Petit Riz

guest post by Emmanuelle Tang

My grandfather Pierre and his brother Léon always made it a point not to sell any ‘galettes des rois’ before the Epiphany Eve. They were both bakers in Cherbourg, Normandy, a city lost at the far end of the Cotentin Peninsula and famous for its umbrellas. In fact, they were running a quite successful family business. When I was around 5, while on holidays in Cherbourg, I remember watching an old videotape of the French news with my brother and cousins. We immediately recognized the man with the mustache on TV. It was our grandfather. The television report was explaining that the two brothers had become such successful bakers that they were exporting their baguettes to England. By plane. ‘Baguette planes’.

“And how do you say “pain” in English?” asked the journalist.
“Bread!” answered my grandfather proudly to the camera.

Our Papy was a star.

Today still, when I see the “galettes des rois” on display in bakeries around Christmas-time, I think of my grandfather and I can’t help but feel a twinge of exasperation. It is NOT the right time of the year, yet.

Anyway, now that Casper, Melchior and Balthazar have finally arrived, I give you the green light and my ultimate secret recipe to get the best “frangipane” (the almond filing inside the cake): And sorry, you will have to do the spoon and cups conversions yourself!

Ingredients:

75g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp. cornstarch
75g butter
100ml milk
2 small packets of vanilla sugar (or 1 tsp. vanilla extract)
125g almond meal
1 tbsp. rum
Two pieces of puff pastry
A trinket (whoever gets the trinket in his/her slice becomes the king/queen!)
1 egg white

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix the sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, milk and vanilla sugar. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and whisk on low heat until you get the consistency of mayonnaise. Turn off the heat, add the butter, almond meal and rum.

Spread the mixture over the first layer of puff pastry. Hide the trinket (not in the middle, rather on the side of the cake…) and cover with the second layer of puff pastry. Use the egg white to stick the edges of the two pieces of pastry together.

Brush with egg yolk or milk and bake for 40 minutes at 180 C° (356 F).

Usually a ‘galette des rois’ is round. In France, fresh puff pastry is sold in the refrigerated section of any supermarket in a round-shape, useful for making quiches or pies. I live in Germany, and I realized that German supermarkets only sell puff pastry in a rectangular form! So this year my galette was rectangular. It still tasted delicious though!