Making the classic French Galette des Rois is easier than you think

A few years ago, I was a young pastry chef working the early morning shift when a fellow baker offered me a slice of galette des rois – the cake of the French kings – to go with my cup of coffee. A layer of fragrant almond cream scented with rum was generously placed between two layers of crispy, golden puff pastry, and as is customary in France, the baker pinched a small bean, walnut or porcelain charm into the filling. In northern France, families gather to enjoy galette des rois together on Epiphany on January 6, the celebration of the meeting of the three wise men, or three kings, with the baby Jesus.

“According to tradition,” writes journalist Ajesh Patalay in Financial Times“The youngest and most innocent in the room (not always the same) crawls under the table and chooses who gets each slice.” Whoever gets the little trinket will be the ruler for the day. In the south of France, the tradition is somewhat different: bakers make gateau des rois from dough similar to brioche, then top it with granulated sugar and candied fruit. (In French, galette means a round, flat pastry, while gateau typically means a leavened cake.) Gateau is much closer to the colorful, cinnamon-scented confections eaten in New Orleans and southern Louisiana from Midsummer to the height of Carnival season. On Mardi Gras.

Although the origins of the galette des rois are obscure, the pastry is said to have its roots in the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. “Saturnalia was an occasion when many social hierarchies were overturned; slaves in particular were given temporary freedom and invited to share the cake with their slaves,” the encyclopedia says. Britannica notes. “A king of taunts, so-called Prince Saturnaliuswhich was designated for the festival, usually by hiding a fava bean or a coin in a cake.” Sometime in the Middle Ages, people started making the cake for the Epiphany, a tradition that continues to this day.

Many French families choose to buy galette des rois, but you'll probably have to make it yourself if you don't live in France or near a French bakery. Fortunately, it is not difficult to make: all you need is a little almond cream, which is quickly put together with the help of an electric mixer, and a store-bought puff pastry. Here's how.

How to make Galette des Rois: key techniques

Let's make a delicious almond cream. Since galette des rois is so simple and comes with just two ingredients – almond cream and puff pastry – it's worth taking the time to make a truly delicious almond cream. I'm using our contributor here Zola Gregory's almond creamwhich gets its bold flavor from toasted almond flour and a mixture of almond extract, vanilla extract and brandy or rum. (You may see this almond cream called “frangipane” in other recipes, but frangipane is technically a combination of almond cream and pastry cream.)

Use all-butter puff pastry. Making your own puff pastry from scratch is admirable, but there are good store-bought options that will do the trick. Just be sure to use puff pastry made with butter, which will have a richer, more pleasant flavor than pasta made with soybean, canola, or other neutral oils. Dufour is an all-butter puff pastry brand that we love and used in my tests.

Use edible trinkets. In France, dried beans or porcelain charms are traditionally hidden in the galette. Some bakeries even nest a plastic figure in the filling. As a precaution, I prefer to use nuts like almonds or hazelnuts, which are completely edible and will soften in the filling as the pasta cooks, minimizing the risk of choking.

Keep the dough as cold as possible. This recipe has plenty of refrigeration and freezing time, and that's not a mistake. Keeping the galette cold does two things: it helps the gluten relax, which minimizes the risk of shrinkage when the dough is baked. Refrigeration also ensures that the butter stays solid. As the dough cooks, the butter melts and small pockets of steam are created, which help the dough rise and come together into crispy, flaky layers.

Start cooking at high temperature. For the fluffiest galette, I start baking the pastry at a high temperature: 400ºF/205ºC. It may seem counterintuitive—after all, the goal has always been to keep the butter as cold as possible—but many bakers use this technique to help melt the butter in the pastry quickly, creating the steam needed for crispiness. layers that I mentioned above and helps bind the crust.

Using the above tips, you can make a bakery-worthy galette des rois. And even if you're not the lucky winner, eating a slice of this pastry will definitely make you feel like royalty.

Cooking method
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