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an ode to the strawberry

an ode to the strawberry

in a galette with lovely spelt rough puff

Beth O'Brien's avatar
Beth O'Brien
Jun 06, 2025
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Tastebuds
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an ode to the strawberry
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What I’m reading: Trial and Éire: a Vittles article by Karl McDonald discussing Irish food, specifically in London

What I’m listening to: CMAT on The Dish

What I’m eating: Ria’s pizza in Notting Hill (below) - not usually my favourite style of pizza, but the toppings were exceptional: pepperoni, soppressata, stracciatella, pickled jalapeños, parmesan etc. etc.

It’s officially summer and if you couldn’t tell from the absolutely sweltering weather (in London, anyway), the abundance of strawberries is a dead giveaway. Word on the street is that it’s been a “stonking start” to strawberry season (I can’t find the reference for this quote, but I definitely saw it on a reputable news source). Warm days combined with cool nights make for sweeter strawberries as the energy absorbed during the day converts to sugars overnight.

I like making galettes to herald in the beginning of a new fruit season - and this year I’m particularly excited for gooseberries, figs and stone fruit. Galettes are hugely versatile, and I think they’re a great way to let the fruit shine: they’re essentially free-form tarts, usually made some sort of flaky pastry like puff, rough puff or pie dough. You can add a layer under the fruit if you like (frangipane, custard, jam etc.), but for this particular one, I left the strawberries as they are: they cook down with a little sugar in the oven to produce almost a jam-like texture that is so delicious. The fruit is very much the star of the show, so all you have to do is make a lovely rough puff, and then arrange the fruit in whatever way your heart desires.

The pastry isn’t too tricky to make, once you’ve got the hang of it. You incorporate chunks of cold butter into the dry ingredients (strong white flour, spelt flour, sugar and salt), before adding ice-cold water and a splash of vinegar (the vinegar acidulates the dough and prevents it from going brown), and bringing it together into a scraggy kind of dough with long thin pieces of butter that will melt and puff up in the oven, creating those lovely flaky layers. The whole process feels quite messy, and it will look like a mistake until suddenly it turns into a cohesive dough that you can roll and fold.

This galette is best made the day it is eaten, as I don’t think it lasts well overnight (the pastry goes soft and the fruit a little tired). You can, however, make the pastry the night before, meaning that you’ll have this galette on the table in well under an hour.

recipe: strawberry galette with spelt rough puff

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