Today is Three Kings Day and, fortunately for some, or unfortunately for others, Christmas is over. Not before having eaten the Roscón, that bun filled with cream or cream (also, there are those who prefer it dry) that will pay for whoever finds the bean inside it in each house.
A sweet that is always decorated with candied fruit, although this usually ends up in the trash. Why do some pastry chefs (thank God, less and less) continue to insist on putting it in the Roscón if they don't quite like it?
Xavier Canal, owner of the Canal pastry shops in Barcelona, says that in view of the revolution against it that seems to be taking place now, they are trying to find other alternatives: "exchange it for sweets or fruits from Nice, although the problem has not yet been resolved because "They don't stick as well to the Roscón as candied fruit."
Traditionally, the fruit pieces adhere when the bun is still raw, so they remain compact and form part of the sweet when cooked. The same does not happen with sweets, since heat can melt them, the only remedy is to put them in afterwards and the system to do so still does not quite work.
The green pieces of fruit are nothing more than pieces of dyed melon, the red ones are watermelon and cherry, and the orange ones are obviously orange. "Almost all pastry shops usually buy the candied fruit already prepared to put in the Roscón, although sometimes they go a little overboard with the dye."
Legend has it that the candied fruit represents the gems and emeralds that the Kings of the East wore in their tunics, in these red and green colors. What is not clear is when the idea of putting these decorations on the roscones that we eat today was introduced. “These buns came from France, and there they didn't have fruit, they were simply a sugary brioche bagel,” explains Canal.
“Three types of torteles (roscos) have always been eaten here in the past: puff pastry and cream, brioche and marzipan, and puff pastry and angel hair,” says the pastry chef. That, in Catalonia. In Madrid, for example, before the modern Roscón de Reyes arrived, what was eaten for dessert that day was a kind of flan made from apple compote and eggs.
But returning to today, although we still do not know who came up with the idea of decorating it with the happy fruit, the truth is that the pastry chefs have already begun to take measures to get rid of all their detractors on a day as special as the of Kings. We will see what the Roscón of the future will be like in a few years.
