Keeping a can of frozen orange juice concentrate in the freezer means you can make more than just orange juice. Try it in a variety of orange-flavored recipes.
Official Mardi Gras King Cake
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What would Fat Tuesday be without the famous king cake? This from-scratch version will be the center of attention at your Mardi Gras celebration. Don't forget to add the plastic baby doll inside - half the fun is seeing who gets that piece!
serves/makes:
ready in:
2-5 hrs
2-5 hrs
1 review
1 comment
ingredients
1/2 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees F)
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup sugar PLUS"PLUS" means this ingredient in addition to the one on the next line, often with divided uses
1 teaspoon sugar
4 cups unsifted flour, as needed
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 cup warm milk
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup butter cut in slices and softened, plus
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg slightly BEATEN WITH
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Icing (2 parts)
colored sugar
green, purple and yellow coloring paste (sold with cake decorating supplies)
12 tablespoons sugar
Poured icing
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons water
directions
Pour the warm water into a small shallow bowl and sprinkle yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar into it. Allow the yeast and sugar to rest for three minutes, then mix thoroughly. Set bowl in a warm place for 10 minutes until yeast bubbles up. Combine 31/2 cups of flour, remaining sugar, nutmeg and salt and sift into a large mixing bowl. Stir in lemon zest. Separate center of mixture to form a hole and pour in yeast mixture and milk. Add egg yolks and using a wooden spoon, combine dry ingredients into the yeast/milk mixture. When mixture is smooth, beat in 8 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon at a time and continue to beat 2 minutes or until dough can be formed into a medium soft ball. Place ball of dough on floured surface and knead, gradually adding up to 1 cup more of flour. When dough is no longer sticky, knead 10 minutes more until shiny and elastic.
Using a pastry brush, coat the inside of a large bowl evenly with one tablespoon softened butter. Place dough ball in the bowl and rotate until the entire surface is buttered. Cover bowl with a heavier kitchen towel and allow dough to rise in a warm place for about 11/2 hours or until it doubles in volume. Coat a large baking sheet with one tablespoon of butter and set aside. After the first rising, place the dough on a floured surface and punch it down with a heavy blow. Sprinkle cinnamon, then pat and shape the dough into a long 'snake' or 'cylinder'. Form a twist by folding the long cylinder in half, end to end, and pinching the ends together. Then twist the dough. Form a ring with the completed twist pinch the ends together. Place the completed ring on the buttered baking sheet, cover it with a towel and allow it to rise for 45 minutes or until it doubles in volume. After the second rising, brush the top and sides of the cake with the egg and milk wash.
Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees F for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and hide the plastic baby doll (not more than 1" in size) in the cake.
Icing (2 parts):
Divide sugar into three portions (for green, yellow and purple). Add a tiny amount of the coloring paste to each sugar portion. Try mixing the sugar and colored pasted between your palms for best results. Set aside.
Poured icing:
Combine ingredients until smooth, adding more water if it's too thick. Spoon icing over top of cake. Immediately sprinkle on colored sugars, alternating between the three colors. Serve in 2"3" pieces.
added by
nikibone
nutrition data
470 calories, 16 grams fat, 75 grams carbohydrates, 8 grams protein per serving.
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reviews & comments
February 24, 2009
This was by far the bset recipe for me. I tried a handful of others, but THIS is the one that worked. The butter will work - soften it, don't melt it. Rolling it out worked fine - we got it about 32" long, bent it in half and then shaped it into the perfect circle! My only reason for a rating of 4 is the icing - had to play around with the powdered sugar to get it thick enough - as written, it was just a sugary water. Other than that, though - bravo!
This king cake turned out excellent but the recipe needed some major tweaking. It took us three tries to get a good result. First, you can't beat 8 tablesppons of butter into the dough, because it virtually liquifies the batter. We ended up with 5 Tbspns. Next, we had trouble forming the ring as directed. When the recipe says to make a "snake," that snake needs to be about SEVEN feet long, otherwise when you make a loop you end up with a dough ball that wont bake correctly. Our advice is to make a 3 to 4 foot snake and make a loop as big as you can make it without folding the cylinder in half and twisting - the twisting does not make a significant improvement. Next, bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. At 375, we got a cake that was dark brown and hard on the outside and inedibly raw inside. As for the icing, I dont know where to get colored sugar paste, but readily-available drops work just fine. Finally, the icing recipe is completely wrong. We tried the suggested recipe and ended up with lemonade! To make the icing, take 1 cup of confectioner's sugar, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, then add water one tablespoon at time while wisking until the icing is smooth - this only takes about 2 or 3 tablespoons of water. Make sure the cake is cool when you spoon on the icing. Coat the cake well, as the sugar will stick to the icing but not the cake. All in all, a good recipe with some major improvements needed. Out end result was, in the words of a native New Orleanian, the best King Cake she had ever tasted!