Amanda Nolan has been selling completely vegan baked goods since 2018 and opened Sweet Craft Vegan Bakery in March, but this will not be the first time she sells all vegan Roscas de Reyes to customers in Brownsville to celebrate the epiphany, or Three Kings Day, which is Thursday.
Nolan, whose mother is from Matamoros, grew up in a Mexican household where Three Kings Day, or Dia de los Santos Reyes, was celebrated as a religious holiday and where cutting kings cake or rosca de reyes was customary.
In Mexico, the Rio Grande Valley and many other parts of the world, Christian faithful celebrate the journey of the three wise men to visit the baby Jesus by throwing parties to eat kings cake and where whoever finds a plastic baby Jesus in their slice is obligated to host a tamalada exactly 40 days later on Feb. 2, dia de candelaria, or candlemas, which commemorates Jesus’ presentation at the temple.
While Nolan said she’s not particularly religious, she does like the tradition the day represents and wants it to continue.
“I do remember it from when I was a kid, we would get a rosca, and even in school someone in our class would bring a rosca and we would all share one, so I think that it’s more like the nostalgia, the tradition, for me. I’m not extremely religious or anything, but it’s definitely a tradition that I do want it to continue,” she said.
Nolan recalled that for a few years when she first went vegan, “I couldn’t have a rosca, so I would miss out. Everybody would be cutting the rosca, and I would go, ‘oh no, I’m vegan I can’t eat that,’ so then I decided to make a recipe for it. I need to have a rosca. I don’t like to miss out.”
She said when it comes to celebration breads, besides the flour and shortening, it’s all about milk, butter and lots of eggs. There are substitutes for butter and milk, but there’s really no substitute for eggs, she said.
“So the lots of eggs was really the issue, to try to make the bread taste the same, like a traditional non-vegan rosca, because they have a lot of eggs, they have a lot of butter and they have a lot of milk, so trying to make that vegan is a challenge. It was a challenge at first, but I got there eventually.”
This will be Nolan’s first year selling from her bakery at 1280 W. Ruben Torres Blvd. and she already has orders for about 40 cakes, in addition to three dozen mini roscas. The mini roscas will also be sold fresh from the case along with traditional conchas, empanadas and the popular vegansita, the vegetrian version of a Hostess Twinkie made from vanilla cake with a lemon cream filling, strawberries and covered in chocolate.
Nolan, who’s been vegan for about six year, said her bakery sells everything fresh from the case and they try to make just enough to selll out every day or close to it.
Before taking the plunge and opening the bakery she sold from farmers markets and other venues. By now she has a loyal clientele, but many of her customers are not vegetarians necessarily, just people who found out about the shop by word of mouth or saw the sign, dropped in and like what they found, she said.
Roscas de Reyes sell for $22 each, while the mini roscas, also called rosca buns, are $3.50 each.
