Saturday 7 January 2017

French life, how it's done



Galette des Rois - The French tart with a charm

Hello Dear Readers,

I write to you today about the Galette des Rois, this is traditionally a frangipane cake which always includes a paper crown, it is usually eaten on 6th January for Epiphany, this however is not a bank holiday so the actual feast day occurs on the first Sunday of January (unless it falls on the 1st,) then it goes to the next Sunday.
So you guessed, it will be tomorrow.


Normally this galette it made from Frangipane and puff pastry ( Pate Feuillettee)
But the one in the picture is brioche with bits of chocolate, so I guess it is more like a giant pain au chocolat, yummy yummy.

According to tradition the cake must be cut into enough slices so that each person gets a slice and a few more in case of unexpected guests, Here they have a gadget that you sit on top of a cake or gateaux and it allows you to cut equal sized slices, there will be a small figurine baked into the cake and the person who gets this figurine in their slice will have good luck for the year and becomes the king or queen for the day, wearing the crown provided, it is a good party game and the French love their party games, in order for it to be fair a child must sit under the table and shout out the names of everyone there and a slice is presented to that person. it would be very unusual for there not to be a child present as this is a family affair and the children are always involved as they are always well behaved, maybe this is why they grow up into such nice rounded people. when you think about it, if you send children to bed while you are having fun what does that say to the child,  interesting.!

Here is a video link so you can see how its done.
http://www.commeunefrancaise.com/galette-rois/

Happy l'Epiphanie to all.

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until next time peeps