EPIPHANY. You weren’t able to eat the galette des rois on the traditional date of January 6, and plan to taste it this Sunday, January 8, 2023? Find on this page the recipe for the frangipane pancake.
[Mis à jour le 8 janvier 2023 à 14h10] Who says beginning of the year, also says galette des rois! If Epiphany is traditionally fixed in the Christian calendar on January 6, a reform postponed this date to the second Sunday after Christmas, which this year corresponds to Sunday January 8, 2023. As many French people were at work on Friday January 6, c t was therefore this Sunday that a majority of them chose to meet up with family or friends to taste the delicious galette des rois and hope to have the bean.
It’s up to you to see if you will turn to the classic frangipane galette or opt for a more original flavor, with a chocolate or apple galette for example. If you live in the south of France, there is a good chance that you will taste a brioche and not a galette, as is the local tradition. This brioche is often garnished with sugar and candied fruit. Find on this page an easy and quick recipe for the frangipane galette, information on the other types of galettes des rois, as well as an update on the origin and history of the galette.
The recipe for the modern galette des rois, with frangipane, may frighten the less adventurous in the kitchen. It is, however, one of the simplest. This is’combine a puff pastry with frangipane, in other words a mixture of pastry cream, butter, sugar and ground almonds. It’s your turn :
“Simple as a homemade galette des rois”
Nowadays, the galette made of puff pastry and frangipane seems to have imposed itself in the collective imagination. But is the authentic galette des rois frangipane, brioche or candied fruit cake? Originally, galettes des rois were simple breads in which a bean was used as a bean. But gradually, several regions have added their specificity to this flatbread.
The brioche, still in use in many regions, especially in the south of France, would therefore be the most traditional form of the galette des rois, since it is the closest to a ball of bread. In the North, but also in Provence and Languedoc, it has become the “cake of kings”, covered with sugar and candied fruit. Frangipane was born in the 17th century at the instigation of Anne of Austria and her son. Louis XIV. The puff pastry would thus have been born in Paris, so much so that it will be nicknamed “the Parisian”. Today, the galette des rois, consumed by 85% of French people, is mainly bought with frangipane (80%). But several galette des rois recipes therefore compete with each other, although the frangipane one is the favorite of galettes des rois.
In the Christian imagination, the galette des rois refers to the three Magi who, guided by a star, went to Bethlehem, to meditate in front of the manger where Jesus would have been born, offering the child precious presents. But we quickly learn, by looking into the question, that the Epiphany (or its equivalent) was already celebrated long before the advent of the Christian religion.
We first speak of a golden cake with a round shape, a description that can recall the sun and therefore the cult of Saturnalia, also linked to the solsticein winter as insummer. During these 7-day festivities, excesses were allowed and it was customary to offer cakes to those around you. A tradition which, in the Middle Ages, became that of the “cake of kings”. For some, the name would come from the fee that had to be paid to his lord at the same time. Royalty usually accompanied itself with a cake.
As for the fève, it would have preceded the galette since it also dates from the Roman Empire. It was customary in ancient Rome to draw lots for the king of a feast using a black or white token. It is also said that a king was chosen in this way from among the soldiers of a garrison or in a family during the Saturnalia and that he could thus, for one day, fulfill all his desires and command everything he wanted. liked. A legend also reports another origin of the bean: the legend of Peau d’âne, inspired by the tale of Charles Perrault. It is thus by forgetting his ring in a cake intended for the prince that Donkey Skin would have inspired this strange custom.
At last, the tradition of sending the youngest of the guests under the table to designate who gets each piece of the galette would have arrived at the same time. Still during the Saturnalia, the master of the house indeed asked the youngest of the family, supposed to be the most innocent, to designate to which guest he was to distribute the share he held in his hand. The child is then generally nicknamed Phoebe (for “Phœbus” or “Apollo”), in reference to an oracle of Apollo.
The Epiphany is the result of a long tradition, going back very far before the birth of Jesus and resulting from a mixture of pagan and Christian traditions (as for Candlemas). Originally, it was a question in antiquity of celebrating the god Dionysus. God of the vine, of wine, but also of celebrations and excesses in Greek mythology, Dionysus is intimately linked to the seasons and therefore to the cycles of vegetation. The party given in his honor in the middle of thewinterand concomitant with the winter solstice, would symbolize its resurrection, the return of light and therefore the rebirth of this vegetation.
We also evoke the pagan festival called “Saturnalia” to explain the origin of the Epiphany, just as it is invoked concerning the solstice. This time it was the god Saturn who was celebrated by the Romans. A time associated with agriculture and seeds, in particular thanks to a sickle which he carries in his right hand, this god remains relatively mysterious. “Sleeping” for a large part of the year, it was reborn among the Romans in the heart of winter, at the “twilight of the year”, i.e. a period which, this time, preceded the winter solstice. It would more generally symbolize the protection of the “ties” of the family and the city.
In the first Christian communities of the East, in the 4th century, people began to associate this feast with the period following the birth of Jesus. Epiphany was born and corresponds to a “manifestation” in ancient Greek. In other words: after having celebrated the birth of Jesus stricto-sensu during Christmas, Christians will begin to celebrate the “messiah”, that is to say the providential character that he represents. We must therefore look for signs of this messiah, that is, the first manifestations that authenticate Christ. They are three in number in the beginnings of Christianity: some evoke the first miracle performed by Jesus at the wedding at Cana, others speak of his baptism in the water of the Jordan, but closest to his birth, the first “manifestation” of his sacred character is quickly associated with the quest and adoration of the Magi who themselves recognize the Messiah shortly after his birth.
January 6, 12 days after Christmas, thus becomes the very first sacred feast of the liturgical calendar. In the West, the Epiphany will gradually absorb ancient Roman and pagan traditions, and we will gradually gather around a cake to celebrate it. However, the acceptance of the galette des rois was not easy : Lutherans, Calvinists and even some Catholics for a time rejected this pagan custom. In 1664, the Canon of Senlis notably confided in speeches that he was against the slightly too festive side of the galette.
What is the date of Epiphany in 2023?
When are you going to eat galette des rois in 2023? It all depends on whether you decide to follow the custom scrupulously or not. Epiphany is traditionally fixed in the Christian calendar on January 6, ie twelve days after the birth of Jesus according to the Roman liturgy. January 6 falling regularly in the middle of the week (a Friday, this year 2023) after the vows of good yeara reform however transferred the date to the second Sunday after Christmas, i.e. almost systematically to the first Sunday from 1 January. The galette des rois can therefore be cut on this date, at least in countries that do not have a public holiday dedicated to Epiphany. But rest assured, the bakeries and patisseries aren’t going to stop anytime soon, and you can taste the galette des rois this Sunday, January 8, and at least until mid-January !