Hazelnut & caramel king's cake

New year, new king’scake / galette des rois ! For this one I was inspired by the visual of Michael Bartocetti's galette; his is a cazette galette, but I don’t have the recipe, so I made my own version, with a hazelnut and salted caramel frangipane, really delicious! By the way, if you don't have the courage to try this cake, you can use the frangipane recipe and make a classic galette with two puff pastries. Here indeed no classic puff pastry but a brioche puff pastry (I took the chef's recipe that was published last year in a Fou de Pâtisserie). Organizationally, I advise you to start with the frangipane which must be totally frozen for the assembly: start with the caramel, then the custard, almond cream, frangipane, freezing. If there are cooling times you can at the same time start the puff pastry dough. If you are not in a hurry, you can make the frangipane several days in advance and leave it in the freezer until the day of assembly, when the dough is ready.
Otherwise in terms of texture, an ultra-crispy, melting and well-fragrant cake, in short it’s delicious !

Prep time : a long time, but it’s worth it ;-)
For a 18cm galette | 8 servings :

Brioche puff pastry :

350g flour T55

28g caster sugar

7g salt

17.5g of fresh yeast

68g butter

185g whole milk

220g dry butter

Place the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of the food processor.

Mix for a few seconds, then add the yeast and milk.

Knead for about ten minutes. Add the butter in pieces and knead again until the dough is homogeneous, elastic and smooth.

Let the dough grow for 1 hour at room temperature, then put it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Hit the butter with the rolling pin to give it an elastic texture (but not softened).

Spread the dry butter in a square of 15cm side.

Spread the dough into a rectangle of 15x30cm. Put the butter in the dough.

Spread the dough, then make a simple turn: fold the dough in three.

Make a quarter turn with the dough to have the fold on the right, like a book.

Follow with a double turn: spread the dough into a large rectangle, then fold it up following the pictures.

Put in the freezer for 30 minutes and then in the refrigerator for 3 hours.

Then give the dough another simple turn.

If necessary press a little on the dough to get a rectangle of 17x13cm, it should be about 2.5cm thick. 

Cut the edges to have straight edges. Keep the scraps in the fridge, they will be used later in the recipe.

Cut the puff pastry dough into two equal parts and lay them one on top of the other, pressing lightly to get a nice thickness. Put the dough in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Caramel & hazelnut frangipane :

Salted caramel :

100g liquid cream

155g sugar

45g salted butter

A pinch of fleur de sel

½ vanilla bean

Heat the cream with the vanilla seeds.

Make a caramel with the surgar.

When it has a nice color, add the cream little by little while stirring constantly.

When the caramel is homogeneous, remove it from the heat, add the butter cut in small pieces and the fleur de sel.

Mix well, then let it cool completely.

Caramel custard :

220g whole milk

26g egg

14g caster sugar

20g cornstarch

14g butter

110g caramel

Whisk the egg with the sugar and cornstarch.

Heat the milk, then pour half of the hot milk over the previous mixture. Pour it back into the saucepan.

Thicken over medium heat, whisking constantly.

Remove from the heat, add the caramel, mix well, then pour into a dish, put a plastic wrap on it and cool completely.

Hazelnut cream :

87g softened butter

75g powdered sugar

87g hazelnut powder

10g cornstarch

55g egg

Mix the softened butter with powdered sugar and hazelnut powder.

Then add the cornstrach and the egg, and mix to obtain a homogeneous cream.

Frangipane :

Whip the pastry cream.

Mix the pastry cream and the hazelnut cream.

Then, if you have a 18cm diameter savarin mould it's perfect, otherwise you can do like me and use stainless steel circles. In this case, place rhodoid inside a circle of 18cm in diameter and outside a circle of 8cm (you must have circles of 4cm high minimum). Pour half of the frangipane into the mold. Add a little caramel in the center, then cover with the rest of the frangipane.

Place in the freezer until fully set.

Assembly :

When the frangipane is frozen, spread the scraps of dough thinly.

Cover the frangipane with the dough, and put it back in the freezer while you cut the dough.

Be careful to cover it completely, if necessary slightly moisten the dough with a little water to be able to weld well when the dough overlaps, otherwise you will have leaks during cooking.

Cut 5mm wide strips of puff pastry, then cut the resulting rectangles into triangles.

Moisten the insert very slightly with a little water. Cover the frangipane insert with the triangles.

Put the galette in a circle a little larger than the galette (I used a 20cm circle, buttered). Place a buttered cookie cutter also in the center of the cake.

Put the cake in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day make small holes in various places so that the cake does not explode when baked. 

Leave to grow for 1 hour, then bake at 180°C for 35 minutes. I added a second cookie cutter in the center before baking, mine was too small and the cake would have risked to close during baking.

Allow to cool for a few minutes before unmolding.

Caramel powder :

70g of white fondant

50g glucose syrup

Put the two ingredients in a saucepan and make a caramel.

Pour it on a sheet of baking parchment and let it cool completely.

Then cut into pieces and mix to obtain a caramel powder.

Sprinkle the powder on the galette with a sieve, then put it back in the oven at 200°C for 2 minutes (watch closely!).

Let it cool down and then enjoy!