This recipe is quite quick but still delivers a correct texture, smell and consistency! It is traditionally eaten on the king´s day (“Nit de reis” in catalan). We came up with this recipe on a 6th January day, that we had less than 3 hours to bring a beloved person a tortell de Reis, cause that was the only thing missing from our dinner!
Ingredients
- 200gr sourdough (it needs to bit on the side of stiff and not runny – otherwise add a bit more flour)
- 10gr fresh yeast
- 10ml warm water (not very warm cause you will kill the yeast and the sourdough if it is too warm, but do not put it cold cause it doesn´t help the fermentation to be done quickly)
- 40gr sugar
- 1 egg
- 4ml orange blossom water
- 10gr honey
- 150gr 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)
- 3gr salt
- zest of 1 orange
- zest of 1/3 of a lemon
- 40gr melted butter
- sliced almonds before baking for decorations (since we do not like the candied fruits that much)
Filling: Here the instructions: Pastry cream but it matches fantastically also with whipped cream
Decorations: sliced almonds
Steps
- Mix the warm water with the fresh yeast
- Add the sugar and mix
- Add the sourdough and mix
- Add the honey, the egg, the orange blossom water, the zest of orange and lemon in your dough and mix well
- Add half of the flour and the flour and mix and then keep adding
- Knead it until you have a slightly sticky dough but homogenous
- Add the melted butter and the dough will become shiny and smooth
- Cover your dough and let it double in size in the oven that is set to 40° Celsious
- When the dough is double, knead it a bit and after placing baking paper on the over tray that you will bake it, make a rounded shape and let it double again
- When the round shaped dough is double, add some flour in the middle of it and make a hole
- Then add a bit of water on the surface and place the sliced almonds
- Bake it in 200 degrees till it becomes golden like in the fotos (it should be around 20-30 minutes depending on your oven)
- Stop the oven and let it inside for 5 minutes
- Remove it from the oven and let it cool down (removing it from the baking tray and the oven paper that you baked it otherwise it will be moist on the lowest part while cooling down)
- Cut it in half and add the whipping cream
Yannis and Stella @Apollon, Naxos 