Baking
Hedgerow Apple & Blackberry Galette
One free-form pastry, a bowl of windfall apples and whatever blackberries survived the walk home.
18 August 2026 6 min read Serves 6
Foraging notes
Late-summer blackberries from sunny hedgerows; any tart u-pick apple.
A galette is the forgiving cousin of a pie: no tin, no lattice, no lid. It wants slightly under-ripe fruit and a heavy hand with the sugar in the crust.
Pick blackberries above knee height away from busy roads, and use apples that hold their shape — Bramley, Granny Smith or any firm u-pick variety.
Best months
Ingredients
- 250g plain flour
- 170g cold butter, cubed
- 2 tbsp caster sugar, plus more for the edge
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 4-5 tbsp ice water
- 3 tart apples, cored and thinly sliced
- 200g blackberries
- 2 tbsp cornflour
- 60g soft brown sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 egg, beaten
Method
Make the pastry
Rub the butter into the flour, sugar and salt until you still see flakes of butter. Add ice water a spoon at a time until it just clumps. Flatten into a disc, wrap, chill 45 minutes.
Toss the fruit
Mix apples, blackberries, cornflour, brown sugar and lemon zest. Let it sit while the oven heats to 200°C / 400°F.
Roll and fill
Roll to a rough 32cm circle on parchment. Pile the fruit in the middle, leaving a 5cm border. Fold the border over in pleats.
Bake
Brush the pastry with egg, scatter sugar, bake 40-45 minutes until deep gold and bubbling. Cool 20 minutes so the juices set.
Kitchen tip: Freeze the shaped, unbaked galette on its tray — bake from frozen with 10 extra minutes.
