Roscas de Naranjas -- a Pinedo recipe

At Christmas, I was reminded of a Mexican tradition, Día de Los Reyes; in English it is the Three Kings Day or Epiphany.  In my home, it is called Twelfth Night.

In Mexico, it often celebrated by eating a Rosca de Reyes, a King Cake.  This is a sweet bread shaped in a ring and decorated with dried and candied fruit, icing, and sometimes nuts.  

In the Pinedo cookbook on pages 233-4, she has a section labeled as "Roscas" and gives three variations for them.  None are labeled as specifically for de Reyes, and none of the recipes direct us to decorate the bread.  

I wanted to try the first recipe she listed, "Roscas de naranja", for several reasons.  First, the dough is flavored with oranges, while the others are not.  Next, it called for fifteen (15!!!) eggs.  Finally, it contains tequesquite, and I wanted to try it as a leavening agent.  Click here for the previous post with more information on tequesquite.

My Translation

Notice that she specifies using yeast as well as the tequesquite, and that the yeast is not really acting as a leavening agent.  I'm assuming it does a little and that it also adds flavor along with liquid.

I wasn't going to just toss in some dried yeast in powdered form.  Throughout the book, Miss Pinedo appears to be working with yeast in liquid form.  On page 149, she gives directions on how to make a liquid yeast in a crock to be available daily for bread making.  I decided to make a liquid yeast that was proofed before using in the dough.  

I took 1 teaspoon of dried bread yeast and mixed it into 2 cups of warm water, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/2 cup flour.  I left it to proof in a warm location for about 2 hours.  I stirred it well before using it in the dough.

Proofed and ready to go

My Redaction

15 eggs

the juice of 2 small oranges (1/4 cup) and the zest of one

1 cup butter, melted

1/2 pound sugar

1 1/2 cups proofed yeast 

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup settled tequesquite water

5 1/2 pounds of all purpose flour, with some extra to dust the counter while kneading

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put eggs, juice, zest, sugar, salt, and tequesquite water into a large bowl or pan.  (I used a 6 quart kettle.)

Mix well.  Add one pound of flour.  Mix well.

Add the butter, stirring while pouring it in so it does not scramble the eggs.  Add the rest of the flour (I added it one pound at a time, mixing each batch in as I went.) and mix well to form a soft, sticky dough.

Put it onto a floured surface and knead until it forms a body that sticks to itself more than your hands, but still is somewhat sticky.

It is ready to shape and bake. 

Nearly enough flour (5 pounds here)

The ball of dough after kneading

My Notes

I wasn't sure what the right temperature was for baking this.  Modern rosca recipes suggest 400 degrees F., so I first set my oven to that.  I took a small piece of dough for a test bake.  I left it in for 13 minutes; that is when it developed a little browning on the outside.

About the size of the small orange

Baked after 13 minutes

Interior needed more time, exterior more browning

The interior looked very moist and I felt it needed more baking time.  The outside should have been browner.  So I lowered the temperature to 375 degrees F for my next test batch.

I took half of the remaining dough and shaped it into a ball.  Once it was on the baking sheet, I poked a hole in the middle with my fingers and started pulling it into a ring shape.

My goal was to get the thickness of the dough reasonably the same all around to help it bake evenly.  The dough had the tendency to pull back to a smaller ring than what I pulled it to.  I got it as best as I could and put it into the oven for 35 minutes.

It was nicely browned and sounded hollow when tapped.  I did not like the cracking on top, which I attribute to how I shaped the ball -- I didn't tuck the dough to make a smooth surface when I prepared to put it on the baking sheet.

I let it cool and then sliced it.  The interior looked damp, almost like it wasn't baked enough, although it had formed a small crumb and there were some bubbles.  The crust was fine; crispy and lightly brown.  The orange flavor came through without being too much.  It might have been better with more salt.  It is not a sweet bread, but considering how much sugar goes on it (icing and/or powdered sugar), I think that is acceptable.  

I wondered if the interior was that moist-looking because of 15 egg yolks and 1 cup of butter.  That seems like a lot of fat for bread.  

I believe the orange juice serves two purposes.  It adds flavor, but probably not as much flavor as the zest, which seemed to be the orange flavor I tasted.  But it is an acid, and I think it would react with the alkaline in the tequesquite water to make bubbles.  Perhaps I needed more tequesquite water or more orange juice to make the bread better.

The other half of the dough was also shaped into a ring.  This time I turned the dough to form a smooth top as I was making the ball.  Then I formed the ring and baked it a 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

The top didn't crack, so I think I was right about that.  It seemed puffier, too.

But it, too, was disappointing.  The interior was a little more cooked-looking than the previous batch and it had more bubbles.  But it was still dense.  Don't get me wrong; the flavor was good as the orange came through well.  It just didn't seem like bread, or at least not the lighter, fluffy bread I was expecting.

I can't really call this a success.  I will label it as a failure.  We still saved it, though, as it wasn't so bad that I wanted to throw it out.  I sliced it into individual serving pieces and froze most of it.  It was fine to eat when heated or toasted, so I will have a sturdy bread to serve with a soup or stew.  It might do well in a bread pudding some day, too.

So where did it all go wrong?  I don't know for sure, but my sense tells me I didn't have enough tequesquite water (or strong enough water) to make all that dough rise.  I also think I could have kneaded it more.  Or I could have ignored the directions to not let it ferment and let the second batch rise.  And did it really need all those eggs?  One aspect I neglected to consider is that the eggs of yesteryear may have been a lot smaller, so I did not need that many eggs of the large size.  Maybe five would have been better.  That is just a guess.

I was not deterred.  I decided to try another of Miss Pinedo's rosca recipes.  Check back for tomorrow's post to see the results.