Mexican bakeries begin their preparations for Día de los Reyes Magos, or Three Kings Day, weeks before the holiday arrives on January 6. In the La Monarca Bakery & Cafe In Los Angeles, bakers have been mixing and freezing bread dough since early December for the signature holiday treat: rosca de reyesor three kings of bread.
For many Latinos, Epiphany concludes the holiday season. People line up outside their favorite bakeries early in the morning to get a roska to celebrate the day the Magi brought gifts to baby Jesus. Families gather later in the evening and eat the sweet bread along with the champurrado, café de olla the hot chocolate.
This Epiphany bread probably arrived in Latin America in the 20th century, when the Spanish fled to Mexico during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and opened bakeries, where they served rosca. The highly symbolic bread became more popular throughout Mexico in the 1950s, but began appearing in cookbooks in the 1930s and 1940s, said Mely Martínez, the author of “The Mexican Home Kitchen: Traditional home-style recipes that capture the flavors and memories of Mexico.“
Its round shape is meant to represent God’s eternal love, and the nuts and dried fruit candies like achitro signify the jewels in the kings’ crowns. Some bread recipes includes orange scent. Similar to Carnival royal cake and French galette des roisrosca also have a favor – usually a plastic baby – inside the cake.
Alfredo Livas, co-founder and owner of La Monarca, which has a dozen locations around the Los Angeles area, expects to sell between 5,000 and 10,000 roscas on Epiphany — so many that they create a temporary buffer zone for the briocheles inside a tent in a panel kitchen in Los Angeles.
In the days leading up to January 6th, the bakery will carry only the most popular items to make room for the roscas. They will also sell hot chocolate or café de olla in takeout carafes. “It’s a great way to end the holiday season,” said Mr. Livas, who grew up in Monterrey, Mexico.
In the Los Angelitos Bakery in Huntington Park, California, several bakers will mix, decorate, and bake more than 1,000 rusks throughout the night leading up to the holiday. Los Angelitos began selling the bread nearly two decades ago using a recipe from their head baker, Victor Mendoza, who learned how to make it from his father and grandfather who were bakers in Mexico.
“When the day comes, it’s a mad house,” said Deanna Ductoc, one of the owners of the family bakery, which also sells a smaller version and another in a muffin wrapper.
The treats are so popular this season that one of the biggest baking companies, Bimbosells a seasonal roska. Thirty-seven million people of Mexican descent live in the United Statesand in 2022, the company began selling single-serving rosca in convenience stores in the US.
Roscas de reyes are traditionally garnished with red and green acitrón, but the candy was harder to find since the cactus it came from was is considered endangered; in 2005, the Mexican government declared it a protected species, effectively reducing the use of the plant in food and candies. Acitrón is now sometimes made with jicama, which has a similar texture to cactus. Quince paste, nuts and other dried fruits such as citrus peels or those included in fruit cakes are also used, said Ms. Martínez, a cookbook author.
The plastic figurine of baby Jesus hidden in the ring holds the promise of future celebrations: The person who finds the baby in his piece has good luck, but must also throw a tamale celebration on February 2, called Día de la Candelaria, or Candlemas.
Not everyone wants to find the baby, Ms. Martinez said. “Some people even swallow the baby Jesus or hide it under their tongue because they don’t want to pay for the tamales.”