Epiphany: A Sweet Ending to the Holiday Season

With Christmas and New Year's behind us, it's finally time for my favourite celebration of the holiday season: epiphany! In French, we call the magi kings (les rois mages) and for this reason, January 6th is also known as la journée des rois (kings' day.) Since it wouldn't really be a French celebration without some kind of tasty food associated with it, we obviously have a special kings' cake for the occasion! Last year I wrote about the little differences between French king cakes and Louisiana king cakes (and how my husband and I will just have to agree to disagree). I also wrote about where to find king's cake for epiphany here in D.C. and I'm sure every place I mentioned in last year's post is still selling galette des rois. I'm planning on buying mine from Paul this year. Not only it is one of the better ones I've tasted here in Washington but I also love the cute Paul-transportation fèves.

Paul's Galette des Rois is available in Individual, 6 or 8 serving size cakes ($4.95, $24.95, $29.95)

Galette des rois is more than just a cake for me. When the first kings' cakes start popping up in French boulangeries, it means my birthday is just around the corner. And every year, I always have a king cake as my birthday cake. Well, almost every year. One year my dad got me a beautiful cake from Pierre Herme: la cerise sur le gateau. A beautiful beautiful cake... that I couldn't eat because it's pretty much all chocolate. But my dad loved it and I got my galette from Tout Au Beurre the next day ;-) When I was little, I also used to collect the little favours that are in each cake. Our local bakery, Tout Au Beurre (located at 29 rue Vielle du Temple, sadly, now it's a Lacoste Store. Is nothing sacred?), made the most amazing galette des rois but every year they also came up with a cool theme like Disney charms or porcelain zodiac sign figurines for the fève and they were fun to collect. So I love that Paul is not only giving me a delicious birthday cake but also reminding me of a great tradition I used to look forward to year after year!