Rosca de Reyes

I am a very bad Mexican. I don't always have beans in my fridge. I don't speak Spanish to my kids. I hardly ever cook or even eat Mexican food. I don't celebrate Mexican holidays... But I do selectively hold onto a few traditions I grew up with... Like eating Mexican King Bread--Rosca de Reyes (with hot chocolate!) on Epiphany. Sidenote: it's an excellent way to derail any weight loss resolutions early in the year. 

Anyway, I love Rosca. It's a yummy, lightly sweet yeasty bread topped with just the right amount of crumbly sugar and dried fruit, and I have been inviting friends to join me in eating some for the past few years (you know, so I don't end up eating it all myself). I didn't really know how to bake one, so I had been buying my rosca at a little Mexican bakery not far from home. Then last year, I needed it a day or two early for our little gathering, so I went in, asked if they would have one ready when I needed, ordered it, paid a deposit, and waited for the agreed-upon day. You can see where this is going, right? Yeah, they hadn't started making roscas yet (crazy bad Mexican me for wanting rosca too early), and they clearly didn't want to be bothered (or my business ever again), so after demanding my money back and panicking ever-so-slightly, I improvised with a buttery pound cake from Kroger (so not the same thing) with a plastic baby I had from past years stuck in through the bottom. It got the job done for the day, but I swore to never go back to that bakery again. 

Thanks to that experience--and Pinterest, I was moved to look for a recipe that would tell me how to make one myself, and the one I found took me right back to Mexico. It was perfect! This is it, in case you want to try it yourself: http://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/2011/01/rosca-de-reyesthree-kings-bread-recipe.html (Sorry for the long URL; the blogger app doesn't let me make pretty links--or I haven't figured out how to do it yet).

Making it was as easy as making any other yeast bread... The only part that was more time-consuming was making the candied fruit. I just did plain orange peels and orange peels with maraschino cherry juice/cherries for the red ones. I also got my measurements wrong on the sugar dough... I put in too much sugar and not enough flour, so it melted away a little (and made a huge mess in my oven).

Another thing I hadn't anticipated was how much it would grow (duh) as it baked. Next time, I will roll out the dough into a thinner log so that the center won't close up after baking. I ended up taking a round cutter and cutting out the merged middle to keep the donut shape. 

Then I stuck two plastic babies into the bottom. 

In the end, it could have been prettier, but it tasted exactly the way I remembered. I ate too much of it, shipped some to my parents, and watched my delighted kids find the plastic babies inside.