It's tradition, on January 6th, we celebrate "Epiphany", the arrival of the three Wise Men to the Manger. We eat a special cake made with puff pastry and filled with almond cream or franchpane, a mix of almond cream and pastry cream. Inside the cake, a "fève", in my case a whole almond. Whoever gets it is king or queen for the day. It is a cute and fun celebration to do with friends or family.
This year, I had to make two "galettes", one for the family, of course, and one for a group of friends (French, Belgian and American). So, I decided to tackle the puff pastry from scratch instead of using the frozen stuff I've been using up until now. I was really afraid of that puff pastry, having heard it was so difficult and long to make.
The idea was to make both galettes from scratch, although I did have a pack of frozen puff pastry as a back up. Turns out, I made one of each.
The idea was to make both galettes from scratch, although I did have a pack of frozen puff pastry as a back up. Turns out, I made one of each.
First of all, for the puff pastry. I found this recipe for an easy puff pastry recipe and believe me, it was easy. Yes, a bit time consuming, but not as much as it normally is. And the result was a flaky puffy pastry, although not as puffy as the frozen ones. Most of the pictures (except one) on this post are of the frozen puff pastry one, I'll explain below.
For the almond cream recipe that I've been using for a few years, I use this recipe. Now, note that although the title of the recipe mentions franchpane, it is not actually franchpane. It is a very good almond cream and I think I will keep it for pie fillings (to use with fruits). It is a bit drier than the franchpane and not as sweet (although still sweet). It looked really good with the puff pastry, didn't it? It tasted good too.
For the franchpane, I used this recipe. I discovered this blog at random and thought these individual galettes were just adorable. Please note that I made a HUGE rookie mistake while putting together my galette. Although the author of the recipe mentions that there will be more franchpane than needed, I thought it was because she was serving individual cakes. So, I used ALL the filling on my galette... I don't know what I was thinking but it resulted in lots of filling slipping out of the galette during baking (fortunately not the part with the whole almond), which in the end gave me a very lopsided and not very attractive galette. HENCE the lack of pictures. So, note for the future, there is enough cream here for TWO galettes. However, both the puff pastry AND the filling tasted fantastic!
Note that this puff pastry did not rise as much as the frozen pastry. Well, it did rise more than the picture shows but got flattened in the cutting. Only future experiments will tell if it was a problem and if it is due to user manipulation...
When tasting both galettes together, the one made completely from scratch and with franchpane is the winner hands down. It is really THE one for me now...
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