Galette De Rois

If you’re a fan of Mardi Gras, we bet you’re familiar with King Cake. We wait every year to snag one from our favorite bakeries, and we love seeing who finds the hidden baby and gets crowned king for a day. What if we told you there was another Carnival season pastry you’re going to love? It’s a little less flashy, but maybe even more delicious. Let us introduce you to the Galette de Rois!  

Wait, what? Are they not the same thing? We know— galette de rois pretty much translates to king cake, so we get the confusion. To make matters worse, they do have quite a few similarities, with a few twists. They’re both eaten in celebration of Epiphany, the season commemorating the coming of the three wise men (the “kings”) to visit baby Jesus, but while you can find king cakes all Carnival season long, galettes de rois are usually only served in January. Both pastries uphold the tradition of hiding a charm or bean inside, but while king cakes traditionally use babies, galettes des rois use porcelain figurines called “fèves” that can be shaped like anything under the sun. For both, whoever gets the piece with the figurine inside earns the title of king or queen for the day. Galettes des rois take it even one step further, and are decorated with a paper or foil crown that day-of royalty gets to wear.

Here's where they really differ. While king cake is made of a yeasted dough rolled with a cinnamon sugar filling, galette de rois is made of puff pastry sheets filled with almond frangipane and jam. Prior to baking, the puff pastry is scored and egg washed, giving the final pastry a beautiful golden hue. The best part? It’s actually super easy to make! We save time by using store-bought, frozen puff pastry and our favorite jam. The trickiest part is assembly, but don’t worry, we’ve got tips:

When working with puff pastry dough, it’s extremely important to keep it as COLD as possible. Keep it chilled up to the last minute, and only pull one sheet to work with at a time. If it gets too warm to work with, pop the whole thing in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes and then try again.

The recipe below is for one 9” galette de rois, but you could also make two 5” ones following the same procedure— just cut out your puff pastry using a smaller template. If you have any extra puff pastry scraps, use them to make easy cheese straws or spinach and artichoke puffs.

When assembling, make sure to seal the edges of the two sheets of puff pastry together well to avoid leakage. Freezing the assembled pastry before baking will also help with this, so don’t skip that step!

The components of this (particularly the frangipane) can be made ahead of time. Frangipane will keep for 3 days in an airtight container in the fridge. The baked galette de rois will be best day of, but will keep well covered at room temperature for up to 3 days, as well.

Made this recipe? Let us know how it went in the comments below.