King´s cake (en) – Tortell de Reis (ca) – Traditional catalan cake – with pastry cream and chocolate

This recipe requires a bit of work but it deserves it! It is delicious! It is traditionally eaten on the king´s day (“Nit de reis” in catalan).

Ingredients

Dough of the cake

• 50gr milk
• 15gr fresh yeast
• 25gr sugar
• big parts of zest of an orange
• 110gr butter in room temperature
• 340gr bread flour (Depending on your eggs you might need less or more. Maybe start with 300gr and keep adding till your dough is not very sticky but only a bit)
• 3 eggs (I used M/L)
• 25gr sugar
• 25gr honey
• 6gr salt

Filling: Here the instructions: Pastry cream but I doubled the recipe for this cake

• 2 egg yolk
• 30g sugar
• 140ml milk
• 24gr flour
• 4gr vanilla sugar

Decorations: Dark chocolate sauce – which I also doubled but I would propose that you put less than me (you can see it in the foto below) cause it covers the flavor of the pastry cream

• 135gr dark chocolate
• 60gr cream
• 35gr softened butter
• pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon rum or brandy

Steps

• Warm the milk with the orange zest and let it infusionate for half an hour at least
• Remove the orange zest, warm again the milk and dissolve the fresh yeast and the sugar in it
• Leave it aside till it gets foamy – it should be in like 5 minutes
• Add the butter, the salt, the honey, the remaining sugar and the eggs in your dough and mix well
• Add half of the flour and mix and then keep adding
• Knead it until you have a smooth and not sticky dough. It should be around 5 minutes
• Cover your dough and let it double in size in a warm place (depending on the temperature here the times will differ but in around an hour should have your dough ready and risen)
• Roll the dough in approximately 9x50cm
• Leave 2 cm and spread the cream or whatever filling you choose along the dough like in the fotos
• Roll the dough to create a “tube” and then connect the two edges to make a circle like in the fotos. Leave a cicle in the middle at least of 5cm, cause the tortell will raise and the hole in the middle will “disappear”
• Let the tortell almost double in room temperature
• Bake it in 180 degrees till it becomes golden like in the fotos. Approximately 20 min.
• Let it cool down
• Decorate however you wish * the traditional way is with candied fruits*

If you do not wish to fill it with pastry cream, just create the tube without the filling, make the circle and bake it and when it cools down, cut it in half and fill it with chantilly cream. It is also delicious, it is also quite common and typical and like this you save the time of making the pastry cream and the assembly!

Check below for a greek cake that is eaten on the 1st (as soon as the new year arrives) day of the year and for the whole first week!