Celebrating the 3 kings with a Galette des rois

 

What I love about living in England, is discovering all of the cultural things that are different from home. I have been here for a while and I feel like I am pretty spot on with my English traditions now 🙂 Why am I saying this? It is because I am delighted to be able to share with you some of my french traditions, starting with the Galette des Rois.

You might have seen it at some french bakeries around this time of the year. Well, in France, it is essentially the only cake you can buy at the time of the year in our bakeries. But why?

It is originally a Catholique tradition that is now more cultural than religious. But in a sentence, we are celebrating the three kings the first weekend of January. And to do so, we are eating a galette made with puff pastry and mostly filled with frangipane with a fève (porcelain bean) for the king or queen to find.

Obviously as a kid, the only reason you stuffed yourself with 2 or even 3 pieces of the galette was to find the fève and be the queen of the day! My family tradition was for the youngest kid to go under the table, and to decide which piece of galette goes to who. No cheating!

Even if it is still fun to find the fève, I now make and eat galette des rois simply because it is delicious! Puff pastry plus buttery frangipane, heaven. (I have made the puff pastry but I won’t judge if you use ready made pastry, I do it sometimes too 😉 )

 

Quantity: 8 inches pie

Utensils: Electric stand mixer with a dough attachment, mixing bowl, baking tray, sharp knife, rolling pin

Difficulty:

Ingredients

Puff Pastry

• 350g of french cold butter
• 500g of plain flour
• 75g of melted butter
• 100g of water
• 1 tsp of salt

Frangipane

• 100g of melted butter
• 100g of icing sugar
• 100g of grounded almond
• 1tsp of rhum
• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk

Method

*** For help in videos on how to make the puff, click here***

1* Make the puff pastry: Melt the 75g of butter and add to the cold water. Reserve. In a bowl of the electric mixer, add the flour and salt and mix. Add 3/4 of the butter/water mix and mix on medium speed for 2 min. Add the rest and mix again for another minute until it forms a bowl. Using a sharp knife, make a cross on the top, cover with cling film and keep in the fridge for 30min.

2* Tour the pastry: Put the cold butter in between 2 sheets of baking paper and make a 1cm thick 12cm square. Keep in the freezer for 5min. In the meantime, take the dough that was in the fridge, and make a big square of 40cm by 40cm. Place the cold butter inside and use the dough to cover the butter and make a little pocket and turn upside down. Using a rolling pin, roll out a long triangle (60cm long) and then fold the top of the rectangle to the middle of it, and do the same with the bottom and place it on top. (You should have 3 layers now). Turn it upside down, and twist it 90 degrees and roll again a long rectangle and fold the same. Cover with cling film and reserve in the fridge for 30min. Do the same twice before using.

3*Make the frangipane: Melt the butter and add the rest of the ingredients. Reserve.

4* Assemble: Take the pastry and cut it in 4. Take one ball, and make a circle of 8 inches using a rolling pin. Do the same twice. Spread the frangipane on one of the pastry sheet leaving 2cm free and add the porcelaine bean. Cover these 2cm of pastry with egg wash and place the second sheet on top.

5* Finish the galette: Pre heat oven at 180C. Make sure the side of the pie are really sealed together and brush with egg wash. Bake for 45min at 180C fan oven.