Oh English autumn! Every morning I wake up and get out of the house for some fresh air. I take a small container with me and within 5 minutes I have it full of blackberries. I must be turning purple from all the berries I’ve eaten! Yet they’re so good for you. I promise I’ll try making use of other ingredients in the next few weeks, though I am enjoying the abundance.
You can easily replace blackberries for any other fruit in this recipe, so just make use of what you have at home. For this messy looking sugar-free, vegan rustic blackberry galette I’ve used some elderberries too!
For a long time, I believed these little berries left after the fragrant elderflowers have long gone were inedible. How wrong I was! The elderberries are edible when picked ripe and then cooked. Sambucus Nigra is the variety of Elderberry that is most often used for health benefits as it is the only variety considered to be non-toxic even when not cooked, but it is still recommended to cook the berries at least a little to enhance their taste and digestibility.
Not only they’re packed with antioxidants, but they help lower cholesterol, improve vision, boost the immune system, improve heart health and for coughs, colds, flu, bacterial and viral infections and tonsillitis. Elderberries contain organic pigments, tannin, amino acids, carotenoids, flavonoids, sugar, rutin, viburnic acid, vitamin A and B and a large amount of vitamin C. They are also mildly laxative, a diuretic, and diaphoretic. Flavonoids, including quercetin, are believed to account for the therapeutic actions of the elderberry flowers and berries. According to test tube studies these flavonoids include anthocyanins that are powerful antioxidants and protect cells against damage. source
Now you may be wondering what’s with the galette? Well, that’s just a term used in French cuisine to designate various types of flat round or freeform crusty cakes, aka messy with a title! I love it!
As you may know, I try to defy the rules of baking and it’s often that I get burnt! Metaphorically 😛 I don’t use any of the classic ingredients and I alway try to make a recipe easier, tastier and healthier. As you know, you only get the successful ones here!
This galette and the little extra galettes on the side have been a beautiful surprise. The dough turned out crusty and filling, the berries are astringent and punchy and the apple-poppy-rose sauce that I served it with brought these babies home in no time.
In all fairness, if you can’t be bothered to roll this out and fill it like I did, you may treat it as a crumble and place the fruits first and the crumble on top. Either way, you’ll love it! Did I mention it’s sugar, dairy, gluten free? Oh yeah! Lentils again! I’m loving how versatile they are! And the toasted walnuts used in the crust are simply out of this world!
Let’s roll this!
INGREDIENTS
HOW TO
- Preheat the oven to 200C or gas mark 5
- Spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and pop the tray in the oven for 15 minutes. Turn the oven off after.
- In the meantime, if you’re starting from scratch and not using flours, in a food processor or high-speed blender grind up the lentils, coconut, flax and sunflower seeds. Transfer to a bowl.
- Once the walnuts are crunchy, transfer to a food processor/high-speed blender and grind them up into a flour. This will smell amazing, and if you go on for longer you end up with walnut butter (we don’t want that this time around).
- For this step you can either use your hands or continue with the food processor, not to get messy. Place all the crust ingredients in the food processor or a mixing bowl and add the room temperature coconut oil and melted cacao butter, baking powder, soaked chia seeds, bicarbonate, and salt, as well as the 2 bananas. Mix it all together until the bananas are broken and mixed in.
- With your hands, pack the dough into a ball and flatten it into a disc. Wrap in a plastic wrap and pop in the freezer while you make the fruit filling and serving sauce.
- Mix all the filling ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
- Blend all the serving sauce ingredients, if possible without any liquid until it’s all a creamy sauce, transfer to a bowl and set aside covered.
- Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 180C.
- On a flat surface, lay a sheet of baking paper and place the dough on it, covering with some foil. Roll the dough out into a 20 cm that’s 1 cm thick. Because of being gluten free the dough can easily break, so transfer the baking paper with the dough circle onto a baking tray. Kitchen ninja skills!
- Scoop the berry fruit filling into the center of the pastry. Gently fold the sides up and pinch together any gaps or cracks that may occur.
- Place the very rustic looking 😉 galette into the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Serve warm with apple-poppy-rose sauce on top and a cup your favourite tea, hot chocolate or coconut milk glass! Yum!
