mexirish...nz

Yesterday was a fairly special day in the Mexican calendar.  Means fek all on the irish calendar, but who cares about that? It was 3 Kings day.  I'm sure you remember the story.  We had posada a few days before christmas (" no room at the inn ") and we had christmas day (" baby jesus day ") and now we have the day when three wise men (" Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o'clock in the morning? That doesn't sound very wise to me. ") come to visit to give gifts of gold, frenenstien and murr, which is a type of balm (" A balm, what are you giving him a balm for? It might bite him. It's a dangerous animal. Quick, throw it in the trough. ") Anyway.  Tradionally kids gets toys, and a big bread called a Rosca De Reyes (Kings Bread) is made. We tried to make one last year but it didn't come out too well.  It was hard, and fairly flavourless.  Being tech savy, we decided to consult The Google. There...

Turns out Conchas made properly are fan- bloody - tastic . The extra kneading takes it's toll on your fingers and hands, but the final result makes up for it. I guess this is true for all bread recipes, but it's cool to realise the fact through results. They turned out rounded, plump and were sweet and tasty. The sweet bread reminds me a little of a French Brioche, but the topping makes it less poncy. They contains lots of eggs and butter, so I guess this is why they taste so good. So we brought the second attempt to our Mexican friends for them to try, and the were very impressed, so I reckon that's pretty cool. I'm making some more tonight. I'll not bother posting any more about this mind you. I think you get the idea.

Well, the Rosca we made a few days ago went very well. We brought it to some friends (from Mexico) to let them try. They seemed to enjoy it! The tradition is to eat it with Hot Chocolate - we used a Mexican brand called abuelita . We dipped the bread into the chocolate. Extra delicious ! This is the baked Rosca. With baking in mind, we decide to try another well known Mexican sweet bread - Conchas . Conchas are sweet little rolls topped with a crunchy biscuity topping. They can be flavoured in various ways - chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, or just plain. They contain mucho butter, mucho sugar, and mucho flavour! To be honest, you probably shouldn't eat them every day but once in a while, these beauties will do your soul good! I'll not bother typing the recipe here - that's not really what we do here at Mexican Irish. But it's basically a standard sweet bread - flour, butter, sugar, yeast, eggs and salt. The first attempt was... interesting. They came out quite ...