Galette des Rois French Epiphany Cake

Today’s recipe is possibly the only one I can think of that requires an item of clothing or an accessory to accompany it. France’s Galette des Rois is traditionally served on January 6 for the Feast of the Epiphany marking the end of twelve days of Christmas.

It comprises two puff pastry layers with a filling of frangipane topped with a shiny sugar glaze. Traditionally a coin or china trinket is hidden in the Galette and whoever wears it is king for a day wearing the gold paper crown. In France you can buy these crowns but I had to make my own out of left over wrapping paper.

The galette is very very easy to make although I had a little trouble with the glaze. Possibly I will be spending some of my Christmas Amazon credit from my father on a cook’s blow torch. Jamie had warned that the icing sugar glaze had to be watched like a hawk lest it suddenly burn… after the prescribed five minutes I kept testing mine every 60 seconds but by the time areas were on the cusp of smoking, there were still some patches of un-caramelized icing sugar.

A quick carefully directed blast would have sorted it all out.

Getting the crown to stay on Ted’s head took a while. We had lots of shots like this one before I managed to catch him keeping still long enough to show him with it on his head.

I’m still enjoying my blog break so there’s no printed recipe today.

I hope everyone is enjoying the new year… I am reading even if I’m not posting so much this month. Hopefully soon I will be able to unveil my new Recipe Index. Wishing you all the best of luck with your new year projects and I hope to see you all here again soon.

You’ve had the French Three Kings Cake, now try Spain’s equivalent, Rosca de Reyes which is also served for Epiphany on 6 January.