Queen for a Day

The "Galette des Rois" is not just great fun for the little ones. Mademoiselle Lili also looks forward to the French cake tradition every January.

You haven't quite worked off the Christmas foie gras on the treadmill yet, the next hip gold attack is already waiting. Epiphany on January 6th is always celebrated in Paris and throughout France with the "Galette des Rois", the Epiphany cake. A puff pastry specialty as high in calories as it is delicious, the classic version of which is filled with a frangipane cream: a mixture of confectioner's cream, butter, sugar and ground almonds, the exact composition of which is guarded as a sacred professional secret of every confectioner. The cake is sold with an obligatory crown, which looks different depending on the quality and price range - from the golden cardboard crown in the industrial supermarket range to the high-quality copies of the fine confectioners such as Potel & Chabot or Benoît Castel.

In any case, on the Sunday after Epiphany, family and friends meet to share the cake. A small porcelain figurine is baked into each - and whoever finds this in their piece is King or Queen for the day. The Maison Philippe Conticini in Paris has emancipated tradition and dedicated the cake to women: La Galette des Reines.

You don't have to be a child to be happy about the figure called "fève" like a snow queen and to get in high spirits. I still remember my first “Galette des Rois” invitation as a newcomer to Paris, which turned into a champagne feast. With the crown on my head, whenever I was called "La Reine Boit", the Queen, I had to empty my glass. Likewise the king of the evening, who found his "fève" in the second cake. To make it short: The next morning I woke up with a headache in the strange king's chamber. By the way, it didn't turn into a love story!

A small loss of control without historical consequences. Throughout French history, entire battles are said to have been lost because of this tradition, with garrisons drinking themselves out of battle with the battle cry "Le roi boit". The Christian tradition of the Epiphany Cake has its pagan origins in Saturnalia, a Roman festival between late December and early January, when all moral and social barriers fell. The Romans proclaimed the slave "King for a day" who found a bean in his cake.

The Galette des Rois, which today is primarily a family festival for children, is no longer lived quite as anarchically. The popular cake is no longer only available around Epiphany, but long before and after. According to the profane creed: Queen is whoever wants to feel like that.