September 2020 Entries

Nigellas description of 'A pizza style tart' were my inspiration to bake this blackberry galette at my home in Puglia, southern Italy. Using semola flour, the local golden, coarsely ground flour for the pastry together with butter it created the same crumbly but absorbent crust as polenta. Staying true to the Italian theme I used mascarpone cheese loosened with a little milk and flavoured with the zest of a very fresh lemon picked from the tree in my garden to replace crème fraiche, which is not readily available locally. Whilst it is approaching Autumn here, blackberries picked from the hedgerow are long gone, but the local market stall holder saved a punnet especially for me, provided I sent her a photo of the finished result and translated the recipe into Italian for her. I added a few blueberries too whilst making a mental note to make this with fresh figs next summer and one tomorrow with the 'prugne lungo' or long plums I saw on the market stall. I baked it for slightly longer than the 20minutes suggested and I glazed the edges of the pastry with some beaten egg and sprinkled a little of the sugar carefully on top to give the caramelised edged a little extra crunch. Photographed on my pizza board with some vine leaves to show off the glistening purple berries in the afternoon sun, it not only looks mouth-wateringly appetising, the flavour is divine. Buonissimo!