Queen of Patience: La Galette des Rois

The galette des rois, or kings’ cake, is one of my favorite desserts and French traditions. It’s basically a large almond croissant with a prize inside that you get to eat during the month of January. The only thing not to like is the insane 24+ hours required to make it.

A time-honored tradition in France, the galette keeps the holiday spirit, and perhaps weight, going into the new year. Beautifully flaky and buttery, it’s filled with an almond frangipane, and garnished with a hidden fève—a small ceramic figurine that if found in your slice, makes you king or queen for the day. The guillotine is left out of the tradition.

We would do the galette every year at home and in school. As the slices are cut, the youngest person goes under the table to avoid any fève sightings, and assigns the slices. The person who finds the fève is king or queen, and to add childish drama, must also choose a partnering king or queen. This was always the source of school snickers and gossip.

I have many fond memories of galettes throughout the years: paper crowns tucked away in drawers, kindergarten yearbook pictures with missing teeth, a box of saved fèves including a ceramic Vercingétorix, and casual trips to the boulangerie to eat in a minute what takes an eternity to make.

I am by no means a professional or an authority on galette making, but after a couple of disappointing galettes during the pandemic, I decided to give it a shot. With all this extra time at home, I’ve learned to put aside my excuses and claims of “better things to do.” Focusing on honing my patisserie skills during the pandemic has given me a renewed energy and challenged me to go beyond my comfort zones.

To prepare for making Ferrandi’s galette recipe, I binged Pierre Hermé’s Instagram live tutorials, oohing and aahing at his excellent crimping skills, and regaling in his wonderful tangents on the history of the French galette. That man is a national treasure.

I started by mixing the flour mixture with a little bit of butter and shaping it into a ball. Chill for 20 minutes. Then I got to bang 1+ (you don’t want to know) sticks of butter with my rolling pin between two sheets of parchment paper until it was soft enough roll, but without getting too soft. Very therapeutic. Then I rolled out the chilled dough, placed the butter on top of the dough, and wrapped the dough around it. Next, I rolled out the dough into a large rectangle (10 x 24 in) and folded the dough into three—that’s called a single turn. Then I rotated the dough 90 degrees, rolled it out again, and folded it in three—another single turn. Chill for 40 minutes. Did another two single turns. Chill for 40 minutes. Did a single turn. Divided the dough into 2 squares, folded the corners to the center, turned them over, and shaped them into two balls. Chill for 24 hours. Nothing to it.

Next came the frangipane. First I needed to make a crème patissière that I then added to the rest of the frangipane ingredients. The recipe called for pre-piping the frangipane, so I piped a disc, and gently laid the fève near the outside. Freeze overnight. Got nothin’ but time on my hands.

At the 24 hour marker, I rolled out the two balls and centered the frangipane disc on the bottom layer. Then I brushed water along the edges, pressed the second layer on top, and crimped the edges with my newfound knife-crimping skills. I flipped the galette over (not scary at all…), placed it on a baking sheet, and brushed on an egg wash. Chill for 30 minutes. All good things come to those who wait, right?

Finally, the time had come for baking. I plopped the galette into the oven and periodically (read: obsessively) checked on it through the glass as it baked. Bake for 45 minutes. While the galette was baking, I made a rum-infused glaze to give it a tasty sheen. When the bottom of the galette was browned like the top, I removed it from the oven, brushed it lightly with the glaze, and let it dry in the oven. Wait for 3 minutes.

In the end, I wasn’t the queen. Or not officially. I was certainly treated like royalty when I surprised my parents with a call announcing a galette waiting for them. And I felt pretty dang good about accomplishing a decent galette on my first try, but maybe that’s not what royalty is about. I won’t claim it was the best galette I’ve ever had, but it was better than the others I’d had so far in 2021, and that’s enough for me. The next day, I did a much-needed, albeit masked, 13 mile hike up Mount Tam where I declared myself Queen of Patience.