Pear Galette with Blackberries: Easier Than Pie

Ripe, sweet and juicy pears are baked onto a buttery dough with a vanilla scented cream cheese and joined by tart blackberries for a deliciously complex and rustic fall treat!

Why this Pear Galette Recipe Works

• Quick & Easy! Both the galette dough and the cream cheese filling easily and quickly come together in the bowl of a food processor.
• It's a rustic, free-form tart!!! Ya had me at free! And since the style of this dessert is rustic, perfection is not needed.
• Salt adds complexity and gently balances the sweet vanilla cream cheese filling.
• Concentration of flavor! The open center of the galette allows extra moisture to escape, concentrating the pear and blackberry flavor and keeping the crust from getting soggy.
• Perfectly shiny and golden galette! Thanks to using an egg wash.

What is a Galette?

A galette is pie's messier, more laid-back cousin. Open-faced – just dough folded up around whatever filling you've got, sweet or savory, baked until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling.

The French call it galette. The Italians call it crostata. Same thang, different accent.

The truly magical quality of a galette is that it's imperfectly perfect. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface – or don't even bother doing it in one piece. My favorite trick: lay parchment on a tart pan and build the crust directly on it, piece by piece, pinching the dough together with your fingers until it holds. No one will ever know. Pile on the filling, fold the edges over, sprinkle with sugar, and bake. Same technique every season. Change the filling, keep the method.

How to Make this Pear Galette

Pulse dough ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and let rest in the fridge, at least 2 hours and up to 3 days. Make the vanilla cream cheese filling in the bowl of a food processor. Roll dough out on a buttered baking sheet. Top with cream cheese mixture. Arrange sliced pears and blackberries on top. Fold dough edges in around pear/cream cheese mixture, brush edges with egg wash and bake.

Cooks Tips

• Letting the dough rest is non-negotiable.
• For tender rather than mushy pears, use varieties such as bosc, Seckel or slightly unripe anjus.
• For best, creamiest results, remember to let your cream cheese come to room temperature before whipping.
• Leftover galette will keep up to 3 days in the fridge and is great for breakfast!

*This recipe is sponsored by Rodelle Vanilla. All the views in it are my own.

Print Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Pear Galette with Blackberries

Ripe, sweet and juicy pears are baked onto a buttery dough with a vanilla scented cream cheese and joined by tart blackberries for a deliciously complex and rustic fall treat!

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Californian

Servings: 8

Author: Daniela Gerson

Ingredients

For the Crust

• 1 cup all-purpose flour plus more for surface
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 6 tbsp chilled unsalted butter cut into pieces
• 1 large egg beaten to blend
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Vanilla Cream Cheese

• 8 oz cream cheese room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 egg yolk save egg white for egg wash

For the Galette

• 3 pears, firm but rip preferably Comice or Anjou
• 1/2 cup blackberries
• 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp butter melted (+1 teaspoon for buttering baking sheet)
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• Pinch flaky sea salt

Instructions

To Make the Dough

• place the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse a few times to mix. Scatter butter chunks into bowl, add gourmet vanilla extract paste and pulse until the butter is the size of peas. With the machine running, pour the beaten egg down the feed tube and pulse the machine until the dough begins to form a ball. Take the dough of out the food processor, roll into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill until firm, at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.

To Make the Vanilla Cream Cheese:

• In the bowl of a food processor fitted with steel blade combine the room temperature cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk, gourmet vanilla extract bean paste and a pinch of salt until it forms a smooth mixture. Save the egg white to brush
• over the crust just before baking.

To Make Galette

• Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.
• Cur the pears in half through the stem end. Thinly slice off the cores and any seeds.
• Thinly slice the pear vertically, stopping about ½ inch from the stem so the pear slices stay attached at the stem end. Set aside.
• Cut black berries into rounds. Set aside.
• Lightly flour a clean work surface. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and roll it into a 14-16-inch circle. The dough may seem a little stiff soften as you work it and it warms up. Keep your work surface dusted with flour as you roll the dough to keep it from sticking.
• Butter a large baking sheet. Transfer the rolled dough onto the buttered baking sheet (you can either roll or fold the dough to transfer without ripping). Spread the vanilla cream cheese mixture over the center of the circle, leaving about
• 2-inches of bare dough around the outside edge. Fan the pears in a decorative pattern on top of the vanilla cream cheese, cutting the pear halves in half vertically if necessary, to make them fit. Sprinkle blackberry rounds over pears. Fold the edges of the dough up and over the filling, forming loose pleats all around the edge and leaving the center open.
• Whisk remaining egg white and using a pastry brush, brush the edges of the galette with this egg wash.
• Melt remaining tablespoon of butter. Brush melted butter over pears and blackberries.
• Sprinkle galette crust and fruit topping with tablespoon of brown sugar.
• Bake the galette until the pears are tender when pierced with a knife and the crust is golden brown, 50 to 55 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Notes

• Letting the dough rest is non-negotiable.
• For tender rather than mushy pears, use varieties such as bosc, Seckel or slightly unripe anjus.
• For best, creamiest results, remember to let your cream cheese come to room temperature before whipping.
• Leftover galette will keep up to 3 days in the fridge and is great for breakfast!

More Galette Recipes

Same dough, same fold, different filling — strawberries, blueberries, all the berries, and peaches in summer, rhubarb and strawberry rhubarb in spring, apples in fall, tomatoes when you want to go savory. Once you've made one galette, you'll know how to make them all.

If ya tried this pear galette, I’d love to hear – leave a comment below and tag me on IG, @danielagerson, so I can see too!

If you enjoyed this recipe, explore more seasonal recipes and colorful produce guides here on the site — there's plenty more inspiration waiting for you.

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