Galette des Rois - A Cake for Epiphany

Galette de Rois or King Cake, as it is sometimes known, is traditionally made to celebrate the Feast of Epiphany on 6^th January each year. The cake which originally hails from France, is made up of a frangipane-like almond cream sandwiched between two layers of buttery puff pastry.  Given my love of all things almondy, I am surprised that I have never actually made a Galette de Rois before… but I will definitely be baking it again.

It is surprisingly easy to make, which is another plus point with me because although I love spending time in the kitchen cooking, baking and developing new recipes, the reality is that life with three children is hectic and it is often difficult to find the time to indulge my culinary passions.

There are many customs associated with Galette de Rois; in France a small figurine or trinket is often baked inside the cake and whoever finds it is declared “king” for the day. Traditionally, a dried broad bean or le feve was used but over time the use of specially made porcelain trinkets became popular. Convention has it that the Galette is apportioned according to the number of people who are going to eat it, plus one extra slice which was given to the first peasant or poor person who passed by on the Feast of Epiphany.

 

This is a really lovely cake cum pastry. The filling is moist and sweet and the pastry is flaky and buttery – what more could you ask for?

 

Some recipes suggest adding dark rum to the almond cream, but I used Amaretto instead to really emphasize the almond flavour. Partly because I was stuck for time but mainly because I wasn’t in the humour for the whole palaver associated with making a homemade version, I used shop-bought all-butter puff pastry.

I was really delighted with how the Galette turned out and not for the first time in my gastronomic adventures I marvelled at how something so simple, could just taste so good!

Ingredients:

125g caster sugar
125g butter, softened
125g ground almonds
1 level tblsp plain flour
3 large eggs

1tblsp Amaretto

500g puff pastry

Egg wash:

1 egg yolk

1 tblsp milk
 

Method:

1. Line a large baking tray with some non-stick baking parchment.
2. Place the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer cream together until light and fluffy. Add the ground almonds and flour and beat to fully incorporate. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well before adding the next. Finally mix in the Amaretto. Set aside.
Egg wash:
3. Mix the egg yolk and milk together in a small bowl.
To finish:

4. Divide the puff pastry in half and using a rolling pin, roll out each piece until it is about ½cm thick. From each piece cut out a circle approximately 25cms in diameter.

5. Place one circle on the prepared baking tray. Spoon the almond cream into the centre of the circle and using the back of a spoon, spread out evenly, leaving a 5cm border clear around the edge of the circle.

6. Brush some egg wash on the pastry border and carefully lift the other pastry circle on top. Seal the edges of the two circles together to fully enclose the filling.

7. Chill the Galette by refrigerating it for an hour.

8. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.

9. Remove the Galette from the fridge and brush with the top with the remaining egg wash. Using a small, sharp knife cut the edges into a scallop pattern. Then, using the tip of the knife, score the top of the pastry into a sunray type pattern.

10. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes until a rich, golden colour.

11. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before serving.
 

Serves 8.

Monte Carlos

These biscuits were first described to me by a good friend who had travelled to visit relatives living in Australia. She was very fortunate to have an Australian sister-in-law who loved baking and did a lot of it whilst she was over visiting.

On relaying tales of her travels in the Southern Hemisphere, Maria mentioned these biscuits to me and given that I love the combination of coconut and raspberry, I was determined to make them. After some tweaking, but still remaining true to the essential characteristics of Monte Carlo biscuits, this is the recipe that I came up with. The vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam taste so wonderful with the crumbly coconut biscuits – they are a real treat! I also like the biscuits on their own and in fact they remind me in flavour terms of Jacob’s Polo biscuits which are popular here in Ireland.

 

Having carried out some research I am unable to determine where the biscuits got their name from, but being prone to regular romanticised musings on such things, I like to believe that they were named after the French principality made famous by the Grimaldis and the very glamorous Grace Kelly.

 

The unfilled biscuits keep well for up to a week if stored in an air-tight tin.

 

Ingredients:

185g butter, softened
110g light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

185g self-raising flour

110g plain flour

40g desiccated coconut

Vanilla buttercream:

50g butter, softened

100g icing sugar

½ tsp vanilla paste/extract

1 tsp milk

To finish:

60g raspberry jam
 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Line two large baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.

2. Place the butter, brown sugar together in a large mixing bowl and then, using a hand-held electric mixer beat together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla paste/extract and beat again to incorporate.
3. Sieve the plain and self-raising flours together and then add the desiccated coconut. Work the flours and coconut into the creamed egg and butter mixture using a wooden spoon. Do not add all of the flour mixture at once but rather do it in two/three stages as it is much easier to do.
4. Roll rounded teaspoons of the mixture in your hands to create an oval shape. Place on the prepared baking sheets about 4cms apart and flatten slightly with your palms until they are about ¾cm thick. Gently rough the surface of each biscuit with a fork.

5. Bake biscuits in the preheated oven for about 14-15 minutes until just beginning to colour at the edges. Remove from the oven and let sit for about five minutes before removing from the baking trays. Allow to cool completely on wire racks.

Vanilla buttercream:

6. Using a hand-held electric mixer beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla paste/extract together until smooth. Add the milk and beat well to fully incorporate.

To finish:

7. Sandwich pairs of the biscuits together with a layer of vanilla buttercream and a layer of raspberry jam.

Makes 25 sandwiched biscuits.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Upside-down Pineapple Cake

There is something about retro cakes that is so appealing. Victoria sponges, Battenberg Cakes, little Butterfly Cakes with their delicate sponge wings, Black Forest Gateau; the list goes on and on.

