La Galette du Coeur...La Galette des chefs 2017

I've been missing in action of late felled by a nasty cold I caught staying up past my bedtime (8:00 pm) on New Year's Eve. Plus ODing on the l'Epiphanie galette des Rois. How else to figure out how to paint the thing? I went for the 3rd year in a row with Solli to the annual charity galette fete at Saint Germain de Pres last Saturday sniffling and sneezing.

Some things are worth getting out of bed for.

I was not alone in my excitement. Red Riding hood showed up too.

There is the inspection of the galettes of course. Pierre. Herme does a lemon galette.

Karamel did of course caramel.

Très elegant from. Hotel Raphael.

Square shaped with hazelnuts instead of the almonds - very appealing.

I settled for a plain jane classic almond franipane galette and dolled it up with a coating of passion fruit/apricot confiture plus toasted almonds. A quick reheat in the oven = divine.

I did the same to Picard's DIY individual small galettes. Look at this year's feves (hidden favors). Sweet little porceleine animals.

Somehow tasting one or two galettes is not enough. Isn't it fortunate that you can find them all through January at some boulangeries and patisseries.

I was longing to try Gerard Mulot's stunning pistache/noisette. Very nice.

You will not believe some of the concoctions Paris pastry chefs come up with. Framboise-pistache. Tonka beans. Even savory galettes. I almost bought a spinach cake. Here Christolphe Adams creates an eclair/galette. His mini eclair feves were awfully appealing (25€).

I loved the scrawled lettering, 'l'Epiphanie' in his newspaper and drew it on quite a few galette watercolors.

Maybe I got a little carried away.

What I learned from all this painting and tasting is...stick with the classic glalette au amande. You can never go wrong being a purist. No matter how many creative hoops Parisian pastry chefs jump through to outdo each other, in the end you'll know a good galette from a so-so galette with no distraction from exotic flavors or odd shapes. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Thank you for reading and supporting Parisbreakfast by buying Paris letters and watercolors. HAPPY NEW YEAR again!