Borrowed from a friend, put here so I can find it ...
My King Cake Recipe
This
is based on a "Traditional King Cake" recipe that was written up in an
article written by one Claude Barilleaux. Recipe will create one tasty kingcake. If you're
bringing it to a party, you might double it so you'll have two cakes.
Your call.
Note that the quality of your ingredients has a direct correlation to the tastiness of this cake, but you can make it with regular old grocery store ingredients and it'll still be tasty. It's just better with local creamery products and high quality flour. Use raw or turbinado or other minimally processed sugar if you can get it.
cake:
1/2 c mashed potato (or sweet potato). Don't add much, if anything to the potatoes. Just plain.
1 1/2 c milk
3/4 c butter
1/4 c lukewarm water
1 pkg dry yeast
1/2 c sugar (preferably raw or Louisiana cane or other minimally processed option)
3 large eggs
1 t freshly grated nutmeg
1 t lemon or orange rind (aka zest)
5 c (+/-) bread/cake/regular flour (your call)
1 t high quality salt
cinnamon
Icing:
1 lb. confectioner's sugar
1 t. almond OR vanilla extract
7 T. heavy cream (or you can use milk)
1. Mix lukewarm water, yeast, 1/4 cup of sugar in smallish bowl with a fork. Set aside in a warm spot to proof the yeast (on top of your stove if you have a gas stove with pilot light is a good option). I use warm tap water.
2. Heat 1/2 cup butter and 1 1/2 c milk over low heat just until butter melts (and milk scalds). Do not boil. Add the mashed (sweet or regular) potato to this, stir and let cool to lukewarm. IMPORTANT TO LET IT COOL ELSE YOU WILL KILL YOUR YEAST!
3. Transfer butter/milk/potato to a stand up mixer bowl (I suppose you could use a hand held mixer for this, but I've never tried). Slowly mix in yeast mixture (which should be nice and proofed by now). Add eggs one at a time, add nutmeg, lemon or orange zest (or maybe both!), Salt, and flour, one cup at a time. As dough starts to get thicker, switch the mixer attachment to a dough hook if you have one and let the dough hook knead it for awhile, adding flour gradually. Let mix until dough comes away from the bowl, forming a nice, soft ball.
4. Flour a cutting board and pour mixture out onto flour for kneading process. Get going! I generally add another cup (at least) of flour while kneading, sprinkling onto the dough whenever it starts sticking to my hands. Your dough will start fairly moist and will end firm and soft but not sticky anymore. I knead through at least three Morphine or good Brass Band songs and that generally does the trick.
5. Once you're satisfied that your dough has been well kneaded, make a nice ball and place in a large GREASED bowl. Cover with a DAMP cloth and put in a warm spot. Let rise 1 1/2 hours until doubled (or more) in size. Punch down and let rise again, until doubled--@an hour.
6. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease large baking sheet (I actually grease the BOTTOM side of my cookie sheet and cook my king cake on that side cause it is so big it would come up against the sides of my cookie sheet and cook funky otherwise).
7. Melt 1/4 cup of butter and have handy. Have 1/4 cup (or more) sugar handy. Have a whole lotta cinnamon handy.
8. Punch down the dough and divide into three even-sized pieces (if you have a kitchen scale handy, you can weigh these balls out to make sure they're even-sized. It makes for a better braid).
9. Take one ball of dough, roll it out as thin as you can, forming a narrow but long rectangle. The longer, the better. Brush melted butter onto the rectangle, cover with sugar. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. When you're satisfied that you have enough sugary-cinnamony deliciousness down (I like to rub it around to mix it up and make sure I get all the spots), start rolling into a snake. Roll, pinch, stretch, roll, pinch stretch. The goal is to get an unbroken long tube filled with sugary goodness. Set this tube aside and make two more.
10. Braid your three tubes of sugary goodness together. It's a bit tricky but you can do it. Over, under, over, under. Once you've got the center part braided you can pretty up the ends. You're going to form a ring and then weave the loose ends together. You'll have six loose ends that need to work into the ring, so it's okay if, when you start braiding you leave a bit loose at the start. It's also okay if one of your tubes ends up being longer than the others. You'll just tuck/weave those pieces into the ring more. Shape your ring to suit your baking tray and/or your serving tray. Round? Oval? Once I made one in the shape of a fleur de lis. That was cute!
11. You can brush the whole thing with melted butter if you want to, but you can skip that step if you prefer.
12. Bake at 350F for at least 30 minutes. Pay attention that the innermost dough is cooked all the way through. You may need to put foil on the edges to keep them from browning too much. I find that it takes more like 50 minutes for this cake to be done.
13. Cool cake. Grab your baby or whatever you're going to use to mark the baby (plastic alligator? red bean? etc). Reach in under the cake and tuck your baby up in there between some folds of the braid. Be careful not to break the cake while you're tucking thingy into it. Transfer to your serving platter.
14.Make colored sugar: 1/3 cup sugar plus green food coloring. 1/3 cup sugar plus yellow food coloring. 1/3 cup sugar plus blue and red food coloring (read the back of the food coloring box for the purple formula). If you're using turbinado or raw sugar, your colors will be a bit odd but still come out lovely. Use a fork to mix the food coloring into the sugar. It takes awhile to get it fully integrated. If it's not bright enough, just add more until it's the hue you like, of course. (Note that you can, of course, choose other colors. But purple-green-gold is traditional and if you've come this far, really now...)
15. Make the icing. In mixer, combine confectioner's sugar, extract (almond really is fabulous but it's intense so some people don't like it. Vanilla is a better-received icing flavor by my kid), cream, beating until smooth and fairly think.
15. Pour icing generously over cake, tucking into the braid folds with aplomb. Yum.
16. Sprinkle colored sugars over icing. I like to alternate in stripes but Armor likes to sprinkle all of them all over. It really doesn't matter.
