My first galette of the year

In the first days of January, to mark the epiphany, French people eat a cake called une galette des rois (a kings' cake). When you buy one, it comes with a paper crown. Inside the cake is a little toy, usually a ceramic thing and these days it's often in the shape of a popular cartoon character. Whoever gets the slice with the toy (called a fève in French) is king for the day and gets to wear the crown.

The year's first galette. You can see the fève peeking through just to the right of center.

The cake is made with pâte feuilletée (flakey pastry) and is traditionally filled with frangipane (sweet almond paste). The galettes that the bakeries sell are very good, but they cost a small fortune these days, and the ones you find in the supermarkets just aren't very good at all. So a couple of years ago I decided to make my own.

The most time consuming part of the process is making the feuilletée from scratch. You can buy some already made, but I like doing it myself. I usually dedicate a day to making the dough, but I make enough to freeze and I get two or three galettes from it. I also make the frangipane, which is just ground almonds, eggs, and sugar. And, since I've saved the fèves from every galette we've bought in a bakery, I slip one of those inside my cakes.

I haven't made any pâte feuilletée yet this year because I had enough for one galette already in the freezer. So, on Monday I made one. I got a little carried away with the decoration on top and the fève actually ended up visible. No fun in that.

I'll be making more feuilletée later over the weekend and we'll eat at least a couple more galettes before the month is out. Here's a link to the one I made last year, with the recipe.