Rosca de Reyes Three Kings Spanish Epiphany Cake

Rosca de Reyes or Roscòn de Reyes is a loaf style cake made for Twelfth Night in Spanish speaking countries. Rosca de Reyes is a traditional Spanish cake baked to celebrate the Three Kings’ giving gifts to the Baby Jesus on the feast of The Epiphany (January 6th).

Updated 2026 · Post originally sponsored by Cosmos Holidays.

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Have you ever heard of Rosca de Reyes? I’ve got to admit it was a new one on me. Although I was very familiar with the French Three Kings’ cake Galette des Rois I had never heard of Rosca de Reyes before.

Twelfth night in the UK is a gloomy time, we’re all sick of the decorations, spent our money in the sales and dreaming of holidays having been on a diet for five days. 

The Europeans and Latin Americans make a much bigger deal out of Epiphany than we do, for some countries it’s a bigger deal to them than Christmas itself with another feast and more presents being handed out to the children. 

With reference to the Three Kings giving gifts to the Baby Jesus on twelfth night, Spanish countries celebrate Epiphany with a crown shaped Rosca de Reyes meaning King’s cake. The name and practice of baking a clay trinket inside is similar to the French Galette des Rois however the Spanish Kings cake is more of a stuffed fruit loaf whereas the French dish is a pastry stuffed with almond paste.

According to Spanish countries’ tradition, whoever finds the trinket has to host another party on Candlemas (February 2^nd).

We don’t go a bundle on rock hard objects being hidden in food in our house, in fact my husband has a total phobia of this. Therefore I skipped this element but you can do it if you like. 

The Rosca dough is sweet and similar to Italian panettone. In common with our own Christmas pudding, it uses dried fruits and nuts since historically fresh fruit would have been scarce in winter. The ring shape represents the Kings’ crowns.

I have seen different ways of presenting Rosca, some like mine, are stuffed with fruit and nuts and have a simpler decoration. Others are plainer breads and have Certosino style decoration of fruit on top. But the essential combination of sweet dough and sweet dried fruit remains the same.

The Rosca is more involved than French Galette but to me seemed less faffy than Italian panettone. The ring can be decorated with candied fruit and citrus peel but since mine was filled with fruit and nuts it would have been overkill to put too many of them on the outside as well.

Since I’m a very lazy bread maker and don’t like to get my hands dirty, I mixed my dough in the bread maker on dough cycle. But you can do it the traditional way if you prefer.

Have you bought all your Christmas gifts yet? I know I haven’t – Ted has been a poorly boy for the past week and it was quite a challenge to make and photograph my Rosca de Reyes in time for this challenge.

Print Recipe

Rosca de Reyes Three Kings Epiphany Cake

Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 165 ml milk
• 75 g butter
• 65 g sugar
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 7g sachet dried yeast instant
• 400 g strong bread flour
• 25 g unsalted butter melted
• 25 g sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 60 g pistachios shelled
• 100 g dried apricots roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp lemon zest or orange
• 1 egg small, beaten to glaze
• 1 extra dried apricot chopped into triangles for decoration
• 1 tbsp candied peel diced

Instructions

• Heat the milk in a small saucepan and melt the butter, sugar and salt in it. Allow to cool until lukewarm.
• When the milk is lukewarm, add the yeast and leave a few minutes to froth and bubble.
• If it is a cold day (and let’s face it, it probably is), warm the bread maker pan with hot water for a couple of minutes then tip away and dry the inside.
• Pour the milk and yeast mixture into the bread maker pan and break over the two eggs.
• Add the flour on top and set your bread machine to dough cycle to prove and rise twice. Mine takes 90 minutes to do this.
• When the dough is nearly ready, blitz the shelled pistachios in the food processor so they are nice and nubbly but not too ground up.
• In a small bowl mix the filling ingredients of pistachio, sugar, cinnamon, chopped dried apricots and zest.
• Remove the dough from the bread machine and place onto a sheet of parchment paper. This makes it easier to handle.
• Roll or stretch the dough out to around 10” x 20” rectangle. Butter the surface with the melted butter whilst leaving a strip unbuttered on the top long edge.
• Scatter your fruit and nut mixture along the strip of dough. Spread it out whilst leaving a strip at the top uncovered.
• Scraping the dough off the surface of the paper, roll it upwards Swiss roll style.
• Place a buttered metal or ceramic dish upside down on a baking sheet and coil the sausage of dough and fruit mix around it. Pinch the edges together to make a ring.
• Cover the ring with greased cling film and leave in a warm place to prove again for 45 minutes.
• Before baking, glaze with beaten egg and make cuts around the edge taking care not to slit the dough too much letting the contents spill out.
• Bake the Rosca in a preheated oven at 190c, Gas mark 5. After around 15 minutes cover it with some loose foil then bake for another 25-30 minutes until golden brown.

Disclosure: All bloggers taking part in the Rosca de Reyes bake off have have received payment to create material for the Cosmos blog and promote it through their own social media channels. All words and opinions stated are my own.