2023-01-14 - Galette des Rois

La Galette des Rois is a traditional French cake that is made and eaten once a year during Epiphany, in early January. The precise date should be the first Sunday of January after the New Year, but you can actually find it in stores and bakery all throughout January.

The name roughly translates to "King's cake" , but has nothing to do with the crown shaped multicolor king's cake that you might know.

It's actually a two puff pastries around an almond based filling, and it's delicious!

There is one charm (fève) inside the filling of the cake, usually in ceramic/porcelaine, and the one to get it within their slice become the king/queen. Sometimes it means that the queen has to bring the galette for the next occasion.

DISCLAIMER: it's the first time I have to cook it in the US, and for some reason we had to go through FOUR different grocery stores to find a single reference of available puff pastry. And it was square shared, instead of round. So this is a square shaped galette.

Ingredients

- 2 puff pastries

- 130g of almond powder

- 100g of sugar

- 70g of butter

- 2 eggs

- 1 almond (optional)

- rhum (optional)

Suggestion for next time: increase the almond powder and butter amounts (+30g for each?) to get more filling over the amount of pastry.

Pictures

I took one picture when it was out of the oven, and then kind of forget to take a nicer one before it was already half gone. Oops.

Out of the oven

Cut in half

Steps

0. Pre-heat the oven at 425F or 220C

1. Mix soft butter with the sugar together in a bowl

2. Add the almond powder and 1 whole egg and the white of the second

2 bis. You can optionally add a bottle cap of rhum

3. You should obtain a filling that's kind of thick

4. Lay out the first puff pastry

4 bis. You can press the almond (or a small porcelain charm) somewhere in the filling, but not in the middle.

5. Spread the filling on the pastry but keep 1+ inch / 2cm clear on the edges

6. With a brush put some room temperature water on the edges

7. Put the second puff pastry on top of it and used the moist edges to close it up as much as possible.

8. Make 4 small cuts on the top to let the air go.

8 bis. You can make some drawings with a knife on top of the dough without piercing it.