It’s July, so I decided to make a pie.

Actually, I made a Blueberry Galette.  And I didn’t really make it because it’s July, but because a good friend texted me a picture of a couple of berry galettes she made last week and I instantly became obsessed with making one.  Of course, that text coincided perfectly with the fact that organic blueberries are currently abundant and well priced at my grocery store and therefore, currently well stocked at my house.

I really like pie, like my Apricot Cherry Slab Pie and my Lemon Lime Cream Slab Pie, but I usually only make those for a crowd larger than my family. My friend makes LOTS of pies in the summer and I always plan to follow suit…but it never really happens. It’s the whole thing about making pie crust.  I lament making pie crust, but I don’t know why.  It’s really quite easy and pretty much on par with making homemade biscuits or scones, and I am a true advocate for making those often, so I don’t know what my personal fuss is all about.

What’s a galette?  It’s really just a rustic, free form pie that is made without a pie pan.  You simply make the dough, top it with filling and fold up the sides.  Love it.  You don’t have to worry about crimping or top crust meeting bottom crust or doing any trimming or worrying about not tearing the dough when you try to transfer the dough to the pan.  It’s just pie in its simplest form.

I decided to try two new ideas for this post to see if they would work.  I’ve been reading about how refrigerating the crust after rolling actually works. (Sacrilege!)  And, then, even though I have a rolling mat and a special little pie bag to roll out my dough, I decided to try just good ole plastic wrap.

So I whisked my dry ingredients together, then cut in my butter with a pastry cutter as I would with any other biscuit or scone recipe. So far, so good. Then I drizzled in my ice cold water one spoonful at a time, tossing the mixture around after each spoonful, until it looked like the photo on the left below.

You don’t want lots of dry flour hanging around and you don’t want a super wet dough.  You just want enough liquid so that the mixture can hold together.  That clumpy mixture of flour and butter on the left is the same mixture, with no extra water, you see brought together in ball of dough pictured on the right.

That’s it.  It took just a few minutes to mix that up.  Now, instead of flattening this ball of dough into a disk and wrapping it in plastic wrap and sending it to the refrigerator for an hour, we’re going to roll it out first. Make a nice big square of plastic wrap to lay on the counter.  You’ll need two sheets to accomplish this and just overlap them so they stick together.

Then you’ll place your dough in the center of the square and lay two more sheets of plastic wrap on top of it. You’ll basically have a ball of dough sandwiched between two large plastic wrap “squares.” Flatten the dough into a disk and roll it out into a 12-13″ ish circle.

I have to tell you that this is the EASIEST time I’ve ever had rolling pie dough. It was almost as easy as if I were rolling play dough…. and there was no mess!  I didn’t have to flour my counter.  I didn’t have to flour my rolling pin.  I could pick it up and turn it by just lifting it up off the counter and yet, the plastic wrap kept it from sliding on my counter while I rolled. Genius. Really. The combination of rolling between plastic wrap and doing it before refrigeration?  I have no idea why I didn’t try this sooner.

Once you have it rolled out to the size you need, simply lift it off the counter and set it on a large baking sheet and now you can refrigerate it for about an hour or two.  (The first one I made actually sat in the fridge overnight because I got busy with other things. It was ready and waiting for me the next day.) When the hour or so is up, just peel the plastic off the dough and flip it onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Then you’ll fill it with your fruit filling.  Pie filling is another super easy thing to make, since it usually just involves the fruit, some type of sweetener, a thickening agent and flavoring, if you choose.  I just tossed my berries with sugar and flour, and added some lemon zest and juice.  I love how a little bit of citrus brightens up other fruits.

Pile the filling into the center of your dough circle.  Leave yourself a border of dough to work with, then just fold up the edges until you completely encase the filling.  Brush lightly with an egg, sprinkle with some coarse sugar and you are good to go.

In my Apricot Cherry Slab Pie post, I talk about perfect proportions of pie crust to filling.  This Blueberry Galette delivers on that for me.  Just enough buttery, tender, flaky crust to balance out the filling.  I also loved the crunch and added sweetness that the raw sugar topping added.  And it was pretty and a little sparkly as an added bonus.

So that’s it. No more lamenting over pie.  The saying “easy as pie” is no longer lost on me. This crust came together so easily, I felt like I could have made ten of them without so much as a sigh.  I pictured a stack of ready to go pie dough in my refrigerator/freezer.  I imagined pie as my go to dessert when I have company…I…I…I’m just happy that I made a pie this summer.  A Blueberry Galette.  It sounds so fancy for a rustic pie.

And mmmm… it was delicious.

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