Easy Spanish King’s Cake recipe

The Spanish King’s Cake is probably one of the most eaten cakes at the beginning of January… and we love to eat it as much as preparing it! Besides what you may think, it isn’t as difficult as it seems, as you only need to have good quality ingredients (most of them very common ones) and a little bit of patience.

Following this recipe you get and amazing and spongy cake, with a crunchy and golden exterior. That with the candied fruit, the sugar and the almods will make it an amazing sweet.

What do you think? Shall we start preparing it?

Spanish King’s Cake recipe

TasteEvocations

In our recipe we’ll show you how to prepare a very spongy cake with a golden exterior and some crunchy bitfrom the granulated sugar and the almonds. Also, its delicious and delicate flavour will be a dream thanks to the use of orange blossom water.

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Prep Time 5 hrs

Cook Time 20 mins

Total Time 5 hrs 20 mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine Spanish

Servings 8 slices

Ingredients

  

For the dough

• 5 g of dry yeast
• 450 g strong flour
• 250 mL of whole milk
• 150 g of icing sugar
• 120 g of butter (at room temperature)
• 1 pinch of salt

For the infused milk

• 2 tbsp of rum
• 2 tbsp of amaretto (optional)
• Lemon zest
• Orange zest
• 2 tbsp of orange blossom water
• 1 cinnamon stick

For decorating

• Candied fruit to taste
• 3 tbsp of peeled almonds
• 2 tbsp of granulated sugar
• Water

Instructions

 

Dough preparation

• Firstly, we want to start the reaction of the yeast with some of the milk. For that, add into a bowl:

  – 5 g of dry yeast

  – 80 g of milk (it should be warm, no more than 35º)

  Let it rest for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, let’s start using the rest of the ingredients.
  
• In a small pot, add 170 mL of milk (what's left) at medium heat. When it starts boiling, add: 2 tbsp of Rum, 2 tbsp of Amaretto (optional), both lemon and orange zests, 2 tbsp of orange blossom water and a cinnamon stick. Reduce the heat to the lowest level.

  Let the ingredients infuse for at least 10 – 15 mins and remove from the heat (the longer you let everything infuse, the better!). We should have around 150mL of liquid, but if you have less, just add some milk or water.
  
• While we let the infused milk cool down, let’s continue with the dough.

  In a bowl add 100 g of strong flour, and add the mix of the milk and yeast we prepared at the beginning (not the infused milk), and mix it all together until you have a sticky but homogeneous dough.

  Cover the bowl and let it rest for a few hours (at least 2 hours).

  If you have the time, you can let both the infused milk (inside the fridge) and the dough rest over night.
  
• Once the infused milk and the dough have rested enough, mix in a bowl:

  – 450 g of strong flour.

  – 5 g of dry yeast.

  – 5 g of salt.

  – 120 g of icing sugar.
  
• Add the rest of the ingredients:

  – 2 eggs.

  – The dough that you made earlier.

  – The infused milk (150 mL).
  
• Note: This next step is going to be done using a standing mixer, if you don’t have one you can do it by hand, but it’s a hard work.

  Add the dough to the mixer’s bowl and start at low speed so the ingredients mix thoroughly.

  Once you have an homogeneous dough, add the 120g of butter at room temperature in small quantities, and continue mixing.
  
• The key point for getting a nice cake is to work the dough a lot, so we obtain a spongly and elastic texture. To do so, once all the ingredients are mixed, increase the speed of the mixer a little bit.

  Mix everything for at least 10 minutes, and then let dough rest for a few hours. Once you come back, the dough should have double in size.
  
• Mix again for another 10 minutes, or until you see that the dough is not sticking to the bowl anymore, and it’s soft and shiny. If you don’t get to this point, let it rest for some minutes and then continue mixing.

  Once the dough is ready, remove it from the mixer and continue working with it by hand, adding flour if you need it to avoid sticking. You should get to the point were it doesn’t stick to your hands anymore.
  

Baking

• Preheat the oven at 200º in convection mode. In the meantime, we’re going to decorate the dough.

  In an oven tray, put some baking paper (non-stick) and place the dough on top in a ring shape.

  We normally put a cookie cutter in the middle, because the dough will rise in the oven, and we want to get a ring-like shape. If you do this, be sure that you put butter/olive oil in the exterior of the cutter to prevent it from sticking to the cake.
• Beat an egg, and with a kitchen brush cover all the visible exterior of the dough.
  
• Now it is time to add the toppings. To do so we’re going to prepare:

  – Candied fruit, that we can cut in small chunks and put all over the dough.

  – Peeled Almonds. we can smash them in a morter, and add a mix of a tbsp of sugar with a tbsp of water. We then put them on top of the dough.

  – Sugar: in a glass mix 2 tbsp of granulated sugar with 1 tbsp of water. Now add the mix on top of the bake in small clusters (like small mountains of wet sand).
  
• We try to get sections with a little bit of everything in patches, but you can be creative here!
  
• Bake for 15 minutes at 180º C. If your oven doesn’t distribute the heat well, turn the cake around after half the baking time.

  Reduce the temperature at 150º C and bake for another 10 minutes or until the cake has a slightly golden colour.

  And that’s it, you have the cake ready to eat! It will have an amazing flavour thanks to the infused mil, and it will be crunchy with all those almonds and the sugar of the top! Enjoy!
  

Notes

• Eventhough the amaretto liquor is optional we strongly recommend it for this recipe. It goes amazingly well with the almonds.
• If you only have unpeeled almonds, you can blanch them for 20 seconds. Then the peel should come off easily.

Keyword Roscon de Reyes, Spanish King’s Cake, traditional dish