Rosca de Reyes Follow-Up

I’m sorry about the delay in following up with the results of the Rosca de Reyes but we were out of town for the weekend and I didn't have access to the internet. Anyway, enough blabbering Deb, let's get to the results!

I spoke to Miguel on Friday morning before we left and his first response was "the bread was good" to which I have to admit I was a little disappointed at hearing, my ego wanted to hear "OMG! The bread was fantastic" but you know, I need to work on that ego thing. Anyway, I think what Miguel was politely trying to tell me without hurting my feelings was that this version of the rosca was a lot different than what his family are used to. Now that I think about it, it makes sense to me that a recipe for rosca might vary from town to town or region to region and to expect Miguel and his family to be familiar with my rosca was probably assuming too much. Miguel told me he had not expected the bread to have a filling and so at first, he thought the bread was raw in the center, but then when his sister told him that it was a filling and it was supposed to be that way he liked the bread a little more. Miguel's Dad is not crazy about nuts, and since this bread was filled with them, I can see why he wouldn't have been too thrilled with it. Miguel’s mom gave me some good advice, valuable advice really, and that was; wait until after the bread is baked to decorate it with the candied fruits otherwise the nuts and citron will burn, (like mine did, hee ). OH, and Miguel said that he didn't find any doll, but I told him to be patient, that it was in there, he was kind of surprised when I told him there was only one doll. Miguel claims that you can put several dolls into the bread, thus making the experience of who finds a doll first more exciting. Hmmm, I had not read that anywhere, but then I have no reason to doubt it either, so next time, I'll not only look for little porcelain dolls but I'll put more if them into the bread.

Overall I think Miguel’s family enjoyed the bread even if it wasn’t quite what they were used to. I was happy to make it for them anyway, so everything worked out well in the end. I do think I might have to revisit this recipe and bake the bread again, just so that I can taste it for myself. I can now see that it’s very hard to write about a recipe if I don’t have at least one little bite of the end product, I mean, making it is one thing, but tasting it makes all the difference when I’m trying to write about and share my experience of it with others. So for now, maybe not quite the successful kitchen story I was hoping for, but another lesson learned. Now, onto the next!

Written by Deb on January 9, 2005 11:15 PM