The galette des rois, a cake that defies time!

You taste it every year but you don't know where it comes from. The Galette des Rois, a pastry steeped in history!

Tradition, the Galette des Rois through times

A week after celebrating the New Year, some Western countries celebrate: Kings Day and enjoy the galette de Rois.

It is considered a religious festival that symbolizes the arrival of the Three Kings to Jesus. This commemoration is inspired by ancestral traditions dating back to antiquity.

Celebrating the first Sunday of January, Epiphany: Kings Day, is associated with the Christian religion. But it is a much older tradition since it is in Rome that we find the first traces of the feast of kings.

 © Antoine-François Callet — http://elgloboenlaluna.blogspot.com/2012/12/felices-saturnalias.html, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32008455 

Every year at the end of December and the beginning of January were celebrated the Saturnalia, these took place in honor of the God Saturn, almighty master of the period of the winter solstice. The Saturnalia were the subject of an original ceremony during which the slaves were invited, a cake was shared according to their number.

A way to collect

Whether we celebrate the feast of Kings for religious reasons or not, it allows you to gather friends or family around a cake specially designed for the occasion.

Frangipane or Brioché

You will have the choice between two types of pancakes, either 'frangipane' or 'brioche'. Its appearance and recipe differ according to the French regions.

Watch out for the bean!

Avoid the party always enchanted young and old!

Did you know? At the time, the bean was really a legume.

 © Pixabay 

Frangipane pancake, the recipe

• 2 puff pastries

• 100 g of icing sugar

• 2 eggs ;

• 1 teaspoon of bitter almond

• 125 g almond powder

• 75 g soft butter

• 1 egg yolk

   

The preparation

• In a bowl, put the softened butter. Mix it with the icing sugar then add the ground almonds, then the eggs and finally the bitter almond

• Roll out a disc of dough. With a pastry brush, brush around 2 cm of egg yolk. Place the broad bean in the center then the frangipane

• Quickly cover with the second disc of dough and press down on the edges (gently). Fold back around 1.5 cm and press harder to join the two discs together

• Make crosses with the tip of a knife without crossing the dough and brush everything with egg yolk

• Bake in a hot oven for 40 minutes (thermostat 8)