About this time of year (February) in France it a tradition to bake an extra special
gallet. Inside the galette is placed a small ceramic crown or could be a
broad bean. When its served at table, whoever finds the crown (bean) in
their portion is “king” for a year – well, at least for a while!
This recipe serves six, its not expensive, takes 15 minutes to prepare and
is easy to cook for 40minutes in the oven.
Ingredients:
- 2 sheets of puff pastry
- 100 gm of ground almonds
- 75 gm of sugar
- 1 egg
- 50 gm of softened butter
- several drops of extract of almonds
- 1 yoke of an egg to gloss
- small ceramic crown (or if you haven’t got one a broad bean will do)
Preparation:
Place one sheet of pastry in a tart mould and prick with a fork.
Mix in a bowl all the ingredients – ground almonds, sugar, egg, softened
butter and extract of almonds.
Spread the contents of the bowl onto the pastry then place in the crown or
broad bean.
Moisten the edge of the pastry with milk or water then place on the second
sheet of pastry making sure that you ‘nip’ around the edge to seal well the
two sheets together.
Pierce the top pastry with a couple of small holes to let out trapped air as
it bakes. Paint with the egg yoke diluted with a little water.
Place galette in a preheated oven at 210oC for 40minutes checking
occasionally. Some may prefer to cook for slightly longer at 180 oC.
To serve, a suggestion :
To enhance the galette you could brush over a syrup glaze when you take it
out of the oven. Or you could make a frangipane source by mixing cream of
almonds with crème pâtissière.
