King Cake
Let's talk about my favorite tradition of January. Well, my favorite tradition aside from New Years, but I consider that a transitional holiday. So instead, let's talk about Epiphany, also known as Kings Day.
In my early years I lived in France, where La Fete des Roix is celebrated all over the country with almond-y cakes with tiny ceramic replicas of Jesus in a manger hidden inside. Whoever finds Jesus is the "King" and gets to wear the crown that comes with the cake. This is to celebrate the joy of the Magi, the three wise men, who found Jesus after his birth.
Now, I don't really like almond cake, so I made peach. I also don't have a tiny replica of Jesus in the manger, so I hid a marble in the cake. (A big one, so it would not be easy to swallow by mistake. This is not a recommendation! Don't hide things in your baking! Be safe!) My cake also didn't come with a shiny paper crown so we made one ourselves. Traditionally, the youngest child goes under the table, where they can't see the cake, to call out who gets the next piece. This is to prevent cheating. Since our coffee table is tiny we only made our grown-adult friend close his eyes. He still got the crown so we'll have to come up with a better system next year.
I have shared this recipe before, but the photos were not super good and I was not very specific about my modifications. I found the recipe at this link. Because I'm not the type of lady who keeps a lot of fancy stuff around (or not fancy stuff, it's just stuff I don't have really) there are a few things I replace every time I make this, which is pretty often. My husband loves this. Sometimes I use plums, but this time I used peaches. I've used pears before, and even canned fruit. I use 1 tsp of vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean. 3/4 cup of regular flour keeps me from needing almond flour. I don't use the orange blossom water. 1 tsp of cinnamon replaces the ground mahleb because I don't even know what that is and I never seem to have nutmeg around. (Does Nik even like nutmeg? Deep questions from the desk today.) Other than that the recipe stays the same. It's really not that crazy of a recipe in the first place, but I make it work for me. If you ever try it (correctly or my way) I'd love to hear about it!
PS: I know this holiday was on January 6th! Oops. Cake is still good the whole year through.
