On January 6th, the Epiphany, it is French tradition to eat “La Galette de Rois” or what we would call a King Cake.  But really, you can find these at the local bakery or grocery store throughout the month and it’s not uncommon to feast on just one of these tarts.  You can also find different flavors; while the original is frangipane there are flavors such as chocolate and pear, raspberry and pistachio, pear and caramel etc.

There’s more to this tradition than just eating the cake:

• First, the youngest child (if there is one in the group) has to hide under the table and tell whoever is cutting the cake who should get which piece.
• The person who finds the charm, known as a “fève”, in their slice gets to wear the crown that comes with the tart and then names their king or their queen.
• The tart is normally enjoyed with either cider or champagne.

Some people will hunt down galettes from particular bakeries just to get a certain type of fève (ahem, I have done this after we were highly disappointed with the one we got in a galette we bought from the grocery store), and some people collect them year after year.  You can find them on the French version of Craigslist, and at the flea markets.

Makenna found the fève in our first galette, which was something from Aquaman but since we’ve never seen the movie we had no idea what it was.  So I bought another galette from a chocolate and macaron shop that had a really cute little fox fève.  And ironically I was the one to find the fève that time!

I’m pretty sure we have saved our fèves from previous years, and I think we’ll have to buy several galettes next year since it will be our last!