La Fête Des Rois (Three Kings Day)

Oh joy!

It's only my third post and I get a day to talk about two of my favorite passions: food and France. The dictionary describes passion as, among other things, "boundless enthusiasm". That pretty much sums up my thoughts on good foods and France; I could talk/share about them with boundless enthusiasm for hours.

In France, La Fête Des Rois or Three Kings Day is celebrated on the 6th of January. Just like those ingenious French, they took two holidays--the Roman "Les Saturnales" and the Christian tradition of "Epiphany" and created their own fête or celebration or party: La Fête Des Rois. Today, French families celebrate with a delicious  cake (made from almond meal and puff pastry) and by crowning a king or queen for the day.  The crowning of the king or queen comes when the cake is cut in pieces and each family member is served a piece; however, during the baking process of the cake a small object (crown or toy trinket) is placed in the filling of the cake.  The Roman tradition shows this to be a bean or féve. The one who is served the piece with the féve is crowned the king/queen.   To ensure that the baker doesn't cheat and serve herself (in this case!), the youngest will hid under the table and tell who gets each piece.  This is something that my youngest is looking forward to with much glee.

So, this afternoon, I gathered in the kitchen with my girls and made the cake.  It was a testament to my patience, my baking skills, and my metric conversions (since the recipe was in French--oui !). I must say that I was very happy in those moments--with my apron on and daughters near me eager to help out. Maybe I just might bake more often.  The cake baked nicely to spite the fact that I didn't seal the pastry pieces together very well and that I may have over done the quantity of the filling.  The egg wash gave the scored pastry top a nice sheen and the smell of almond sweetness filled the house.  The filling did ooze out a bit, but I just took that as extra artistic baking points.

Once the family was home, we sat around the kitchen table and got ready to crown someone.  While trying to keep to the festive and royal feel, I pulled out my Wedding China and used the platter to present the cake on.  My youngest did hide under the table and pieces were dispersed to everyone as she called it. Since it was a large cake, I was hoping that someone actually did get a piece with the small crown like charm that we put in it, as I didn't cut the whole thing.  And sure enough, my son discovered it in his piece shortly after starting to eat the cake.  A king was crowned!

The cake, still warm from the oven, tasted rich and delicious and the pastry flaky. I'll call it a success and will look forward to making the cake again next year, too.  As with the "Les Saturnales" festivals which represented a wish for health, prosperity and peace for all citizens, I too wish for that in this coming year.

~Reggie

Galette des Rois - recipe

INGREDIENTS

2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry 
140g ground almond (1 1/4 cups)
75g soften butter (1/2 cup)
80g sugar (2/3 cup)
3 eggs
1 yolk

Mix the butter and the sugar until the mix whitens, then add the beaten eggs and the ground almond, mix well.
In the middle of the first sheet of puff pastry, pour the mix. Lay the second sheet on top, and roll the sides of the sheets together towards the inside to seal the galette. 
With a knife, draw diagonal lines in both direction (so that they cross each other) to create the pattern. Then with a brush, spread the yolk on the whole cake to give it a golden colour. 
Put in an over for 30 minutes at 200 degrees (400 degrees F.)  Serve hot, but it is excellent cold too.