17. Eat it up!!! Goes nicely with Champagne.
Note that the quality of your ingredients has a direct correlation to the tastiness of this cake, but you can make it with regular old grocery store ingredients and it'll still be tasty. It's just better with local creamery products and high quality flour. Use raw or turbinado or other minimally processed sugar if you can get it.
cake:
1/2 c mashed potato (or sweet potato). Don't add much, if anything to the potatoes. Just plain.
1 1/2 c milk
3/4 c butter
1/4 c lukewarm water
1 pkg dry yeast
1/2 c sugar (preferably raw or Louisiana cane or other minimally processed option)
3 large eggs
1 t freshly grated nutmeg
1 t lemon or orange rind (aka zest)
5 c (+/-) bread/cake/regular flour (your call)
1 t high quality salt
cinnamon
Icing:
1 lb. confectioner's sugar
1 t. almond OR vanilla extract
7 T. heavy cream (or you can use milk)
1. Mix lukewarm water, yeast, 1/4 cup of sugar in smallish bowl with a fork. Set aside in a warm spot to proof the yeast (on top of your stove if you have a gas stove with pilot light is a good option). I use warm tap water.
2. Heat 1/2 cup butter and 1 1/2 c milk over low heat just until butter melts (and milk scalds). Do not boil. Add the mashed (sweet or regular) potato to this, stir and let cool to lukewarm. IMPORTANT TO LET IT COOL ELSE YOU WILL KILL YOUR YEAST!
3. Transfer butter/milk/potato to a stand up mixer bowl (I suppose you could use a hand held mixer for this, but I've never tried). Slowly mix in yeast mixture (which should be nice and proofed by now). Add eggs one at a time, add nutmeg, lemon or orange zest (or maybe both!), Salt, and flour, one cup at a time. As dough starts to get thicker, switch the mixer attachment to a dough hook if you have one and let the dough hook knead it for awhile, adding flour gradually. Let mix until dough comes away from the bowl, forming a nice, soft ball.
4. Flour a cutting board and pour mixture out onto flour for kneading process. Get going! I generally add another cup (at least) of flour while kneading, sprinkling onto the dough whenever it starts sticking to my hands. Your dough will start fairly moist and will end firm and soft but not sticky anymore. I knead through at least three Morphine or good Brass Band songs and that generally does the trick.
5. Once you're satisfied that your dough has been well kneaded, make a nice ball and place in a large GREASED bowl. Cover with a DAMP cloth and put in a warm spot. Let rise 1 1/2 hours until doubled (or more) in size. Punch down and let rise again, until doubled--@an hour.
6. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease large baking sheet (I actually grease the BOTTOM side of my cookie sheet and cook my king cake on that side cause it is so big it would come up against the sides of my cookie sheet and cook funky otherwise).
7. Melt 1/4 cup of butter and have handy. Have 1/4 cup (or more) sugar handy. Have a whole lotta cinnamon handy.
8. Punch down the dough and divide into three even-sized pieces (if you have a kitchen scale handy, you can weigh these balls out to make sure they're even-sized. It makes for a better braid).
9. Take one ball of dough, roll it out as thin as you can, forming a narrow but long rectangle. The longer, the better. Brush melted butter onto the rectangle, cover with sugar. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. When you're satisfied that you have enough sugary-cinnamony deliciousness down (I like to rub it around to mix it up and make sure I get all the spots), start rolling into a snake. Roll, pinch, stretch, roll, pinch stretch. The goal is to get an unbroken long tube filled with sugary goodness. Set this tube aside and make two more.
10. Braid your three tubes of sugary goodness together. It's a bit tricky but you can do it. Over, under, over, under. Once you've got the center part braided you can pretty up the ends. You're going to form a ring and then weave the loose ends together. You'll have six loose ends that need to work into the ring, so it's okay if, when you start braiding you leave a bit loose at the start. It's also okay if one of your tubes ends up being longer than the others. You'll just tuck/weave those pieces into the ring more. Shape your ring to suit your baking tray and/or your serving tray. Round? Oval? Once I made one in the shape of a fleur de lis. That was cute!
11. You can brush the whole thing with melted butter if you want to, but you can skip that step if you prefer.
12. Bake at 350F for at least 30 minutes. Pay attention that the innermost dough is cooked all the way through. You may need to put foil on the edges to keep them from browning too much. I find that it takes more like 50 minutes for this cake to be done.
13. Cool cake. Grab your baby or whatever you're going to use to mark the baby (plastic alligator? red bean? etc). Reach in under the cake and tuck your baby up in there between some folds of the braid. Be careful not to break the cake while you're tucking thingy into it. Transfer to your serving platter.
14.Make colored sugar: 1/3 cup sugar plus green food coloring. 1/3 cup sugar plus yellow food coloring. 1/3 cup sugar plus blue and red food coloring (read the back of the food coloring box for the purple formula). If you're using turbinado or raw sugar, your colors will be a bit odd but still come out lovely. Use a fork to mix the food coloring into the sugar. It takes awhile to get it fully integrated. If it's not bright enough, just add more until it's the hue you like, of course. (Note that you can, of course, choose other colors. But purple-green-gold is traditional and if you've come this far, really now...)
15. Make the icing. In mixer, combine confectioner's sugar, extract (almond really is fabulous but it's intense so some people don't like it. Vanilla is a better-received icing flavor by my kid), cream, beating until smooth and fairly think.
15. Pour icing generously over cake, tucking into the braid folds with aplomb. Yum.
16. Sprinkle colored sugars over icing. I like to alternate in stripes but Armor likes to sprinkle all of them all over. It really doesn't matter.
17. Eat it up!!! Goes nicely with Champagne.
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