Without a doubt, one of my favourite cakes is pineapple upside-down sponge where tinned pineapple and glacé cherries are placed in a buttered and sugared cake tin, a light sponge is spooned on top and after baking the cake is upturned so that the pineapple and cherries are on the top of the cake. It just looks so kitsch and almost a little obvious and vulgar, but it tastes so delicious.

 

I recommend serving this cake as a dessert, warm from the oven with loads of thick pouring custard. You could serve it with cream, but this is one time when I really believe it should be custard and nothing else.

 

I just love the look of impossibly red glacé cherries sitting in the middle of a perfectly round pineapple ring sitting atop a light and fluffy sponge. You could of course use natural un-dyed natural glacé cherries and fresh pineapple which you prepare yourself, but to be honest, I feel that this would be missing the whole point of this cake cum pudding.

 

The recipe I give below is based on one which I have been using for years and which originally came from BBC Good Food Magazine. It is incredibly simple to make and relatively quick to bake. As a variation, and something that I am quite fond of doing, you can add a couple of tablespoons of desiccated coconut to the cake batter prior to spooning on top of the pineapple before baking.

Ingredients:

Sugar topping:
50g butter, softened
50g light muscovado sugar
7 pineapple rings in syrup, drained

7 glacé cherries

Cake batter:

100g butter, softened

100g caster sugar

100g self-raising flour

½ tsp baking powder

1tsp vanilla paste or extract

2 large eggs

2 tblsp milk 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.
Topping:
2. Using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Spread this mixture over the bottom of a 20cm round cake tin (do not use one with a removable base).
3. Arrange the pineapple rings on top and place a glacé cherry in the centre of each pineapple ring.

Cake batter:

4. Using a hand-held electric beater, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, add in the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla paste/extract.

5. Sieve the flour and baking powder together and fold into the creamed mixture. Mix in the milk – the batter should have a soft dropping consistency.

6. Spoon into the tin on top of the pineapple and smooth it out with a palette knife or the back of a spoon to level the surface. Bake for approximately 35 minutes until the sponge is golden and springy to the touch. Remove from oven and leave to cool for five minutes before turning out on to a plate. Serve warm with custard.
 

Serves 6.
  

Fresh Fig Frangipane Tart... and a recipe for Fig Jam

Like many people in this country, my first taste experience of figs was of the dried variety as used in Fig Roll biscuits. Whilst I have a certain fondness for the dried version courtesy of their inclusion in these biscuits, nothing compares to the taste of fresh figs, which I must admit I first tasted well into my twenties!

There is just something so sensual, exotic and almost naughty about fresh figs. Their almost “meaty” and heady fruitiness works equally well in a range of both savoury and sweet dishes. They can be expensive to buy, but when used in a dish like this, a little goes a long way.

 

I was lucky this year and managed to get my hands on a crate of them at a fairly reasonable price and wanting to preserve their flavour and use them before they spoiled and began to rot (they have a fairly short shelf-life), I made a fig jam. I was delighted with how it turned out.

 

This is a fairly basic frangipane tart but it uses the figs to good effect and includes a layer of the fig jam as well as some of the fresh figs. I have halved the figs and displayed them cut side uppermost in the moist almond frangipane to show off their beautiful colours and shape.

 

I am really pleased with how this tart turned out - it is truly delicious and one that you will love if, like me, you like figs.

 

Ingredients:

Fig jam:
1.5kg fresh figs
750g jam sugar (sugar with added pectin)
Pastry:

175g plain flour

50g icing sugar

100g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

Frangipane:

125g butter, softened

125g caster sugar

125g ground almonds
2 large eggs

2tblsp plain flour

1tblsp Amaretto

To finish:

4 fresh figs, cut in half lengthways

3tblsp apricot jam

1tblsp Amaretto

Method:

Make jam:
1. Pick over the figs and discard any that look in any way mouldy.
2. Cut off the stems and place in a large saucepan. Squash the figs with a potato masher, breaking them into a lumpy paste.
3. Put the pan over a low heat and add the sugar and heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Once the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat and bring the mixture to as boil. Allow bubble away for 6-9 minutes, stirring regularly until the mixture is thick.

4. The jam is ready once it reaches 105C on a sugar thermometer or when a spoonful of its sets on a chilled plate. When it reaches this point, remove from the heat and ladle into 4-5 sterilised 350ml jars. Cover and store for up to six months in a cool dark cupboard. Refrigerate after opening.

Make pastry:

5. Sieve the flour and icing sugar together into a large bowl. Add the diced butter and using your fingertips, rub into the flour and icing sugar until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

6. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and a tablespoon of water and mix using a fork to bring everything together and form a dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly and form into a ball. Wrap in cling-film and place in the refrigerator to rest for about half an hour.

Make the frangipane:

7. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and then fold in the ground almonds and flour. Finally, mix through the Amaretto.

To finish:

8. Preheat oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Roll out pastry dough thinly and use to line the base and sides of a 35cm x 10.5cm x 2.5cm fluted, loose-based oblong tart tin.

Spread a couple of tablespoons of fig jam in a thin layer over the pastry base.

9. Next spoon the frangipane mixture and spread out evenly to the pastry edges to cover the fig jam completely.

10. Slice the fresh figs in half lengthways and press into the top of the frangipane with the cut side uppermost.

11. Place the tin on a baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes until the frangipane filling is just set.

12. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Heat the apricot jam with the Amaretto and sieve to get rid of any lumps, Use a pastry brush to brush the hot jam over the tart to glaze.

 

Serves 6.