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I absolutely love the gorgeous natural pink color of fresh rhubarb, and it makes an incredible pairing with sourdough! If you’ve got sourdough discard to use up and some stalks of rhubarb, it’s time to make this simple, free-form galette. Just a few minutes with the food processor and you’ll have a lovely tangy sourdough pastry that folds up easily around the sweetened softened rhubarb and bakes to a beautiful golden-brown.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe!
Sweet and Tart flavor – You know it’s springtime when the pretty pink stalks of rhubarb start to appear in gardens and at shops. The tartness of the rhubarb plays so nicely with the subtle tang of the sourdough discard, making this an absolute favorite seasonal dessert!
No Special Pastry Skills Required – I love how galettes are so forgiving, you just roll, fill and fold! The edges brown so nicely in the oven too. Perfect for beginners!
Uses up Lots of Sourdough Discard – This galette requires half the dough in my sourdough pie crust recipe, which uses up 200g of discard and is even simpler in a food processor! It’s the perfect recipe for when you find yourself with a surplus of sourdough starter or discard. I like to divide the dough in two, make one galette, and freeze the remaining dough so the next one is even easier!
Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour
- Unsalted Butter – You want cold butter for this recipe. I wrote the recipe with unsalted butter, but I always use what I have on hand, which is almost always salted butter!
- Sourdough Discard – Either sourdough discard or sourdough starter will work fine for the pie crust for this galette, it won’t affect the final outcome of the pastry.
- White Vinegar – Apple cider vinegar will work too.
- Salt
- Rhubarb – The filling of this galette is made from fresh spring rhubarb. Rhubarb is quite tart, so you’ll want a good amount of sugar to balance out the filling.
- Sugar – I’ve used 400g of regular white sugar in the filling and a coarse sugar for sprinkling on the finished pastry. The sugar for sprinkling can be white, brown or golden, and may be called turbinado sugar or demerara sugar, or sugar in the raw.
- Lemon – I’ve used zest and juice of half a lemon to brighten up the galette filling.
- Egg yolk -Whisk an egg yolk with a splash of water to create a golden egg wash. You’ll love how it creates a beautiful golden brown crust alongside the sprinkle of crunchy sugar to have your galette looking absolutely gorgeous!
How To Make A Sourdough Rhubarb Galette
This sourdough discard rhubarb galette is perfect to serve as dessert for guests or a casual sweet treat with the family. Eat it warm after it comes out of the oven or let it cool and take it to a springtime picnic or a friend’s house as a hostess gift. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of rhubarb syrup, you can’t go wrong!
To make the sourdough pie crust, put the flour, cold butter, sourdough discard, vinegar, and salt into a food processor. Blitz until the ingredients are fully combined and look like wet sand or breadcrumbs.
Alternatively, my sourdough pie crust recipe will show you how to rub the grated butter through the flour by hand, if you’d prefer.
Tip the rough dough out onto the counter and bring it together into a ball. Wrap the ball of pastry dough in parchment paper and squash it down into a disc shape. Place the wrapped disc into a resealable bag and place into the fridge to hydrate and chill.
Leave the dough for at least one hour and up to 48 hours.
While the dough is chilling, make the rhubarb filling. Slice the rhubarb into roughly 2cm-long pieces and toss with the sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest. Let sit for about 30 minutes, tossing again halfway through, so the rhubarb gets nicely coated and most of the juices leech out.
When you’re ready to assemble the galette, preheat your oven to 200ºC (390ºF) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Take the chilled dough out of the fridge and place onto a lightly floured work surface. Dust the dough lightly with flour and use a rolling pin to roll the dough out into a rough circle.
Kate’s Tip
Avoiding Soft Dough
If your pastry gets too soft during the rolling and folding process, you can transfer it to a piece of parchment paper and pop it into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes before putting it into the oven to bake.
You want the dough to be around ¼-inch thick (around 1/2 cm). It can get a little sticky, so don’t be afraid to use more flour if necessary.
Transfer the pastry to the baking sheet (it’s ok if it overhangs the tray as you’re going to fold it in). Scoop the rhubarb into the center of the pastry, leaving the juices behind in the bowl so the filling isn’t too wet.
Kate’s Tip
Got Extra Juices?
Save it in a small jar, it’s so good to drizzle over the finished galette or ice cream, or even stirring into sodas or cocktails. If there’s a lot of sugar that hasn’t dissolved, warm the rhubarb syrup in a saucepan or microwave until the sugar dissolves.
Arrange the rhubarb in a rough circle, leaving a roughly 5-cm/2-inch border of dough around the edges.
Fold the edges of the pastry in, overlapping a few times around the sides to create a round galette. Use a pastry brush to brush the edges of the dough with your egg yolk mixture and sprinkle with the coarse sugar.
