Dreikönigskuchen (Three King’s Cake)
Taking a little break from Healthy January to get ready for tomorrow’s Drei Könige (Three King’s Day- Epiphany). It commemorates the first two occasions on which Jesus’ divinity, according to Christian belief, was manifested: when the Three Kings visited infant Jesus in Bethlehem, and when John the Baptist baptized him in the River Jordan.
In Switzerland we like to eat the King Cake (Dreikönigskuchen) a fun tradition where each person gets a piece of the cake and the goal is to find a little King hidden inside one of the pieces. The person who finds the King gets to wear the crown and be King for a day.
I hope you have fun making it and finding the King
Prep Time: 35 Minutes
Cook Time: 30 Minutes + 150 Minutes Rest Time
Ingredients for 8 people:
Flour - 500 g
Salt - 1.5 teaspoons
Cane Sugar - 3 Tbs
Yeast - 20g
Butter - 60 g
Lemon - 1
Milk - 3 dL
Egg - 1
Almond Flakes - 1 Tbs
Preparation:
Take the butter out of the fridge and let it soften for 10 minutes.
Mix the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Crumble the yeast and keep mixing.
Add the butter to the mixture. Cut the lemon in half and grate the zest into the bowl.
After this add the milk and mix with your hands for around 10 minutes until you get a smooth dough.
Once your dough is nice and smooth and not sticky cover it with a cloth and leave it to rest at room temperature for around 2 hours.
Once the dough has rested divide it into 8 pieces (they should all weigh the same). Hide the king figure (you can replace this with a nut) in one of the pieces). Shape the pieces into balls.
Take a baking tray with parchment paper and start placing the balls, one in the middle and the others around it.
Cover the balls with a cloth again and let them rest for 30 min.
In the meantime start pre-heating the oven to 180°C.
Now beat an egg and brush the dough balls with it and sprinkle the sugar on top.
Bake for 30 minutes (in the lower half of the oven) - remove and let cool before serving.
Enjoy and have fun finding the king :)