Golden jewellery pieces hidden in Kings’ Day cakes

It’s tradition for the delicious cakes eaten on January 6, Kings’ Day, to contain surprises in them: a figurine of a king, bringing good luck, and a small bean, denoting that whoever gets the slice with the bean has to pay for the next cake.  

This year, in Vilafranca del Penedès, some lucky families will bite into something much harder in their ‘Tortells de Reis,’ after Moner Jewelers have teamed up with local bakeries in the town to hide ten golden bracelets and rings in random cakes.  

“We thought, what could we do this Christmas that was cool, that was good, to grow some excitement, even for ourselves,” Gena Moner, of Moner Jewelers, tells the Catalan News Agency (ACN). “And we wanted to help foster spending in local businesses and to give a bit of extra value to the work that the bakeries do.” 

The bracelets and rings hidden are 18-carat gold pieces that are all of Moner’s own design. The rings are finished with blue topaz and diamonds and are valued at €650, while the bracelets have a small plaque that can be personalized and are valued at €250. 

Gena Moner described the campaign as a “win-win” for both the jewelers and the bakeries in terms of spreading awareness and gaining publicity.  

Five different pastry shops in the town are each given a ring and a bracelet to put into random cakes that will be sold from this Friday.  

The pastry chefs involved in the campaign told ACN that the initiative grows “excitement” that is already there with Kings’ Day. "It's a feast that's full of magic and this fits perfectly with the day," explains Marc Parés from Fleca Parés. 

Ramon Bertran of the Bertran patisserie says that "these are days of a lot of nerves and stress, since a thousand tortells have to be made in only a few hours, but the initiative immediately seemed very interesting and fun." 

This interest has also been palpable among customers, as the capaign has accelerated this year's orders of cakes, with more than 20% of the orders placed even before Christmas.  

The five participating bakers view expanding production unfeasible "because it has been at the limit of the capacity of the workshops for years." 

Catalan bakers are expecting to sell around one million traditional tortell de Reis cakes during the final stretch of the Christmas season, the president of the Bakers Guild Antoni Bellart told ACN.

 Both the pastry sellers and the jewelers admit they don’t know what will happen when someone finds the ring or bracelet, since there is no instruction sheet that marks the rules of who should keep it. Moner invites families and groups of friends to agree in advance whether the prize will go to whoever buys the cake or whoever finds the jewelery piece. 

"Let's assume there will be some conflict," laughs Félix Mestre of Forn i Pastisseria Rius, who is in favor of the reward going to the person who bought the cake.  

The five pastry shops that have joined the Joieria Moner initiative are Bertran, Galí, Parés, Rius, and Trens, all with a long tradition of several generations in the town of Vilafranca del Penedès.