I love the Epiphany. It has always been my favourite part of Christmas. The Magi bringing their gifts to the infant Jesus, the prefiguring of the anointing with myrrh during Christ’s passion in the wise man’s gift, the adoration as King and Messiah. The Epiphany was always the thing that kept Christmas going in our house, with the wise men making their perilous journey along various bookcases and mantlepieces until on the 6th of January they finally reached the crib scene (always makes me think of the opening to the Eliot poem The Magi; 'A cold coming we had of it/Just the worst time of year for a journey, and such a long journey').
We would always leave the crib out until Candlemas, after all the other decorations had been put away, and I can remember leaning over the edge of the sofa and gazing at it. This sounds desperately pious, and I really wasn’t, but there is something about the nativity scene... the concept of the incarnation that is both wondrous and frightening. Gazing upon a tiny representation of an infant in whom the hopes and fears of all the years are met… the deep potency and potentially of the scene is quite staggering – and this struck me at a very young age.
Many European traditions go in for the Epiphany big-time. The French of course make their wonderful Galette des Rois with puff pastry and almond paste. I made a Galette last year, so this year I have turned my thoughts to something I first made several years ago, a Bolo Rei (King Cake). This is a Portuguese tradition (and so I am embracing my heritage, as I am Portuguese), similar to the Galette in terms of it containing a bean (to decide who is ‘King for the Day’) and a gift of some sort. It differs from the Galette in that it is a sweet bread, rather than a pastry. In making this I followed a recipe for a coffee bread (so called because it was served with coffee, not because it contained it) from the 1950s. This recipe is found in a marvellous little book by George and Celia Scurfield called Home Baked (Faber 1956). I find it much better than the recipes for Bolo Rei out there, and those that I’ve used in the past. It’s not authentic, but I don’t really care about that. I’ve adapted the recipe quite a bit, but the basic dough is the same.
To make one large Bolo Rei/Coffee twist, or two small ones:
1 lb strong white flour
3/8 pint of lukewarm milk (this measurement is infuriating, it works out at 213 ml. I find it particularly infuriating because in order to get it vaguely accurate I had to go metric)
1 oz fresh yeast (most supermarkets with an ‘in-store bakery’ sell this. Ask at the bakery counter). Using fresh yeast makes all the difference in taste. It also makes for a better, more forgiving dough. It is easier to bake with fresh yeast.
3 oz sugar (I used cinnamon sugar)
Pinch of salt
2 oz butter, melted but cool
A ‘quantity’ of chopped nuts, sultanas, cinnamon. Sugar.
1 egg for brushing.
My chief additions were:
A teaspoon of nutmeg
Glace cherries
Sugar cubes – crushed
2 oz butter, two tbspns cinnamon sugar and 3 oz finely chopped pecan nuts for nut paste
A handful of flaked almonds
A metal ring
A dried bean
1 tbspn icing sugar
A few drops water
Method: Put the flour in a bowl. Add the sugar and salt, and nutmeg and mix. Make a well. Cream the yeast with a little of the milk and the butter. Pour this mixture in. Mix with a spoon, adding the rest of the milk, until all the milk and fat have been absorbed. Now get in with your hands and scrunch it together into a ball. Cover with a damp cloth/clingfilm and leave in a warm place to rise for a couple of hours/overnight. It should double in size.
Meanwhile, mix the finely chopped pecans with the extra cinnamon sugar and butter forming a thick paste.
Then ‘knock the dough back’ kneading briskly for about ten minutes. Once this is done divide the dough into three portions (if making one large Bolo Rei/twist) or six (if making two).
For one Bolo Rei: roll three pieces of dough in strands of equal length. Flatten, and spread some of the sugar-nut paste along each bit, together with sultanas all the way along.

Bring the edges together – but not so they stick, so that each of the three strands is sort of stuffed with the mixture. Now plait the three strands together, and join the ends of the resultant plat together to form a circle.

Somewhere in the bread hide the bean, and the ring (or add once it’s cooked, as I do). Repeat with the other three pieces of dough (unless you’re making one big one). Put on a baking sheet and leave to prove in a warm place for about 45 minutes. It should double in size again.
Finally, brush with egg, sprinkle with flaked almonds and extra pecans, place glace cherries on top in halves, and add crushed sugar cubes. Bake in a moderate oven for around 20 minutes.
The nut-paste stuffing was my own addition to the recipe, chiefly because I wanted a moist and sweet nutty paste running through the bread. It works well.

When it comes to serving, make a basic icing with the icing sugar and a little water and drizzle this over the top of the bread. Whoever gets the bit with the bean is king, and must be crowned (I usually save a pristine cracker crown for this). Whoever gets the ring is, err, lucky.

NB. The Portuguese put lots of candied peel in and on theirs. I dislike candied peel, so I don’t… but you may wish to find a proper Bolo Rei recipe which does this. They also soak sultanas in port overnight and work them into the dough.