Gluten-Free Strawberry Balsamic & Thyme Galettes

Sweet strawberry balsamic and thyme galettes wrapped up in a flakey buttery gluten-free crust. Spring’s juiciest fruit gets a tangy bump from a toss of balsamic paired with a herbal notes from fresh thyme. Best served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a spring dessert. 

Seeing spring’s first ripe red strawberries at the market puts me in a dramatically happy mood. I’m currently racking my brain to think of a dessert strawberries don’t belong in – can you? I can’t think of a single dessert where strawberries wouldn’t be welcome to the party (maybe something coffee flavored? But that’s a questionable dessert, in my opinion).

For me, “put strawberries in it” is my dessert equivalent to “put a bird on it” – spruce it up, make it delicious! First up for strawberry season, I’ve made these mini strawberry balsamic and thyme galettes in partnership with OXO.  These galettes are the first in a three-part series that will show off how I use OXO’s kitchen tools every. single. day. in my baking and cooking. I’ll also show off a few extra special new-to-me tools that will soon join the ranks of go-to favorites, such as the silicone dough rolling bag used to make perfect 6-inch pie rounds.

These individual galettes feel like just the right spring transition into strawberries: It’s cool enough outside that you still crave a warm roasted dessert and you don’t even mind turning on the oven. I considered adding chocolate to these strawberry balsamic galettes in place of the thyme, but decided to keep it brighter and lighter for the time of year. Instead, fresh thyme adds herbal notes and the berries get a zingy tang from balsamic – the additions are subtle to let the strawberries pop.

This recipe calls for 1.5lbs of strawberries, which leaves half a clamshell for snacking while you prep. You’re welcome. Like pitting cherries, hulling this many strawberries can seem daunting. Let me first preface this by saying: I’m very particular about single-use kitchen gadgets – my drawers are already cluttered enough as it is – but this tiny strawberry huller saves me so much time. Even if I was being lazy and just cutting the ends off with a paring knife, the huller still wins.

A flakey flavorful gluten-free crust pleats around these jammy roasted strawberries. I used to be super intimidated by gluten-free baking, until I discovered the power of a good kitchen scale. With so many different flours going into one pastry, there’s a lot of moving parts for how you measure and using a scale helps you consistently create delicious baked goods. And truth be told, I’m a little lazy and using a scale let’s me measure things out so much quicker while thinking less about what I’m doing. Have you ever started thinking about that one friend from high school and whatever happened to them mid-measure only to snap back to reality, having forgotten how much sugar you’d already added? Yeaaahhh…that’s me.

This silicone dough rolling bag is a new-to-me baking tool that I was very skeptical of and now am completely sold on using. Basically, you plop your dough into the center of the bag with a little bit of flour for good measure and roll it out while the bag  guides you to creating a perfectly round dough with the dimensions you want. This is especially great if your recipe calls for quickly rolling out eight rounds of pie crust for galettes. Plus you save on wasted parchment paper you may have used to roll out the dough – the dough rolling bag acts as a non sticking surface much like parchment paper. Alanna and I were also thinking you could chill your dough right in the bag to minimize plastic wrap too. When you’re done, just rinse and repeat.

The day I first made these galettes, Zoella spotted the bright red pastry from across the room as soon as she got home, “I want to eat that!” How do kids know dessert is delicious just by sight? What is it in our brains that tells us what dessert is? She’s not seen very many desserts, yet somehow she knew these bright red galettes were something delicious. In stark contrast, I spend a good chunk of dinner every night convincing her to take a bite literally any vegetable.

So I did what any self-respecting parent would do, I bribed her with it, which she consequently earned.

Then she took one nibble and requested I take off all the cooked strawberries. She ate crust for dessert, which is fine by me, because the jokes on her: the sugar was in the filling. Also, in case you’re wondering, this pie crust is apparently delicious enough on its own.

I, on the other hand, highly recommend the strawberries balsamic & thyme filling.

OXO tools & gadgets seen in this post: Silicone Dough Rolling Bag | Stainless Steel Measuring Spoons | Non-Stick Rolling Pin | Multi-Purpose Scraper & Chopper | 1″ Pastry Brush | 11lb Glass Scale | Non-Stick Cooling and Baking Rack | Strawberry Huller | Non-Stick Half Sheet Jelly Roll Pan

Head over to OXO’s blog to see more pictures of the tools in action!

Disclosure: Special thanks to OXO for providing the tools shown above and sponsoring this post! And thanks to you for supporting the companies that keep Snixy Kitchen cooking!