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3 kings and a cake to celebrate them
Article by:
Claudia
In Switzerland where I was born - and almost spent half of my life - we celebrate the three kings on the 6th of January with a cake. The cake looks like a flower and is made very simply with just a few ingredients like butter, dried raisins, some eggs and flour. The highlight of eating and celebrating the three kings is the to find the hidden - made of plastic - king somewhere in the cake. The one who finds the king will then be the king of the day and can put on the golden crown that is delivered in every cake.

This rite has ancient origins, already the old romans used to celebrate the 3 kings in that way. Back then who was king for a day had even more power because for one day the true imperator had to understand the will of the one who became king. In 1311 people used to put a bean in the cake, then during the middle age the tradition got lost and was only reassumpt in 1952 when ¹Max Währen during some researches after world war II ran into this rite and ordered the official bakery school of Switzerland to create a cake like this and since then it´s again an consolidate use. It was my favorite day after christmas, when I got back home from school my mom and I always used to buy such a cake and eat it while outside it was getting dark and of course mostly I was the king.


¹Max Währen is a researcher who´s researches are concerned in finding out all bread types ever existed. Thanks to him Switezerland has the most ancient bread reciept types available.
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