King cake...aka the most complicated recipe ever. Beef wellington may be a close 2nd in complication, but when all is said and done, this one ... takes the cake! Plus, it was very messy to make. Sugar and dough everywhere! Though we followed the recipe to a T, ours didn't look much like the picture you'll see when you Google king cake. It was flatter, less "cake-shaped" than we expected. Luckily, our end results tasted better than they looked.
With king cake, you also get a fun tradition of having a small plastic baby placed somewhere in the cake (after cooking it of course), and the person that pulls the piece with the baby in it "wins" the prize of hosting the next party.
In our case, a family of four, we decided whoever got the baby would plan the next meal. So, one of our 9 year old twins is busy planning his menu.
However, he didn't pull a baby from his cake. We couldn't find a tiny plastic baby in our local grocery store, and I thought of something more fitting for my twins anyway. So, I didn't go seeking the little baby from any other store. Instead, I snagged one of my boys' Imaginext Iron Man figures and popped him in there! My boys love superheroes, so this got them even more into the action.
The Recipe -
Ingredients:
The Cake
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
2/3 cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 packs of active dry yeast
2 eggs
5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
The Filling
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup raisins
2/3 cup chopped pecans (optional)
The Frosting
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 Tbsp water
Various colors of food coloring to color your frosting
Directions:
Heat the milk, then stir in 1/3 cup of butter. While that is cooling, mix the yeast, warm water, and 1 Tbsp of the white sugar in a big bowl. After about 10 minutes, the yeast mixture should be bubbling. At that point, pour in the cooled milk mixture.
Next, whisk in the 2 eggs. Then, stir in the remaining white sugar, salt, and nutmeg. Add the flour in, stirring in 1 cup at a time.
Once the dough has pulled together, put it onto a floured surface and knead it until it becomes smooth and elastic. This should take roughly 8-10 minutes.
After this, put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and turn it over and over until the dough is covered with oil. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and put it into a warm place. This will help the dough rise. Let it rise until is as doubled in size, which should take about 2 hours. At that point, divide the dough in half and spread onto 2 greased cookie sheets.
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
While preheating, make your filling. Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, 1/2 cup flour, raisins, 1/2 up melted butter, and optional pecans and mix.
Spread this filling mixture over the dough you've spread onto the greased pans.
Roll the dough like a jelly roll and pull the ends around to squeeze them together, making 2 separate dough rings. To get the king cake look, at 1 inch intervals around the cake, slice about 1/3 of the way through the cake.
Let it rise again... 45 minutes this time.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Put the plastic baby (or Iron Man) into the bottom of the cake.
Use different colors of food coloring while mixing your frosting (confectioners sugar and water). Pour the different colored frosting around the top of your cake. Be sure to use Mardi Gras colors (purple, gold, and green) during Mardi Gras season!
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