Celebrating Epiphany

I thought it would be fun to do an Epiphany celebration this year with the kids, just to bookend the Christmas season and bring the focus back around to Christ once Santa was long gone.  I found the house blessing tradition via Google, and loved the idea.  (At the time, based on the mutiny of our appliances in the week after Christmas, I thought an exorcism might be more in order.  All is fixed now, though!)

We started by chalking the door; I couldn't reach above the door, so I just chalked the top of the door and the kids did the stoop.  (John was working nights that week, so we didn't have our tallest family member!)

2014 for the year, with the wise men's initials in between.

Then Will read Matthew 2:1-12 and we prayed using the following prayer that I borrowed from one church's website:

May all who come to our home this year rejoice to find Christ living among us.

May we be blessed with health, goodness of heart, gentleness, and faithfulness to your will.

And may we seek and serve that same Jesus who is your incarnate Word, now and forever.

I was going to buy a King's Cake from Publix, but conveniently the cooking school we attended in Paris emailed me a recipe for Galette des Rois, the French version of a king cake.  So I made that instead, and Will made a crown to top it.  We didn't have a baby for the "feve" so we substituted one of Anna's Hello Kitty minifigurines.  And Will found her!

Here's the recipe--the measurements are weight based, so you'll need a kitchen scale.  Speaking of which, I finally got one!  So fun.  It was only $20 at Walmart and I'm all excited to use it to weigh my leftover yarn skeins, too.  If you don't have a scale, David Lebovitz has a recipe with volume measurements (it's a different recipe, but the resulting cake looks similar to mine, just prettier!).

Galette des Rois

1 package puff pastry sheets (or grab 2 packages--this recipe makes enough filling for two cakes)

Almond Cream ingredients:

110 g sugar

110 g butter

2 eggs

110 g ground almonds

20 g flour

Rum (amount not specified--I used about 2 tsp)

Pastry Cream ingredients:

250 g milk

1 egg

25 g cornstarch

60 g sugar

Vanilla bean, seeds scraped (I used vanilla bean paste; you could substitue 2-3 tsp vanilla extract)

1. Start with the Pastry Cream:  Bring the milk and vanilla to a boil.  In a separate bowl, beat the egg with the sugar until the mixture is pale and thick, then stir in the cornstarch.  Pour a third of the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisk, then pour that mixture back into the saucepan.  Stir continuously over the heat until the mixture thickens and boils for one minute (mine thickened considerably, so I pulled it off the heat before it boiled--you should have a thick pudding).  Pour into a large bowl to cool.

2. Then prepare the Almond Cream:  Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time until combined.  Add ground almond and flour, mix well, then add rum.

3. Mix the pastry cream and almond cream together.  Transfer the mixture to a pastry bag for easier piping (optional).

4.  Roll out both puff pastry sheets.  Cut a circle slightly larger in diameter than a 9 inch pie plate from one sheet of puff pastry (to be the bottom), and another circle equal to 9 inches in diameter for the top.

5.  Pipe half of the frangipane mixture into the center of the bottom pastry circle.  (Use the other half for a second cake, or you can bake it up with figs or plums.)

6. Top with the other circle of puff pastry and crimp the edges to close.  Using a knife, make a decorative design on the top without poking through to the filling, then brush with beaten egg.

7.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until puffed and golden.

It's easier than it sounds, and make a sweet and delicious pastry.  It was yummy the next morning with coffee, too.

So that's how we celebrated Epiphany!