Becoming Queen is a Piece of Cake!

Learn about the Twelfth Night Cake

Also Appears In: Greetings From Paris: Culture Class in French Throwback Thursday Culture File: France

Now Playing: Lesson Audio

Vocabulary (Review)

Learn New Words FAST with this Lesson’s Vocab Review List

Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Select your level

Or sign up using Facebook

By clicking Join Now, you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and to receive our email communications, which you may opt out at any time.

Already a Member?

Lesson Transcript

Becoming Queen is a Piece of Cake!

In this lesson, we’re going to learn about the Twelfth Night Cake. I’m Becky, and you're listening to Season 1, Lesson 22 - Becoming Queen is a Piece of Cake!

Twelfth Night cake, or in French Galette des Rois, is a puff pastry cake, originally made of frangipane, an almond filling similar to marzipan. People in France eat this seasonal cake during the Christian celebration of the Epiphany, in French pronounced Epiphanie. Inside the cake is hidden a charm or figurine, commonly called fève. If you happen to be in France in January, you will surely have seen this well-known, round, flat, biscuit in all the bakeries and supermarkets.

The tradition of the hidden charm inside a Twelfth Night cake comes from the pagan festival of the winter solstice, in which a king or queen was chosen for one day. During that time, the hidden object was usually a black bean. In the 18th century, the hidden figurine developed into a piece of porcelain representing a figure from the nativity scene. These days, however, the character represented by the hidden figurine varies greatly, so some collectors look forward to finding a new, unique one. What hasn’t changed throughout the years is that whoever finds the hidden fève in his or her piece of cake is adorned with a golden crown, in French couronne, and gets to choose his or her queen or king for the day.

When it is time to cut this cake, tradition requires that the youngest person’s present goes under the table. That person will point at the guests in order to designate, or in French désigner, the person who will receive the next piece of cake. This tradition developed in order to ensure a random distribution and avoid any unfair cheating, in French tricherie.