Bolo Rei

Bolo Rei, King's Cake, is a traditional Portuguese sweet bread,
with nuts and crystallized (candied) fruit, eaten at Christmas time. 

Ingredients 4 tablespoons of Porto wine 100g mixed sultanas and raisins Grated peel of 1 lemon 500g plain flour ½ teaspoon salt 7g easy-bake yeast 335ml milk 100g softened unsalted butter 100g caster sugar 3 large egg yolks 1-2 teaspoons vegetable oil 50g pine nuts

For the glaze and topping: 12 glacé cherries, halved 1 egg yolk 1 tablespoon milk Icing sugar, for powdering

Preparation:

Heat the port in a small saucepan and bring it to boil.
Take it off from the heat and stir in the dried fruit and the lemon peel. Leave to soak while you make the dough.

Fit a food processor or mixer with the dough attachment. Place the flour, salt and dried yeast in the bowl
and process until mixed. Heat the milk until it is warmish, then pour into the flour mixture.
Process until the dough is smooth.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg yolks.
Add to the dough and process for about 1-2 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Oil a large mixing bowl and scrape the dough into the bowl.
If you need to use your hands, rub them with a little oil to stop the dough sticking.
Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for about 1 ½ hours until doubled in size.

Knock back the dough with oiled hands and knead in the soaked fruit and pine nuts.
Scrape the dough on to a well-oiled, non-stick baking tray, shape into a circle, then make a hole in the centre.
Grease the outside of a jam jar and place in the middle.
This will prevent the hole from closing up. Leave to rest for about 1 hour until doubled in size.

Heat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/mark 4. Push the cherry halves firmly into the dough at regular intervals.
Beat the egg yolk with the milk and brush over the surface of the dough.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes then turn down the heat to 170°C/fan oven 150°C/mark 3 for further 30 minutes.
Cover with aluminium foil if the surface becomes too brown.
Carefully lift out the jam jar and leave the circle to cool on a wire rack.
Powder with icing sugar before serving.

Pumpkin “Filhoses”

(A Portuguese traditional Christmas dessert)

Ingredients

·         1,5 kg pumpkin (this weight is after the pumpkin was cooked and dried of its residual water)

·         600gr of flour

·         4 eggs (optional)

·          20gr of live yeast

·          5gr salt

·         a (very) small glass of Port wine

·         sugar and cinnamon

Preparation

 1. Peal a medium pumpkin, cut it in cubes and cook it in boiling water without salt.
     Once cooked, let it dry and squeeze it well to get rid of any residual water.

 2. In a big bowl, mix the live yeast in a bit of warm water (not hot water, you would “kill” the yeast),
      add it to the pumpkin with the salt, the Port, the flour and the eggs 
     (if you add eggs your final dough will be a bit “harder”, so balance with the quantity of flour used
     – in my family it is a tradition not to add the eggs, and the result is always so soft and nice).

3. Cover the bowl with a folded blanket and let it leaven as long as necessary, but for a minimum of at least 3 hours.

4. After the dough has leavened, put vegetable oil in a pan and once hot form
    a ball of dough with a spoon and drop it in the oil, let it fry (careful that the oil is not too hot,
    otherwise your dough would burn outside and be raw inside).

5. Once fried, roll them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

6. Serve them warm with a glass of Port.