Our Portuguese Tradition

My family is Portuguese and every year we have a “Bolo Rei” (direct translation is King Cake) on Christmas day.

The cake is traditionally baked round with a hole in the middle, the idea is that it looks like a crown with lots of crystallized and dried fruits and nuts — think Three Kings. It’s baked with one fava bean inside of it. Everyone must have a slice of cake (yuck… I’m not a fan, but also not a party pooper) and if you’re the lucky one to get the slice with the fava bean, next year it’s your turn to buy the cake!

I think this is a really fun tradition which secretly I think is just a way to get people to actually eat the Portuguese fruit cake. I don’t really know anyone of my generation who actually likes it. What I really think is fun is that my mom told me that when she was a little girl the bakeries used to bake an actual gold ring into one of their cakes. She said that it was a nice incentive to get people to buy their cakes. Who wouldn’t like to get jewellery in a slice of cake?