Happy Epiphany... a little late..

I made something yummy this weekend. ( I think all blogs should start with "I made something yummy". Wouldn't that be wonderful?) Like I said before, John and I are trying our hand at as many french dishes as possible while we are here. We are also trying our hand at as many stinky cheeses and wine as we can while we are here as well.. but that is for another day.

The recipe I tried this weekend is a very classic french dessert made in January of every year called a galette des rois. It is very time consuming, very rich, and very worth every bite. I will try to give a little bit of background. The translated name is a king cake. I am sure most of you have heard of this around carnival time in New Orleans. Here, it is used to celebrate Epiphany- when the wise men (or three kings) came to see Jesus. A favor is baked into the cake and whomever eats the piece with the favor is the King or Queen of the day. (They also have to buy a cake for the next day. Whomever receives the favor that day is the King of the day and must buy the next cake. And so it continues for the rest of the month. The French know how to celebrate) To make sure that all is fair, the youngest in the family will hide under a table while it is being sliced and decide who gets each piece. It is all very exciting I'm sure- John and I just ate cake.

Here is a photo spread of the whole process- it took about 2 days.

This is what the filling looks like right after you make it! Full of butter, ground almonds, vanilla, sugar- yum! It is refrigerated for several hours before you move on to the next step... which is....


Filling up the puff pastry! Then of course you have to add the top layer of pastry, make it pretty, add an egg wash and it turns out looking a little like this:


It was recommended with the recipe I used to freeze the whole thing overnight because it makes the puff pastry "puff" more. So, the next afternoon I took it out of the freezer and baked it. This is the finished product.



Tadaa! Beautiful huh? I had to try a piece. And I kind of forgot to take a picture before. oh well!

This is a great example of french food and the celebrations that go with it. Very, Very fun. Hope you all enjoyed looking at the pics.. now.. I think I will go have a piece!

Recipe taken from here. I did make a few small changes to the filling- if you actually want to try your hand at it, just ask!