Christmas Bestselling Gifts

With the holiday season fast approaching, shoppers across Portugal are stepping up their hunt for the perfect “king’s cake” ,the local take on the Christmas fruitcake.

Based on brioche dough and covered in sugared fruits and pine nuts, the cake is baked in the shape of a ring to symbolize the crowns of the Three wise men who Catholics believe came from the East to pay homage to the baby Jesus two millennia ago.

Each Bolo Rei,as it known in Portuguese, usually contains a dried lima bean, According to tradition, the finder of the bean must buy next year’s cake.

Almost every Portuguese home will serve this rich cake during the holidays, traditionally after the main meal on Christmas Eve and just Before presents are unwrapped at midnight.

Demand for Portugal’s favorite Christmas dessert is so intense in ‘December that pastry shops take on extra staff and concentrate almost exclusively on the making of this cake.

All major supermarket chains stock up on different versions of the cake while the bakeries begin displaying the sweet prominently in store windows as early as November.But one of the most popular places to buy Bolo Rei is at the Confeitaria Nacional,the 174 –year-old downtown Lisbon bakery which introduced the holiday cake to Portugal from Paris in the mid 19th century.

While the “King’s cake”,or galette des rois as it is known in France, dwindled in popularity for some time after the revolution of 1848 which removed French royalty from power ,the dessert has remained popular in Portugal.

Each year long Queues form outside the Confeitaria Nacional as shoppers wait their turn to buy its version of the cake.