Restos de Rosca de Reyes
Tania Chen
Tired of spending the holidays alone and fielding awkward questions? Look no further than this recipe for Three King’s Day! Now, we know Valentine’s is usually the time where one looks for a lover to share the holiday with, but companionship comes in all forms.
This simple recipe requires:
For the bread:
½ cup of lukewarm water (sun-warmed in winter)
1 pack of yeast
4 cups of flour left out overnight during New Year’s Eve
¾ cup of sugar pilfered from a friend’s home
3 big eggs from your grandmother’s hens
¼ teaspoon of salt
1 ½ teaspoons of orange extract
1 ½ cups of butter bought at the local tiendita, where it is most fresh.
To decorate:
Dried fruits: figs of purple tinge, sweetened orange pieces, ruby red cherries and quince jelly cut in strips.
Filling:
3 to 6 phalanges, for a small rosca your little finger should suffice. Remember, the more chances you want the more bones should go into the mix! Only yours will do, you must put yourself in there to forge an authentic connection!
For this particular bread, we will be replicating the technique we used on our Pan de Muertos from November. You want to knead that bread and let it rise properly, humming one of those songs your grandmother used to sing for you. The words are not important; it is all in the intention.
The truly difficult part comes in preparing the filling. You want each bone to have an equal chance of finding its own special place inside the bread. Spread them out and let them sink into the dough.
Bake for an hour or until a knife comes out cleanly, then move to cooling rack for decorating.
Important! After eating your slice, if you are so lucky as to feel the crunch of bone between your teeth, be sure to swallow and go to bed promptly. The face of your future beloved, whether romantic or otherwise, should be clear this night. They’re sure to be dreaming of you too (it’s likely they’ll comment on amnesia, nausea and disorientation during this time—take the moment to draw them close, don’t be deterred)!
Get ready to meet again, Día de la Candelaria is not far and we promise, this is the last holiday you’ll spend alone!
For Día de la Candelaria tamales, please follow our blog. Patron supporters get first-access to Sopa de Cabeza de Calabaza (for desired separations).
About the author:
Tania Chen is a Chinese-Mexican queer writer. Their work was selected for Brave New Weird Anthology by Tenebrous Press, and has also appeared in Unfettered Hexes by Neon Hemlock, Apparition Lit, Strange Horizons, Pleiades Magazine, Baffling Magazine and Longleaf Review. They are a graduate of the Clarion West Novella Bootcamp workshop of 2021. Currently, they are assistant editor at Uncanny Magazine and can be found on twitter @archistratego or mastodon at @archistratego@wandering.shop