Bake the sourdough rhubarb galette at 200ºC (390ºF) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the rhubarb is softened and tender.
Before serving, you can drizzle any remaining rhubarb syrup over the fruit filling. This galette is delicious warm or at room temperature, and my family loves scoops of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream alongside!
Flavor Variations
The tartness and incredible pink color of fresh rhubarb makes this one of my favorite galettes! But you might also love my sourdough strawberry galette, which is fantastic with ripe summer strawberries.
I love that galettes are so flexible and you can really use any fruit you like. Peaches, plums, blueberries, raspberries or cranberries all work really well too, so you can try any seasonal fruits you have available.
How To Store + Freeze
This easy sourdough discard rhubarb galette is best served fresh, so I typically bake it the day I plan to serve it. You can serve warm, straight out of the oven, or room temperature.
Leftovers are also delicious, so you can refrigerate this sourdough galette and serve it cold (perfect for a spring picnic!).
I don’t recommend freezing the baked galette, although the pastry can be wrapped and frozen and used at a later date.
Frequently Asked Questions
I love the crunch of large sugar granules on the pastry crust, but if you can’t find demerara sugar, sometimes called turbinado or sugar in the raw, you can also use a finer sugar. Another option to sweeten the crust is to brush the pastry with a seedless jam right after it comes out of the oven.
If you find rhubarb too tart, this tart is delicious with a strawberry-rhubarb filling. Swap 200g of the rhubarb for 200g of sliced strawberries and cut the sugar down to 100g, adding more as needed.
You can use a slotted spoon to scoop the rhubarb up out of the juices, or transfer the filling to a strainer placed over a large bowl. Don’t forget to save that delicious syrup for drizzling!
Sourdough Rhubarb Galette
Equipment
- Food Processor
- Zester
- Rolling Pin
- Baking Sheet
Ingredients
Pastry Crust
- 125 g All Purpose Flour
- 115 g Butter, cold and cubed
- 100 g Sourdough Starter, or discard
- 5 g White Vinegar, or apple cider vinegar
- 3 g Salt
Rhubarb Filling
- 400 g Rhubarb
- 120 g Sugar
- ½ Lemon, zest and juice
Topping
- 40 g Coarse Sugar, such as turbinado or demerara
- 1 Egg Yolk, beaten with a splash of water
Instructions
Make The Pastry
- Place all of the pastry ingredients into a food processor and blitz until the ingredients look like wet sand or bread crumbs. The butter should be blitzed all through the flour.
- Tip the rough dough out onto the counter and bring it together into a ball. Wrap the ball of pastry dough in parchment paper and squash it down into a disc shape. Place the wrapped disc into a zip loc bag and place into the fridge.
- Leave the dough a minimum of one hour to fully hydrate and become cold. You can leave the dough in the fridge for up to 48 hours before you use it.
Make The Filling
- Slice the rhubarb into roughly 2cm-long pieces and toss with the sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest.
- Allow this to sit for a minimum of 30 minutes to allow the rhubarb to become marinated and some of their juice to leech out.
Assemble The Galette
- Preheat your oven to 200ºC (390ºF) and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- When you are ready to make the sourdough rhubarb galette, take the dough out of the fridge and unwrap it. Dust the dough lightly with flour and use a rolling pin to roll the dough out into a rough circle. You want the dough to be around ¼-inch thick. It can get a little sticky, so don't be afraid to use flour as needed.
- Transfer the pastry to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (it's ok if it overhangs the tray as you're going to fold it in).
- Take the rhubarb and pour off as much of the juice as you can. Save the syrup in a small jar, you can use this to drizzle over the galette once it's baked.
- Now spoon the sweetened rhubarb into the center of the pastry, leaving roughly 2 inches/5 cm as a border around the edges.
- Now, fold the edges of the pastry in until you have a rough circle with a pastry edge, but you can still see the rhubarb in the center.
- Brush the sourdough discard rhubarb galette with your egg yolk mixture and sprinkle with the coarse sugar.
- Bake the sourdough rhubarb galette at 200ºC (390ºF) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the rhubarb is softened and tender.
Notes
- If you’d like, you can trim the rough edges of the pastry. I don’t bother though – I love how the galette looks rustic and the edges get browned and flaky in the oven!
- If your pastry gets too soft during the rolling and folding process, you can transfer it to a piece of parchment paper and pop it into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes before putting it into the oven to bake.
- I love the pink syrup left behind after the rhubarb sits with the lemon juice and sugar, don’t discard it! It’s so good for drizzling over the galette or accompanying ice cream, or even stirring into sodas or cocktails. If there’s a lot of sugar that hasn’t dissolved, warm the rhubarb syrup in a saucepan or microwave until the sugar dissolves.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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