♪ J'aime la Galette, savais vous comment?... ♪

To any of you who might know that French tune, I actually think one of my favourite holidays of the year is the Epiphany (I explained the concept a couple years back). Mostly, that's because it's when you serve my favourite dessert for dinner: la Galette des Rois. La Galette is a delicious pastry filled with an almond paste, in which you hide a "fève"(which literally means bean, but has long since been traditionally replaced by a porcelain figurine of the Virgin Mary.) The one who gets the piece with the fève in it, is declared King (or Queen) for the evening, and gets to wear a silly crown.

I've been celebrating this holiday with my family since I was a kid, so one of my inner French housewife fantasies has always been to have my own household to which I could invite friends over for dinner to eat galette. Last night allowed me to fulfill that wish, as we had an amazing night of laughter and warmth with close friends under our roof in the name of cake. After all, what better cause is there than that? It was perfect! Thanks to those of you who made it out.

Vegan Galette Des Rois

8-10 sheets of phyllo pastry*

1/3 C of organic Earth Balance margarine, room temperature

1/4 C sugar

1/2 C liquid sweetener (agave, maple syrup, etc.)

2 C almonds, without skins, ground into flour**

3/4 tube of marzipan, softened and cut up into pieces

1 tsp of vanilla extract

1 tsp of rum

1 teaspoon of almond extract

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 flax egg (1 T ground flax + 3 T of water)

*If you live anywhere civilized, you're actually suppose to use a "pâte feuilletée" but those just don't exist around here (or even have a name...). Phyllo pastry is the closest thing I've found to substitute it. I'm not enough of a fancy pastry chef to know how to make my own pâte feuilletée. It makes the process a little bit more complicated to use phyllo, but it's close enough!

** I soaked organic unpasteurized almonds overnight, peeled them and ground them into a flour. I'm sure you could use almond flour or just ground almonds.

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. In a small bowl, make flax egg by combining ground flax and water. Let sit.

3.  Mix margarine and sugar until fluffy and well combined. Add in liquid sweetener, flax egg, vanilla, rum, and almond extract, salt and marzipan. I combined these in the blender, although I'm sure you could do it by hand or with an electric beater.

4. Mix in almond flour.

5. Lay out phyllo pastry in the centre of a pie plate (the edges will spill over the pie plate, don't worry about it, because you'll fold them in at the end). Brush on a light coating of margarine every two sheets to make it golden and crunchy when baked.

6. Spoon the almond mixture in the phyllo and spread evenly. Fold the corners of the phyllo pastry towards the centre so you can "seal" the galette closed. Try to also brush margarine in between every couple sheets and on top as well.

7. Bake for 25 minutes. When you pull the galette out of the oven, brush a layer of agave syrup to make it shiny. 

8. Place crown of choice on top and serve!