King Cake

Mardi Gras is nearly here!! This, my fourth Mardi Gras away from home, has found me quite homesick. I finally miss the parades, music, cheap plastic beads.. the boyuant, celebratory feeling that pervades the city. Most of all, I miss the king cakes. Now, there a few varieties of king cake: they range from the brioche-style bread decorated tastefully with purple, green, and gold icing to the sugar-drenched, filled to oblivion donut ring. I'll admit, being a Lafayette girl, I am a fan of the over-the-top Meche's Donuts king cake. SO good. But perhaps as my tastes mature, I'll move toward the more tame New Orleans brioche style.

For the past few years, my family has shipped hubby and I a king cake as we suffer through the Mardi Gras-less exile my college education has inflicted upon us. But this year, I decided the expense of shipping a king cake was too high. Instead, I determined to try my hand at creating one. I went a step further and flaunted the joys of Mardi Gras and king cake to all of my coworkers, and thus my king cake experiment became a public adventure. Pressure was on! I searched and searched the web, sifting through recipe after recipe.

The recipe I used is a hodpodge compilation of an Emeril Lagasse and a Food Network recipe.


King Cake
Dough

• 2 envelopes active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 sticks butter, melted
• 2/3 cup warm milk (110-115F)
• 1/3 cup warm water (110-115F)
• 5 egg yolks, at room temp
• 4 1/2 cups flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp nutmeg

Filling

• 4 tbsp butter, melted
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 2 tbsp cinnamon

Icing

• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 5 tbsp milk
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• purple, green, and gold sprinkles
  

(Please note, I used my kitchenaid mixer for this recipe.)

Attach the dough hook to the mixer. Combine the yeast and sugar in the bowl, then add the melted butter, milk, and water. Mix on low for 1 minute. Beat in the egg yolks, mixing on medium for 1 minute.

In a separate bowl,, wisk together flour, salt, and nutmeg. Add to the wet ingredients and mix until a dough ball forms and the begins to move up the hook. (I'm always intrigued by this motion.)

Lightly grease a bowl with vegetable oil.

Remove the dough from the mixer and form it into a smooth ball. Place in greased bowl, turning it so that all sides are coated. Cover with clingwrap and let sit in a warm, dark place until doubled (approximately 2 hours).

Meanwhile, combine the filling ingredients. Set aside.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Roll out to a rectangle about 24x10 inches. (These are very rough approximations). Separate dough into the thirds, lengthwise.

Spread a thin layer of the filling mixture down the length of each third, leaving a 1/2 inch margin clear. Roll the dough lengthwise (as if making pinwheels or cinnamon rolls). Since the dough is so long, this is a bit difficult, but I have faith in you. Pinch the edges to seal.

Time to braid the dough. Start in the middle and braid one side as you would normally braid anything. Loosely tuck the ends together. Go back to the middle. This time, braid underneath so that it looks like one continuous braid.

Now that you've got that nice braid, bring the two ends together to form a ring. To get a continuous appearance, figure out which ends would logically be connected if it were one connected piece and join them together. You can do this by either pinching them together or placing one end under the other and smoothing it out.

Being very careful, place the ring on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover with a towel and let sit in a dark, warm place until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Brush the top of the ring with 2 tbsp milk. Bake for 25-30 minutes. (I believe mine took about 25).

Place on a cooling rack and cool completely.


It's pretty isn't it? Well, it's not quite finished yet!

For the icing, wisk the milk into the powdered sugar. Mix in lemon juice. Spread/pour over cool cake. Sprinkle in alternating blocks of purple green and gold.