Highlighting Día de Los Reyes and the delicious Rosca de Reyes, also known as King’s Day Bread
King’s Day Bread is a baked good linked to the Mexican holiday Día de Los Reyes. This holiday is traditionally recognized on January 6th in celebration of gift-giving to the Christ Child.
We’ve written about Rosca De Reyes before, including a brief history of the story of the Three Wisemen. But we want to revisit this renowned bread since Christmas is upon us and New Year’s it right around the corner.
Before we get into our delicious King’s Day Bread recipes, we want to talk briefly about where you can find the bread if baking it from scratch isn’t really your thing.
WHERE TO PURCHASE HOMEMADE KING’S DAY BREAD:
Rosca de Reyes is our bakery’s top-selling fresh-baked good during the holidays! — Redlands Ranch Market
Finding a bakery that bakes authentic King’s Day Bread is almost as hard as finding the tiny plastic baby Jesus hidden inside the loaf!
Fun Fact: The figurine of the baby Jesus that’s hidden in the bread represents the flight of the Holy Family, fleeing from King Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents.
You can read more about the origins of Rosca De Reyes here.
Though our marketplace bakes authentic Mexican goods such as desserts, pan dulces, bolillos, and pies, one super popular time-tested recipe that boasts authenticity once-a-year is our King’s Day Bread loaf.
Don’t feel like baking? No worries! We bake King’s Day Bread from scratch daily so anyone can stop by at anytime during the holiday season to pick some up!
However, if you do feel like baking King’s Day Bread from scratch, keep reading.
4-INGREDIENT CHOCOLATE KING'S DAY BREAD
SERVINGS: 10 | PREP: 5 MIN | BAKE: 15 MIN | TOTAL: 30 MIN
Traditionally made with yeast dough, we’re celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings by adding our own chocolate-y spin on this classic recipe with the help of Betty Crocker!
Ingredients:
- 1 box Betty Crocker™ Super Moist™ cake mix Chocolate
- 1 can Betty Crocker™ Rich & Creamy frosting chocolate
- Dried fruit, to taste
- Sugared cranberries, to taste
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Liberally spray a 6-cup Bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray.
- Prepare cake mix and bake as directed on package. Remove from oven and allow cake to cool completely before removing from Bundt pan.
- While cake cools, place all but 1/4 cup of chocolate frosting in a bowl of a stand mixer and whip until light and fluffy. Once cake has cooled, remove from pan and carefully slice in half. Place bottom half on serving tray and evenly frost top of layer with whipped chocolate frosting then carefully top with other layer of Bundt cake.
- Place 1/4 cup of remaining chocolate frosting in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds, stir and continue to microwave until the frosting is smooth and pourable, stirring between each interval.
- Once the frosting is smooth and pourable, drizzle over Bundt cake and garnish with dried fruit and sugared cranberries.
To view the original source of this recipe, click here.
Tips: For a fun fruity twist, try making this recipe using a yellow cake mix, cream cheese frosting filling, and warmed fruit jelly!
SUPER EASY KING'S DAY BUNS
SERVINGS: 24 | PREP: 10 MIN | BAKE: 15 MIN | TOTAL: 25 MIN
If you love Kings Day Bread but don’t have the time to make it, take a few shortcuts and make Rosca de Reyes buns that only takes a few minutes.
You can print the full recipe here.
Ingredients:
- Cooking spray
- 3 tubes Pillsbury crescent rolls
- sugar
- candied fruit
- 1 egg
- sliced almonds
- 2 tablespoons orange rind
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon
- 1 tablespoons water
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 350℉. Lightly coat muffin pan with cooking spray; set aside.
- Open a can of rolls, spread it out on a cutting board, and split it into triangles.
- Sprinkle with sugar and orange rind.
- Place candied fruit along the short side of the triangle. Roll the dough over the fruit and keep rolling toward the tip of the triangle. Tuck the ends in to make a bun and place in the muffin pan. Repeat with remaining crescent dough.
- Add two tablespoons of water to the egg and mix well to create an egg wash. Brush egg wash on the dough and decorate with almonds and candied fruit.
- Bake for 15-17 minutes, until golden. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.
- When cool make icing by combining powdered sugar, lemon juice, and water to make a smooth icing which you can drizzle over the Rosca de Reyes muffins.
TROPICAL KING'S DAY BREAD
SERVINGS: 12 | PREP: 35 MIN | COOK: 25 MIN | RISE: 2 HR 15 MIN | TOTAL: 3 HR 15 MIN
“I wanted to share this with my family, so I took the traditional Rosca de Reyes recipe and gave it a tropical twist to represent my Caribbean roots.” — The Latina Homemaker
This specific recipe has a lengthy ingredients list due to its comprehensive components (bread, yeast, filling, and orange glaze. Check out the full list of ingredients here then follow the instructions below!
Instructions:
- Mix warm water, yeast and tablespoon of sugar together. Let it sit for at least 5-10 minutes.
- In a small saucepan, warm the evaporated milk over medium heat. Add butter, vanilla and cinnamon.
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, orange zest, salt, sweetened condensed milk, yeast mixture, eggs and milk mixture. If the dough is too sticky, simply add more flour. If it’s too dry, add more milk.
- Roll dough into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow dough to double in size (approximately 1 hour).
- Cream together sugar, cream cheese, salt and vanilla. Once dough has risen, roll it out into a log shape, spread dough, add a thin layer of cream cheese mixture and crushed pineapple.
- Seal the dough, shape it into a large ring, and place it on a greased pizza pan.
- Brush with egg wash and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. If you want to decorate with candied fruits, add them before baking.
- Mix confectioners sugar, orange juice and sweetened condensed milk.
- Cool on a wire rack and pour orange glaze over the bread. Serve and enjoy!