Today is King's Day! We made the king cake that I told you about in the last post. Well, I'm sorry to say that it is too much like plain old bread rather than a sweet bread or cakey kind of bread. Argh, back to square one.
Well folks, carnival season lasts until Ash Wednesday, and the tradition is to keep having king cake parties until then, so I will keep trying. I am determined to find a good king cake recipe this season! I'll keep sharing my trials with you and
I am posting the photos anyway, because the process is the same regardless of the recipe, and we did have lots of fun making the king cakes, and they did look beautiful!
Letting the yeast do its thing in the warm sugar water.
Mixing the sour cream/butter mix into the yeast mix.
Beating the mix together with an electric mixer.
Turn the dough out to knead until elastic.
Kneading the dough. Then put into a non-stick-sprayed bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled, in a warm place.
Punching the dough down. {Bill's favorite part of the process!}
Roll the dough out into a rectangle.
Coat the dough with butter then sugar and cinnamon.
Roll up the dough, lengthwise, into a snake.
Wrap the dough around into a circle and pinch the edges together.
The tradition is to put a plastic baby Jesus into the king cake after cooking (shove it into the bottom of a piece), and you have to find the baby like the kings found Jesus. The person to find the baby in their piece has to throw the next king cake party and this continues until Mardi Gras, which is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. My kids save the babies and so here is a few from our collection!
If you don't have a plastic baby (which can be found at Party City if yours has a Mardi Gras section), then you can put a large, dry bean to be the baby.
Frost the king cake so the sprinkles will stick.
Sprinkles in the traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple, green, and gold.
Jill puts the sprinkles on.
King cake!
We are actually taking a trip down to New Orleans this carnival season, so I if I have not found a recipe I like by the time we go, I will find a professional baker there that will make one with me! One year I tried using a basic brioche recipe for the bread, and that is the best one I have made, because its buttery and sweet and soft like king cake bread should be.
Anyway, Happy Kings Day! And happy 100th post! Yippee!
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