Bolo Rei recipe

BOLO REI RECIPE

Christmas is all about love, family, tradition and of course . ...the foods typically eaten at this time of year! In Portugal, there are many tasty treats that cannot be left off the Portuguese Christmas table and Bolo Rei cake is one of them.
We've put together an amazing line-up from our hotels in Lisbon, the PortoBay Liberdade and PortoBay Marquês, to recreate the traditional "King Cake", so you can make this Christmas delicacy at home!

To make a 1.1kg cake you'll need the following ingredients:
375g flour
15g yeast
65g water
50g sugar
6g salt
2 eggs
35g milk
3g orange zest
40g butter
15g sultanas
15g Madeira wine
5g fig compote
150g crystallised fruit
50g dried fruit (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts)

Method:
Put 125g of flour, the yeast (15g) and the water (65g) into a bowl. Then knead the dough, cover it and leave it to rise for about 30 minutes.
Place the remaining flour (350g), sugar (50g) and salt (6g) onto a worktop. Add one egg, the milk (35g), orange zest (3g) and butter (40g) to the dough. Knead everything well.
Soak 15g of sultanas in 15g of Madeira wine (you should do this about 24 hours before), and add them to the dough, together with the fig jam (5g), the candied fruit (150g) and the dried fruit (50g) and knead well until you have a consistent dough.
Form the dough into a ball and make a hole in the centre, like a large doughnut.
Place the dough on a paper towel and leave to rise for about 25 minutes on a baking tray. Then preheat the oven to 180°C.
Brush the dough with egg yolk, decorate with nuts and candied fruit and bake for 35 minutes.
Finally, take it out of the oven, sprinkle it with icing sugar and it's ready to serve!

You can watch the video our team made and follow the recipe step by step. Many thanks to everyone who took part, to Bernardo Trindade, Inês Lourenço, Chef João Espírito Santo and Sílvia Rio.

We're sure it’ll make a splash at this year's Christmas parties. We want to see your version; share it on your social networks and tag PortoBay.
Merry Christmas!