you with a gorgeous gooey blueberry ginger filling.
Lemon Zest and Fresh Lemon Juice–brighten the dessert adding the right balance of acidity.
Freshly Grated Ginger–packs a punch and holds up well against the blueberries. You will taste the ginger at the end of each bite of blueberry ginger galette, leaving a nice, subtle spicy flavor to linger in your mouth while you undoubtedly reach for more!
Optional–Hot Honey–a subtle drizzle over the hot blueberry ginger galettes fresh out of the oven finishes the flavor profile quite well in my opinion. Though you can do without the hot honey, if you have some, or easy access to some, I highly recommend it.
Final Tips
Handle the pastry with care
Generally the rule of thumb with pastry is to handle it as little as possible. Do your best not to overwork the dough. Overworked pastry dough becomes stiff, drastically changing the final result. Since you have to cut out multiple circles of pastry, I recommend getting as many circles as possible out of the first roll out so as to eliminate having to re-roll the scraps of dough too many times.
The Ginger Sugar
This recipe uses a ginger sugar to coat the pastry instead of regular coarse sugar. This tiny extra step of grating fresh ginger into the coarse sugar packs a punch of flavor that you won’t want to skip out on!
A Word on Hot Honey
Maybe I’m having a hot honey moment, or maybe social media is having a hot honey moment and I’ve been inceptioned into having one too, either way hot honey is the perfect pairing for these blueberry ginger mini galettes. All that’s needed is a simple drizzle overtop of the hot galettes and the spicy honey will soak into the dessert in a way your taste buds won’t regret.
Serve this all up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy!
Can baking be therapeutic?
I often talk about baking being a therapeutic hobby but I’d like to share more about why I feel that way as well as how it can become a relaxing hobby for you!
When I bake, it’s my creative time. I may put on my favorite nostalgic movie or tv show in the background, or a Spotify playlist titled “French café” and leave my troubles behind.
Sometimes I pour myself a glass of wine and light a candle. Then, with the mood set, the mixing of batter, kneading of dough and smoothing of icing is my only care in the world.
When I say baking is therapeutic, sometimes people respond saying “not for me it isn’t!” I completely understand why someone might feel that way. There have been plenty of times where I spend hours on something only for it to fail or something breaks that shouldn’t or I forget to clean as I go and am left with a disastrous kitchen to clean.
So I should in reality, have a caveat to my “baking as therapy” claims…
Baking is therapy when you curate the experience to be relaxing.
How do you curate that relaxing experience for yourself, you ask?
How to make baking therapeutic…
- Prepare your mind–know that it’s okay if the cake doesn’t rise, or the butter wasn’t chilled enough. Shift your mindset from seeing your failures as mistakes to seeing them as opportunities for learning.
- Prepare your space–I cannot and will not bake on top of a messy kitchen. If I were to do this I would be starting from a place of stress! Take an extra 10 minutes to clean any dishes in the sink and wipe down the counters, this small effort will pay you back greatly in brain space and clarity.
- Clean as you go! I’ll tell you the one way to make baking stressful and tiresome, is to not clean as you go! After I use each ingredient that I no longer need, I put it away.
After each major step in the process, I wipe down the counters and put dishes that are no longer needed in the sink. If there is chill time or baking time I don’t sit, I do the cleaning then. Make this shift and you’ll really notice the difference!
By the way, this last tip really helped me when I was on The Great American Baking Show–and the crew that cleaned up behind us made a point to tell me that my workspace was always so clean they didn’t have much to do!
I would reply by saying “it’s how I stay sane in this tent!”
Additional suggestions:
*Maybe try printing off the recipe instead of looking at it on your phone, tablet or laptop and use this time to unplug from technology for a few hours
**Invite friends or family over to share your creation with you. Time spent with loved ones over food is a universally special experience
And that’s how I discovered baking for my mental health. If you try any of these suggestions, let me know how it went for you! I’m really invested in spreading this message to others in hopes that baking will enhance your lives more than it already does!
Happy Baking!
Blueberry Ginger Mini Galettes
Ingredients
For the Pastry
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter cold, cut into cubes
- 2 Tbsp ice water
- 1 Tbsp vodka*
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp heavy cream
- 5 Tbsp coarse sugar
- 2 tsp fresh ginger grated
For the Blueberry Ginger Filling
- 4 cups blueberries fresh, see note about frozen**
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 3 Tbsp cornstarch
- 2 Tbsp lemon zest
- 4 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp fresh ginger grated
- pinch of salt
Instructions
For the Pastry
- In a food processor, pulse together 2 ½ cups of all purpose flour, 1 Tbsp of granulated sugar, and 1 tsp of salt until combined.
- Add 1 cup (2 sticks) of cold unsalted butter cut into cubes directly into the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand.
- Add 2 Tbsp of ice water and 1 Tbsp of vodka* and mix until the mixture comes together. Do not overmix.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured clean surface and bring it together with your hands. Form the dough into a round disc and wrap with plastic wrap.
- Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour or overnight.
- Once the dough has finished chilling, remove it from the refrigerator and roll it into a rectangle roughly 10” x 5”. The dough will be very hard to work at first. You may allow it to warm up slightly on the counter but not for longer than 10 minutes. It’s important to work with pastry while it is cold.
- Perform the ⅓ fold technique to the dough by folding one short end ⅓ of the way over itself. Then fold the other short end over the previous fold. This process is similar to folding a piece of paper into thirds. Roll the dough into another 10” x 5” rectangle and perform the folds one more time.
- Return the dough to the refrigerator to chill while making the blueberry ginger mixture.
For the Blueberry Ginger Filling
- In a medium bowl. mix together 4 cups of blueberries, 1/3 cup of granulated sugar, 3 Tbsp of cornstarch, 2 Tbsp of lemon zest, 4 Tbsp of fresh lemon juice, 2 Tbsp of freshly grated ginger and a pinch of salt until everything is evenly distributed.
- Set aside while rolling out the pastry dough.
For the Assembly
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes so that it is easier to roll out.
- Preheat the oven to 425°F (roughly 220°C) and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Roll out the dough onto a heavily floured surface until the dough is about 1/8 inch thick. While you are rolling, make sure to move the dough around a bit, adding flour underneath the dough where necessary so that the dough doesn't stick to your work surface.
- Using a circle cutter 6" in diameter (a bowl, plate or even cake pan), cut as many circles out of the dough as possible and place onto the baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
- Shape the scraps of dough back into a ball, re-roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick and cut out more 6" circles. Repeat this process until you have 8 circles cut out. Do your best to handle the dough very minimally.
- Place all 8 circles of dough onto the two baking sheets.
- Spoon the blueberry ginger filling onto each dough circle, leaving the outer 1 inch of dough without filling. When scooping the filling, be sure to strain any liquid before placing it onto the dough to avoid a soggy pastry bottom.
- Fold the edges of the dough over itself until the filling is incased.
- Whisk 1 large egg with 1 Tbsp of heavy cream and brush the folded over edges of pastry with the egg wash.
- In a small bowl stir together 5 Tbsp of coarse sugar and 2 tsp of freshly grated ginger. Sprinkle this mixture onto the egg washed pastry.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Remove from the oven to cool.
- As soon as the blueberry ginger galettes come out of the oven, use a fork to mix up the filling slightly. This will break up the whole blueberries and encourage a gooey center.
- Optional: drizzle some hot honey over the hot galettes.
- Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy!
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