Thursday, January 6, 2011

Our Favourite Cake of these Holidays.....Galette des Rois


We ate the Galette des Rois a few years ago for the first time. It was at a house of one of our friends during the Epiphany. Since she is French, she invited us during that Epiphany to share some of her traditions. Immediately, we felt in love with the Galette des Rois.

 

It is full of marzipan with a crusty French puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) as a cover. It is a very easy cake when you can buy a good puff pastry, and that is what I always did. Nevertheless, this time the store where I buy the good puff pastry dough is not carrying that brand anymore, and I did not want to use a puff pastry full of transfat (when you read the labels the puff pastry that is sold is full of transfat) .....that was horrible!!

 


Because internet is always helpful, I found a good site with the recipe and a step by step demonstration of how to do a French pâte feuilletée (http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l/fr/recettes/pate_feuilletee_ill.html).




Although it was quite of work, the result was fantastic. The Galette des Rois disappear in less than 30 minutes......here at home are asking for more......

Puff Pastry (for a good step by step demonstration, please go to the site http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l/fr/recettes/pate_feuilletee_ill.html)
250 g of flour
125 g of water
5 g salt
185 g of butter
Mix the flour, salt and water. Make a ball, and let it rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Make a cross in the ball, open it, flatten the sides, and place the butter. Fold the butter, and start rolling the dough (mine was 55 cms length, 20 cms wide). Turn the dough to the right, fold the right side to the center first, then the left side. Roll it again (to be consistent with the thickness, I always did 55 cms length, 20 cms wide). Then, mark the dough with two fingers to know that it has “two rounds”. Let it rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Repeat the same procedure until it has “six rounds”.
When you are done, let it rest the dough for 30 minutes before making the Galette des Rois.

Making the Cross

Flatten the Cross
 Putting the Butter
 Folding it
 4 rounds
6 rounds


For the marzipan

150 grams of peeled almond
100 grams of powder sugar
1 egg
65 grams of butter (soft)
2 tablespoon of corn starch
2 teaspoon of almond essence

Grind your almonds until they are very fine, but not flour texture. Transfer it into a bowl, add the sugar and butter and beat it well with a fork. Add the egg, the corn starch and two teaspoons of almond essence. Test for density, and add more corn starch if needed.

Placing the Marzipan

With the Cover

Making the Design 


With Egg Yolk




And in less then 30 minutes.......is almost gone!!!


ENJOY!!

1 comment:

  1. no wonder you fell in love with this cake.
    Indeed, home made pastry requires lots of work but the final product tastes way much better.
    You did a wonderful job Marcela, thanks for sharing
    Hope you're having a wonderful day

    ReplyDelete