Galette Des Rois, Epiphany Cake, A Delight Throughout January
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Our Top Pick Of The Week is the first “official” cake of the New Year. Galette des Rois, or Epiphany Cake. You can probably pick one up from your nearest French bakery, or order online from any number of sites, including The French Confection and Goldbelly. At Goldberry the Galette des Rois, from Chef Daniel Boulud, is shipped uncooked and frozen and you bake it yourself. How’s that for a “homemade” masterpiece (photo #2)? Celebrated on January 6th, Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas season (it’s the twelfth day of Christmas) and the beginning of Carnival (which concludes with the beginning Lent). It’s a religious feast day commemorating the arrival of the Magi (the Three Kings, les trois Rois in French) in the Bethlehem manger, bearing gifts for Baby Jesus. The terminology can get confusing to those not schooled in the tradition. To recap: Yes, you can eat Galette de Rois for the entire month of January. It’s a great occasion to invite people over for coffee and cake. You may read that the tradition of Galette des Rois dates back to the Roman times when festivals were organized to honor the gods. Ahem: Neither Jesus nor the three Wise Men existed then, so the source of a feast to commemorate them is a [big] stretch. However, it can be said that some Christmas traditions and customs do stem from the pagan Roman festival of Saturnalia, which honored the god Saturn, whose reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace [source 1, source 2]. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Rome, it adopted pagan traditions to make Christianity more accessible and appealing to potential converts. Some sources say that the French have been serving up Galette des Rois since the 13th or 14th-century [source 1, source 2]. It was initially known as Gâteau des Rois. Note that a gâteau is a raised cake, whereas a galette is generally flat, crusty and often filled. The style, the terminology, or both may have changed over time. Purportedly, the dessert was created to honor the three kings who traveled thousands of miles to visit the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. But, says master French pâtissier Raymond Blanc, OBE (Order of the British Empire), “this story is a load of old baloney!” (Here’s M. Blanc’s recipe for Gateau des Rois [photo #1]). It was really created in more modern times, says Blanc, the chef patron at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, a hotel-restaurant in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, England. The inventor was an enterprising French pâtissier who saw the income opportunity. However, we couldn’t verify either story. Later, Spanish and French settlers brought the Galette des Rois to America, where it may have inspired the Mardi Gras King Cake [source]. Regardless of the origin story, Galette des Rois has turned into a traditional party dessert. Children eagerly await finding the charm (fève‡‡) hidden in the filling. Whoever gets the slice with it becomes the King or Queen for the day, and everyone else must obey their commands. The galette is a frangipane* pithivier†. The latter is a pie made from two disks of flaky puff pastry (pâte feuilleté) surrounding a filling, sweet or savory†. Galette de Rois is filled witn frangipane, almond cream. Rustic tart: Pastry aficionados may think of a galette as a rustic pie or tart filled with fruit or vegetables (asparagus, mushrooms, or tomatoes, e.g.—photo #7). This galette, often referred to as a fruit galette, was originally made before the existence of pie plates when the crust was folded up and pleated by hand. Buckwheat crêpe: In Haute-Bretagne (Upper Brittany, France), the Galette Bretonne is a buckwheat crêpe loaded with savory fillings (photo #8). Galette des Rois from Northern France (photos #1 and #5) is a flat, circular cake, a combination of pâte feuilleté (puff pastry) and frangipane filling. In fact, the term galette evolved from the Old French galete and gale in the Norman dialect, meaning a kind of flat cake. Southern Galette des Rois: In the south of France, in Provence, the recipe is different: It’s an orange blossom-flavored, brioche-style cake covered with candied fruit and a sprinkle of pearl sugar (photo #6). This style can also be found in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Variations: Today, pâtissiers across France make their own versions of the traditional galette, from Pierre Hermé’s rice pudding and caramel galette to others covered in edible gold dust [source]. Check out the shapes in photos #9 and #10. There’s also a galette with a shortbread crust instead of puff pastry, popular in Western France [source and a chocolate-pear recipe]. Some pastry chefs switch out the frangipane for apple, caramel, chestnut, pistachio, or raspberry filling [source]. Here’s a recipe for a chocolate-pear and raspberry galette. Pastry chef Cédric Grolet at the Meurice in Paris topped the crust with a mix of 10 different organic grains and seeds (white, red and black quinoa, pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds, almond, kasha, blond and brown linen seeds). Some depart totally, like the Mille-Feuille des Rois from Pierre Marcolini, who presents a square shape made with cocoa puff pastry, and a filling made with grand cru chocolate and hazelnut praline. On a more tame note, some chefs like Dominique Costa at the Péninsula in Paris top the puff pastry with crunchy slivers of roasted and caramelized almonds and hazelnuts, with slivers mixed into the frangipane. Oh là là! And Pierre Hermé, who can be extremely creative, garnishes some of his traditional galettes with simple glazed apple slices (photo #5). Other versions of the Galette des Rois are made in Belgium, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland. Pies are baked in a sloped pie pan, either open face or with a top crust. Both variations have crimped edges. flaky shortcrust pastry Galettes are free-form (i.e., formed by hand), and baked on a baking sheet. The edges of a fruit galette are folded up over the filling, leaving a wide opening of filling at the center. Galette de Rois from northern France, however, takes the form of a large, flat, round, filled, pastry, not what we think of as a conventional pie. Tarts are baked in a special pan, usually fluted with a removable bottom so they can easily be unmolded before serving. Here’s more on the differences between cakes, gateaux, tortes, tortas, and tarts. Note that relatively recently, the terms pie and cake were used interchangeably. A prominent example is Boston Cream Pie, which is a layer cake. > The different types of pastry. > The different types of pies and pastries: a photo glossary. > The history of Galette Des Rois. †A pithivier is a round, enclosed pie made from two disks of puff pastry, with a filling stuffed in between. The top has the appearance of a hump and is traditionally decorated with spiral lines drawn from the top outwards with the point of a knife, plus scalloping on the edge. It is named after the French town of Pithiviers, assumed to be the origin. The pie is traditionally finished with an egg wash shine to the top of the crust, or by caramelizing a dusting of confectioner’s sugar at the end of baking, or both. The filling of the pithivier is often frangipane (sometimes combined with fruit such as cherry or plum), but savory pies with vegetable, meat or cheese filling can also be called pithivier [source]. |
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‡The protocol is this: The galette is cut into as many slices as there are people present, plus one extra slice. This extra slice is called the part du Bon Dieu (God’s slice), the part de la Vierge (the Virgin Mary’s slice), or the part du pauvre (poor man’s slice, offered to the poor). ‡‡The fève: Here’s more about the feve, an essential part of a Galette des Rois. Centuries ago, at the beginning, an uncooked bean was baked into the galette. Wealthier families used a gold coin. In more recent times, the fève has become a charm of baby Jesus or another cultural representation, from a tiny race car to a cartoon figure.
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