Driekoningentaart

Christmas used to end with a bean. Not with the exhausted clearing of decorations, not with a sensible return to porridge, but with Driekoningen, Three Kings, on 6 January, when a child could bite into almond cream and find himself monarch before the crumbs had settled. In my grandmother's second notebook, the page is marked only taart voor de koningen, cake for the kings. No sermon. Just pastry, almonds, and a crown cut from paper.

The name already tells you the day. Driekoningentaart belongs to Epiphany, the feast of the Magi, though the men in the Gospel are not counted, crowned, or named. Tradition did all that later, for obvious reasons: a party needs characters. The hidden bean is older than most of our tidy explanations, a little pagan mischief Christian Europe happily kept because it made the darkest part of winter bearable. Whoever finds it becomes koning voor een dag, king for a day, and must provide either commands, songs, or next year's cake, depending on how merciful your family is.

But let me tell you a secret. This is not a complicated tart pretending to be grand. It is two rounds of butter pastry, almond frangipane, one dried bean, and the discipline to seal the edges properly so the filling stays where history put it. Hou het altijd simpel. Chill the assembled tart before baking and cut only shallow marks in the top, because puff pastry rises best when treated firmly and then left alone. The reward is a golden, crisp-laminated shell around a soft almond centre, served at the old close of Christmas while one person at the table tries to look innocent.