Click HERE for the recipe
Tomorrow is the festival of Epiphany, which means one important thing for most French people: let's eat some galette des rois (king cake)! The most traditional ones are galettes made with puff pastry and a frangipane filling but you may also find it in the shape of a brioche crown covered with pearl sugar and candied fruits. You can also find many variations: with a chocolate or jam filling, an all butter shortbread galette, etc. A small trinket is hidden somewhere in the cake. Whoever finds it is the king of the feast and will be buying the cake next time. If you are more interested in the history of the king cake, read here.
As it happens a lot nowadays in France, we do not limit eating la galette to only 6th January. You may well end up eating some for the whole month and maybe even until Mardi Gras. I found that out in my last year of high school in France when each day of January after the 6th, whoever had found the trinket the day before would bring a new cake to share in the classroom the following day. I know! What a hard student life!
As it happens a lot nowadays in France, we do not limit eating la galette to only 6th January. You may well end up eating some for the whole month and maybe even until Mardi Gras. I found that out in my last year of high school in France when each day of January after the 6th, whoever had found the trinket the day before would bring a new cake to share in the classroom the following day. I know! What a hard student life!
I have to admit that since I moved out of France, I have rarely celebrated and had la galette des rois. But the mention of it at the last quiz of the year 2014 at L.Mulligan Grocer made me want to renew with the tradition a bit.
I love eating la galette in its brioche version, and my favourite brioche type is challah bread (a Jewish braided bread) which I discovered when living in Australia. At the time, I would often long for French baked goods that were hard to find such as a good brioche that I could slice, toast and lather with butter for breakfast (the region where I am from in France, la Vendée, is famous for its amazing brioche so I do really miss it at times).
Eventually, as E. was rehearsing for a role in a play in Melbourne, we ended up learning about Jewish food traditions thanks to the lovely lady coaching him with the Yiddish words pronunciation. This led us to the wonderful Glick's bakery (they have a few bakeries in Melbourne) and also created a delicious addiction to challah bread for me as it became my new found brioche (oh and their potato blintzes are quite great too!).
So, for my galette des rois this year, I made an attempt at filling my challah bread crown with dark chocolate and pieces of spiced poached pears. And it worked pretty well! I tore a big chunk out (for tasting you know... it's important!) and it made for a delicious breakfast. After that, I eventually headed out to go and share it with friends before something would happen to the galette des rois (and by something, I do mean ending up all in my belly!). I could not find a trinket so we did without. My Irish friend had also made a galette des rois, which was really lovely (a puff pastry one filled with cinnamon apple and frangipane, miam!).
The recipe for this delicious spiced pear and chocolate challah bread is below. It has many steps but be patient, it is all worth it at the end!
I love eating la galette in its brioche version, and my favourite brioche type is challah bread (a Jewish braided bread) which I discovered when living in Australia. At the time, I would often long for French baked goods that were hard to find such as a good brioche that I could slice, toast and lather with butter for breakfast (the region where I am from in France, la Vendée, is famous for its amazing brioche so I do really miss it at times).
Eventually, as E. was rehearsing for a role in a play in Melbourne, we ended up learning about Jewish food traditions thanks to the lovely lady coaching him with the Yiddish words pronunciation. This led us to the wonderful Glick's bakery (they have a few bakeries in Melbourne) and also created a delicious addiction to challah bread for me as it became my new found brioche (oh and their potato blintzes are quite great too!).
So, for my galette des rois this year, I made an attempt at filling my challah bread crown with dark chocolate and pieces of spiced poached pears. And it worked pretty well! I tore a big chunk out (for tasting you know... it's important!) and it made for a delicious breakfast. After that, I eventually headed out to go and share it with friends before something would happen to the galette des rois (and by something, I do mean ending up all in my belly!). I could not find a trinket so we did without. My Irish friend had also made a galette des rois, which was really lovely (a puff pastry one filled with cinnamon apple and frangipane, miam!).
The recipe for this delicious spiced pear and chocolate challah bread is below. It has many steps but be patient, it is all worth it at the end!
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Spiced Pear and Chocolate Challah Bread Recipe (Vegetarian)
Click HERE for the recipe
