I was really looking forward to making a Galette Des Rois this year. But as things go, I was so over fed with sweets and other rich holiday foods that when it actually came around to making one I no longer had it in me. For those of you not familiar with the Galette des Rois, it’s a French three kings day cake made during the first week of January. It’s extremely simple to make: puff pastry, almond cream and a little creativity from the tip of your knife. There is a small plastic trinket or as the French call it “feve” that is often placed in the center of this cake for the kids and whoever receives it is king for a day.
The Galette Des Rois was a wonderful and extremely unanticipated adolescent food experiences for me. It came at a time when food couldn’t have been further from my mind. I was 15 and had just arrived in Paris, where I would be going to school for the following semester. I was extremely overwhelmed and in retrospect perhaps a bit too young to be so far away from home by myself for the first time. I was staying with this extremely off center family in a suburb of Paris. To just scratch the surface, the father lived in the garage and I’m pretty sure the mother was still breast feeding her 10 year old son. It was unlike any family dynamic I had ever encountered and I would be lying if I denied being totally dishearten by it.
To make an uncomfortable situation even worse, I had also suddenly found myself to be the fascination of this curious goth kid who had named himself after a certain Guns and Roses lead singer and who astonishingly enough worshiped Freddie Mercury with every ounce of his black leather clothed self. Even at tender age of 15 I had a gut feeling that there was something extremely wrong with this. Needless to say, I was surrounded by more absurdity than my 15 years had prepared me to handle.
But it was in all of this unfamiliarity, while wondering the streets on my way home one afternoon, feeling almost defeated by my new reality, that I noticed all of the Patisserie windows stacked with these strange looking round cakes the likes of which I had never seen before. It wasn’t that they were particularly impressive as there was nothing fancy about their appearance, in fact they seemed comparatively boring to everything else happening around me. It was their quantity that forced my attention and finally compelled me through the door of one small Patisserie close to Notre Dame.
I still remember biting into my first piece, it was as if all the unfamiliarity around me melted away and nothing else existed at that moment in time but me and this small slice of heaven. I was immediately reminded of an almond croissant, but this was no ordinary almond croissant it was godly, rich and one of the best things I had ever tasted. I suddenly felt less alienated. I had found my first connection to this strange country and this was just the start of a completely consuming love affair with French food.
This Pear and Almond Cream Tart is inspired by the Galette Des Rois, for me at this moment in time it is everything I desire in a winter dessert.
Pear and Almond Cream Tart – Makes 6 individual tarts, Almond Cream recipe adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini
1 package of puff pastry,thawed
3 ripe pears, I used a combination of bartlett and bosc, sliced
juice of half a lemon
sugar for sprinkleing
confectioners sugar
For the Almond Cream
9 tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 cup plus 1tablespoon of almond meal
2 tablespoons hazelnut flour
1 tablespoon of corn starch
a pinch of sea salt
2 large eggs
1 drop of almond extract
1 tablespoon of orange flower water
In the bowl of your stand mixer beat the butter until creamy. In a seperate bowl whisk together the sugar, almond meal, hazelnut flour, corn starch and sea salt. Make sure there are no lumps. Add this to the creamed butter and mix until incorporated and smooth. Add in the eggs one at a time, making sure each is incorporated before addin the next. Stir in the almond extract and orange flower water. Refridgerate fro an hour.
Once your almond cream has been in the fridge for an hour, slice up your pears into1/2 inch thick slices, squeeze over the lemon juice and set aside.
Preheat your oven to 350 Farenheit.
Roll out your puff pastry to about 1/2 inch thickness. If you have the standard puff pastry you will have two large pieces, I baked it this way and then cut it into smaller pieces afterward. Make sure you build up a bit of an edge around outside of each piece of pastry so the almond cream doesn’t run off the sides during baking. Fill the center of each with about 1/2 inch of almond cream, you wont use all of what this recipe yeilds. Arrange the pear slices on top and sprinkle the top with some sugar.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the pears are soft.
Let the tart coool completely beofre cutting into smaller slices.
To serve sprinkle with some confectioners sugar.
