La Galette des Rois

In France Epiphany is often celebrated with the Galette des Rois or King Cake - and this year I followed suit, making a simple but I think not inauthentic version of the puff pastry and frangipane confection. Living in the US for some years I was more aware of the alternate yeast-cake version popular in Louisiana. I understand that version derives from an alternate Gâteau des Rois more characteristic of Provence.

This Galette involves making a nut cream with roughly equal amounts of butter, sugar and ground almonds, and spreading it across most of the surface of a round sheet of pastry, then covering the whole with another sheet. The construction is basically that of a pithivier. By tradition a bean or trinket is included, bearing with it a variety of potential privileges and duties for the recipient (rounds of drinks, hosting the next party, king for a day, broken tooth etc etc).

I should note some departures from tradition in this version: while few will be surprised at my using puff pastry sheets, our household includes the lactose-intolerant and we substitute a (vegan) margarine called Nuttelex well-known to Australians. It is surprisingly successful in this recipe, as otherwise. We also, just as heretically I suspect, added some ground hazelnuts, and some ground apricot kernels which actually enhance almond flavour - these are the things often used to produce almond "essence".

The result here was acclaimed - so I offer the recipe more or less as we compiled it from other sources and put it into action.

Ingredients
2 sheets ready-rolled puff pastry
150g caster sugar
150g butter or margarine
150g almond meal or ground almonds
(US readers - 4oz is a little less but should provide sufficient filling)
1 egg, beaten

Method
Preheat oven to 220 C (200 fan forced). Cream 'butter' and sugar, then add ground almonds.

Place one sheet of pastry on a flat surface - if it has a plastic sheet interleaved in the package, place this down. Using a dinner plate or similar cut around to produce a circle as close to the full width of the pastry as you can. Cut the second sheet similarly and have ready.

Spread the filling evenly on the first sheet of pastry - the base - to within 3cm of the edge. Brush the exposed edge with beaten egg, then lay the second piece over it, pressing down at the edges to seal. The galette is traditionally decorated by scoring it with a spiral pattern radiating out from the centre, but there are many variations. Brush the top with beaten egg. It may be wise to pierce the top at one or two points.

Bake in the hot oven for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 180/160 (350F) for another 15 minutes but watch to be sure the pastry does not darken too much.

Qu'on trouve la fève au gâteau...