Bolo Rei & Bolo Rainha – Best Portuguese Christmas Cakes

Celebration time in Portugal means eating and drinking well. At Christmas time the Portuguese focus a lot on desserts. Traditionally, families have a full table dedicated just to sweet specialties that are usually only found during this time of the year. We enjoy a variety of sugary goods with lots of cinnamon, and the one cake that cannot be missed: Bolo Rei!

Bolo Rei is also known in English as King Cake or King's Cake.

This fluffy cake with brioche type of dough is enriched with nuts and candied fruits. It is a cousin of Gâteau des Rois from France, Roscón de Reyes from Spain, or Rosca de Reyes from Latin America. Bolo Rei also shares similarities with New Orleans King Cake, associated with celebrations of Mardi Gras/Carnival in Louisiana. It's also somehow similar to Italian Panettone, in the way that it is a cake typically eaten around Christmas time, featuring soft dough with raisins, dried fruits and candied fruits.

For those who don't like candied fruits, there is Bolo Rainha, Queen’s Cake, a version that skips the colorful sugary fruits. In this course we do both recipes from scratch.

I will demystify the process of making Bolo Rei at home. Understanding the best ingredients, kneading the dough, decorating and adapting the recipe to make Bolo Rainha. You don't need to have previous experience in the kitchen.

We will do everything step by step, in a simple and accessible way, so that you can enjoy a sweet Christmas Portuguese style!

How did Bolo Rei come about? What do Bolo Rei and Gâteau des Rois from France have in common?

This is not a long or boring history lesson, but a little context to make your home baking even more fun.

If Bolo Rei is Portugal's most iconic cake during Christmas and Epiphany celebrations, there must be a reason for it... let's look into it!

Overview of ingredients and steps to make the dough for Bolo Rei and Bolo Rainha.

Both Bolo Rei and Bolo Rainha recipes can be made by hand or using an electric mixer. Please watch the next lecture to see how to make the dough with the aid of an electric mixer - and don't forget to use the dough hook!

Please check full list of ingredients, quantities and recipe steps on the downloadable recipe PDF available on the Resources.

Bolo Rei and Bolo Rainha recipes are VERY similar. The only difference is that Bolo Rainha does not include candied fruits - nor mixed into the dough, nor on top for the decoration.

On the previous lecture we show how to make the dough for Bolo Rei by hand, while on this lecture we do the dough for Bolo Rainha using an electric mixer. But please note that both Bolo Rei and Bolo Rainha's doughs can be made by hand or by electric mixer.

See the details on each lecture and please check the full list of ingredients and cooking steps on the downloadable recipe PDF available on the Resources on the previous lecture.

Bolo Rei, aka King's Cake, looks like the crown of a royal.

There are 2 ways of shaping the dough to look like a crown. The traditional way, using your elbow. Or simply with your fingers and hands, as if you were shaping one gigantic bagel. We look into both ways of doing it, so that your cakes aren't only delicious, but pretty too!

In a commercial kitchen, like the one at my bakery, it's easy to ferment all sorts of breads and cakes. Why? Because we have a dough proofer, with controlled temperature and humidity.

In this lecture I show you how you can turn your home oven into a dough proofer, making the most of it as a heat resource, with the aid of water to create the right humidity conditions that will ensure your cakes raise beautifully!

After fermentation, your cakes will be big, fluffy and ready for the most fun step of this recipe - decorations!

We decorate Bolo Rei with nuts and candied fruits, showing you the traditional way of displaying the colorful crystallized fruits into a color coordinated cross shape.

On the other hand, we also decorate Bolo Rainha with assorted dried fruits, for a deliciously loaded cake crust.

In Portugal, you can easily find mixed candied fruits for Bolo Rei at the supermarket. The most traditional mixes for the dough may include candied orange peel and fig leaf gourd (a type of squash known here in Portugal as abóbora-chila), dyed with food coloring. It is not compulsory to have these exact same fruits in order to make Bolo Rei at home. Particularly because we know that these aren't always easy to find outside our borders. And, truth be told, after the amount of sugar and coloring applied, you can't really taste the fig leaf gourd in itself.

In this lecture I teach you how to make candied fruits at home - both for the Bolo Rei dough and the decorations. You can apply this method for crystallizing to other fruits you may have available - except fruits that are too soft and pulpy, as those will tend to disintegrate during the boiling and caramelization process.

I really wanted to make sure you had no excuse not to make Bolo Rei at home. So we're using easy to find ingredients (orange and watermelon - which you can find in most parts of the world!) and a simple process to have colorful home-made candied fruits!

How to set your home oven for best baking results - both for Bolo Rei and Bolo Rainha.

What are we trying to achieve? A perfectly golden crust and soft spongey dough!

Includes tips for even baking results.

We have come to the last step for Bolo Rei and Bolo Rainha making!

While your cakes finish baking, you can make a super simple sugar syrup. Brushing your cakes with this syrup will add sweetness, moisture and an eye-catching shiny glaze!

Please see downloadable recipe PDF available on Section 3 for syrup recipe variations, including other ingredients that will infuse even more flavor into your cake!