Method

Galette de Rois is a traditional French cake made to celebrate Epiphany on the 6th January. You might have had enough of rich cakes and puddings by that point in the year, but this is delicious and quick to make. It is worth holding off the diet for another day.

The cake is often decorated with a cardboard golden crown, presumably to represent the 3 wise men from the nativity story. The French often add small favours or trinkets that are baked into the cake. I am not sure that is necessarily a good idea, particularly if you want to avoid chomping down on a small ceramic magus!

The basic recipe is easily adapted. You could add small pieces of chocolate, candied fruit, chestnuts and other wintery gems. Just press them into the almond cream before sealing the pastry.

This is one of those recipes that is almost too good to only cook once a year. But I guess we all need something to look forward to.

1. Roll the pastry out into an approximate 20cm x 40cm oblong. The pastry needs to be 3-4mm thick. Once rolled out let the pastry rest on the bench for 5 minutes before cutting out the circles. This allows the gluten to relax. If you cut them straight away they will shrink once cut.
2. Cut out 2 circles. The base needs to be approximately 18cm in diameter. The lid needs to be 2cm wider in diameter than the base.
3. Once cut, let the circles of puff pastry rest again in the fridge for an hour or so. This will make assembly of the galette much easier.
4. For the filling: beat together the unsalted butter and icing sugar until smooth. Then add the rest of the filling ingredients, other than the apricot jam, and beat again until smooth.
5. Once chilled spread a layer of apricot jam on the bottom (18cm) disc of puff pastry but leave a 2cm margin around the edge of the disc. Then spread the almond cream mix over the top of the jam, again leaving a 2cm margin from the edge of the pastry.
6. Beat together the egg yolk, whole egg and cream to create the glaze. Lightly brush the glaze around the edge of the base pastry disc, covering the  cm margin you have left clear.
7. Place the larger pastry disc over the top of the mound of almond cream and line up the edges with the bottom.
8. Either crimp the base and top discs together with your fingers or seal the discs by pressing them together with a fork. Decorate the top of the pastry with curved cut lines moving from the centre to the circumference. Be careful not to cut through the pastry, you just want to lightly score the top.
9. Lightly brush the whole cake with the glaze.
10. Bake in a fan oven at 180C for approximately 25 minutes, or until the galette is an even light brown colour.
11. Serve with lightly-whipped double cream