Luc de Verdt proudly displays four small round 18-carat gold bars decorated with the logo of his pastry shop.
The “cake of kings” is considered one of the traditions of celebrating Epiphany in Belgium and many other countries, and it is customary that a golden plastic surprise is hidden inside it.
Luc de Verdt proudly displays four small 18-karat gold balls with his patisserie logo on them. These yellow pieces, each worth 500 euros, were placed into four cakes, which de Verdt randomly selected from thousands.
“Customers love it and are very happy,” notes De Verdt, 60, who has spent 46 of them baking desserts, expecting his initiative “to attract more customers.”
As happens in France and in other countries, even in Belgium people massively imitate the Befana cake, and queue up to buy it in front of the pastry shops, especially if the treasure hidden among the ground almonds with which the cake is stuffed is a temptation .
De Verdt, who launched this initiative in 2020, wants to make 3,000 cakes this year, an increase of 500 from last year.
