I'd promised Olivia that we would make a galette. So, when she brought it up again, we got cracking!! I prefer the ones made from brioche but because we needed to whip up one really fast, we made the puff pastry kind filled with almond cream.
And knowing Olivia , its not for eating, that she wants this cake but to find the 'bean' and be queen!
Let me explain... In France, it is tradition to make and serve this galette on the 6 January, the feast of the Epiphany, 12 days after the christmas festivities.
You then hide a small ceramic trinket inside the filling. Traditionally it was a dried bean to symbolise baby Jesus.
This year, we hid 2 almonds inside our galette. Whoever finds the bean in their slice, is crowned king or queen for the day.
In Britain the 12 night cake was like what we now call christmas cake. A dried bean (for the king) and pea ( for the queen) would be baked inside, waitng to be found! If a man got the bean, he would be king and if women found pea, she would be queen.
If a women found the bean, she could choose her king and visa versa.
I love doing these little things with my girls. Olivia looks forward to it every year. She also enjoys stuffing the dried fruits, apricot, figs, dates with marzipan and topping them off with a dried almond or walnut.
Mathilde is following in her footsteps with a love for baking and eating cakes, biscuits,anything really, especially if chocolate features in the recipe.
I now have the both of them with their fingers in the mixture, waiting anxiously for the cake bowl. And me asking myself ' why do I do this??' when I see the state of my kitchen and the two of them, covered in choco cake mixture.
Oh, it was Olivia who found the almond but only the next day and only after picking up the pastry and digging around in the filling. So she was queen and come to think of it, she always is!
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