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This king’s cake recipe requires a bit of preparation as you will need confectioner’s cream, almond cream and puff pastry. Once you have these ingredients at hand, it shouldn’t take you much longer than half an hour to prepare. You can place the uncooked and undecorated galette on a plate to harden before placing it in a freezer bag. Then when you are ready to bake it, glaze it and decorate it and bake it in its frozen state for 55 minutes.

Ingredients for king’s cake

Prepare or buy the following ingredients to make a king’s cake: 125 grams of pastry cream (not too thick), 300 grams of almond cream and 450 grams of refrigerated puff pastry (defrosted and not frozen). The only other ingredient you will need is an egg for the glazing.

Prepare the pastry

Preheat your oven to 240 degrees Celsius. Then mix the pastry cream with the almond cream by adding a teaspoon of almond cream at a time. Cover the mixture with cling film and pop the bowl into the fridge.

Cut your puff pastry into two sections. Roll out each piece to make two 25 cm squares. Use a 24 cm cake tin as a guide to cut a circle out of each square. Place one of the circles onto a baking sheet that has been covered with baking paper.

Prepare the cake

Spread the almond cream mixture over the base, allowing for a 3cm pastry border. Beat the egg and brush it around the pastry edge. Place the second pastry circle over the almond cream and align it. Press the edges firmly so as to seal them. Then brush the top of the cake with the egg wash so that it is glazed all over.

Decorate the cake by drawing arcs of a circle over the top (starting at the centre). Make short little cuts around the pressed edges and finally use a fork to make holes on the top before chilling the cake for half an hour.

Bake for 15 minutes then reduce the heat to 200 degrees Celsius before baking for another 20 minutes.

Tags: baking, cake recipes, desserts