Brussels bakery hides gold coins worth 500 euro in its Epiphany cakes
As in previous years customers of Luc De Weerdt’s bakery in the Brussels municipality of Sint-Gillis will have a chance to find a gold coin if they buy one of the baker’s Epiphany cakes. The Epiphany, sometimes known as Three Kings’ Day is an important date in the Christian calendar. In many parts of the country children go and sing a traditional Epiphany song outside their neighbours’ door and bakers bake special Epiphany cakes.
The cakes each contain a figure. The person that finds the figure in their slice of the cake is allowed to wear a crown made out of card that comes with the cake and is declared “King for the day”.
While most bakers put a small plastic or porcelain figure worth less than a couple of euro into their cakes, Luc De Weerdt puts a gold coin into at least one of his cakes.
The coins are worth 500 euro. While in the first instance this may seem like a wildly generous gesture that make no business sense, last year Luc De Weerdt’s bakery sold 2,500 Epiphany cakes, many of which to customers that bought one specifically in order to have a chance of finding a gold coin.
Bakkerij De Weerdt
Last year there were two gold coins to be had. This year Mr De Weerdt has increased the number of cakes containing a coin to 4. He hopes that this will see sales of the cakes increase yet further and expects to sell around 3,000 of the cakes this year.
The coins are made of 18 carat gold. Luc De Weerdt told VRT News that "These are unique coins as the logo of our bakery is engraved into them and I am very proud of this"
