Epiphany

The Wise Men are celebrated on January the 6th (a few weeks after Christmas, since it took them some travelling time to find Jesus). I haven't heard anyone in Canada celebrating them, but here at home I keep the French tradition because (you'd have guessed) it involves a cake. The "real" cake is called la galette des rois (the kings' special cake) in which you put a fève. The person who gets the piece with the fève is the King (or Queen) and gets to make the next cake (and it can go on and on all month-you see why I would like this tradition).
That special cake is traditionally made with almonds, so it's not my favorite, and I therefore usually just make a plain chocolate cake and put in my fèves. Yes, I cheat by putting two (more chance to be a King or a Queen and also, that's how many my Mom sent me a few years ago after I gave up trying to find any here).
Anyway, since you could find the fève while cutting the cake, someone goes under the table and calls out who gets which piece. Julia likes that part.

She doesn't like the part that says anyone can get the fève and so she often gets it. (I'm good at cheating with that tradition).

When you buy the cake in France, it comes with a crown, here we use Julia's and, if Kelden didn't seem to mind, I'm not sure Zack liked it.

This year, my sister Géraldine sent me the recipe for the "real" cake. Keld got all nostalgic at reading her email, remembering the "real" cakes he had in France. He likes almonds. I like him. So I decided to try.

I first asked for more details about the recipe (anyone knowing any member of my family knows how approximate they can be in giving recipes' directions). Then I went to the store to buy the almonds and the pastry doughs. The part that worried me was the crème pâtissière, supposedly the easiest thing to do but baking and cooking are not my friends. Neither is maths. I didn't convert properly and so I had way too much milk and nothing happening. Géraldine came to my rescue via Skype and I finally thought my mixture was ready to be put in the middle of the two pastry doughs I had bought. But when I opened the first one I realized it wasn't one piece, it was 18 sheets-not what I expected. On the box, in French it does say what I want, but in English it's called "phyllo dough" and like I said it didn't look like what I needed. So I put my mixture in the fridge and had Keld go to the store later on. He brought me back something that I thought would work and so I went on with the final step: baking in the oven. Of course, I can't even get that part right. After putting the cake for longer than required, it was brown on top but still all liquid inside...pfff...I persisted though and finally got what looks like a galette des rois.

Well, almost. Here is what it really is supposed to look.

 

Keld didn't get a Marcel Proust's moment, but still, he said it was close to what he remembers. He likes me too.
After all this, you'd think I'd quit baking. Not me. Some call it perseverance, others stupidity, but I had to use all that leftover milk that I had started to heat and also that opened phyllo dough. For the milk, as I was still making the cake, I decided to make extra crème pâtissière (now that I  knew the trick; doing a little at a time) for chocolate éclairs. In France, at least, chocolate éclairs means that the filling tastes like chocolate, compared to the other favorite-coffee. So, I added cocoa and sugar in the milk. Without measuring (I wouldn't betray my family). For the phyllo dough, I made apple strudel, and then pear strudel since there was more dough than apples in my fridge. Don't be envious- remember, it's my baking, nothing to be jealous of. Picture to prove it:

I will try to do better next year. I have already asked for the recipe for the galette briochée, another famous cake made for the Wise Men.

Now doesn't that look good?