INGREDIENTS:
Dough:
- 4 tablespoon (½ stick) / 56g Unsalted Butter
- 1 cup / 250ml Milk (whole or 2% ideally)
- 1/4 cup / 60ml Water
- 1 (1/4oz / 7g) packet Active Dry Yeast
- 3 cup / 450g All Purpose Flour (plus extra for bench flour)
- 1 teaspoon / 3g Kosher Salt
- 1/4 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- 1/2 cup / 100g Light Brown Sugar, packed
- 2 Egg Yolks
- 2 teaspoon Canola Oil
Filling:
- 4 tablespoon (½ stick / 56g) Unsalted Butter
- 3/4 cup / 150g Brown Sugar
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup /125g Walnut or Pecans chopped
Egg Wash:
-
1 large Egg
-
1 tablespoon Milk
Icing:
- 3 cups Confectioners sugar, sifted
- 2 tablespoons Milk
- 1 tablespoons Butter, melted
- 2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- Sanding sugars or sprinkle decorations (Yellow, Green and Purple)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350°F
Set rack in middle of oven
Make the Dough:
Melt the butter over low heat, remove from the heat and add the milk and water. The mixture should be warm to touch (about 110°F).
Mix in the yeast, set aside until it is actively foamy (about 5-7minutes)
Prepare the dry ingredients: In a large bowl mix the flour, salt and cinnamon.
Mix the wet ingredients: In a separate smaller bowl, combine the sugar and egg yolks, then add in the yeast mixture. Whisk until combined
Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients in the larger bowl; fold together until all the flour is incorporated – expect a sticky messy dough in the bowl
Flour your work surface and turn out dough and sprinkle additional flour on top of the dough mound. Knead the dough together for a few minutes then transfer to oiled bowl and cover, let rise for about an hour.
Make the Filling:
Melt the butter and whisk in sugar and vanilla
Mix in cinnamon, salt and nuts
Form the Cake
Turn the dough out onto parchment paper (or pastry mat, if you have one) and roll out to a large rectangle – about 12” by 24”.
Spread out the filling as evenly as possible – covering the entire pastry, leave about 1/2“ with no filling on all 4 sides.
Starting at the long side of the pastry, slowly fold in the edge and begin to roll. Use the parchment paper or pastry mat to help you cleanly roll the dough.
Working lengthwise, with a sharp knife, slice from the roll in half from one side to the opposite side. Rotate each long half so the inner sugar layers are facing out, then begin to braid each half roll around each other – so the sugar layers are facing outward/upward.
Form the roll into a circle, connecting the two opposing ends. Try to physically connect each end by gently pressing layers together, use small amounts of water on the dough to “glue” the ends together
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and transfer the cake ring to the center of the pan.
Cover with clean towel and let rise / puff up for an additional 30 minutes
Prepare egg wash by mixing egg and water. Brush gently over entire cake, if any nut pieces fall to parchment paper – simply push back into cake
Place the pan in the preheated oven.
Bake for approximately 40 minutes until ring is deep and golden brown.
Remove from oven let cool on pan for 30 minutes
Prepare the Icing while cake is in the oven
Sift confectioners sugar in to large bowl
Melt butter and add to milk with vanilla.
Add liquid to confectioner’s sugar and mix until thoroughly combined. Add more sugar or milk to adjust consistency as desired.
Once the cake has cooled, pour or drizzle the icing glaze over the cake to desired level of coverage. (Given the pretty braided action, I like to keep some of that visible rather than completely covering with icing – but use your own judgment, there’s no wrong way to do it!)
Per the traditional Mardi-Gras king cake coloring – go ahead and sprinkle the colored sanding sugar in incremental bands over the ring – gold, then green, then purple etc. until you have completely encircled the ring.
Insert your King!… Now that the cake is complete, find a clever way to push in the baby jesus/king thingy into that cake – which can be a simple dry bean (if there are fears of someone swallowing!). Now you have a complete “King” Cake – ENJOY!
The super brief backstory of the King Cake
Ok.. to be clear, this post is about the American / New Orleans style “King Cake” (sometimes maybe called “Three Kings Cake”) that makes its appearance in February and March for Mardi Gras. This danish-ring / coffee-cake like treat has lineage to a few other cake types from Europe: Twelfth-Night Cake in the UK, Dreikӧnigskuchen in the German speaking world, Galette des Rois and Gateau des Rois in French speaking lands, Roscon de Reyes in the Spanish areas and Bolo Rei in Portuguese speaking parts of the world. I hope to do a post about these other cakes – as they’re all a bit different.
What these cakes all loosely have in common is the celebration of the arrival of the three kings in the Jesus story which is called “Epiphany”. Epiphany is very technically the 12th and final day of “Christmas” which is January 6th – thus this day is a secondary christmastime-holiday in which the “Feast of Epiphany” is held – which includes this Three Kings Cake. Also, as a bit of a party favor, the cakes all have a little “baby jesus or king” baked inside the cake, usually a bean or an actual little piece of plastic in the shape of a baby or a king. Supposedly whoever finds the small jesus-king thingy in their cake is “king for a day”… how fun. Well, in the litigious US of A… these fun little plastic jesuses now cannot be baked in as someone deemed it a choking hazard, and the bakery would be liable – so in bakeries in the US, these little religious toys come taped to the box – for the consumer to insert themselves, thus shifting the liability and threat of choking squarely on the consumer.
One interesting tidbit to this history – is the cake and traditions of this seasonal celebration likely has roots in the pre-christian pagan days (of course!). It’s entirely likely that this cake and celebration may have existed with the Roman Saturnalia festival which was a festival held around the winter solstice which celebrated the Sun and Saturn – perhaps the reason for the round / ring shape of the cake.
The American / New Orleans style King Cake season technically starts on Epiphany and ends on Mardi-Gras, however I believe most people really associate it with Mardi-Gras alone, as Epiphany isn’t really celebrated in the US. Also – one different tradition in the US, the one who finds the baby jesus-king thingy – is not only “King”.. But they are also now responsible for providing the King Cake at the following year’s Mardi-Gras party.
This King Cake is always a circular braided pastry usually filled with cinnamon and nuts, covered with a glaze decorated with the three Mardi-Gras colors: Purple which signifies “Justice”, Green which signifies “Faith” and Gold which signifies “Power”.
Read more here – much more info on all the different versions as well as a much better description of the long and storied history!
https://www.nola.com/gambit/food_drink/article_c4bd0bb6-68e2-11ec-816d-6b3b5f8daba4.html
https://www.nola.com/gambit/food_drink/article_c4bd0bb6-68e2-11ec-816d-6b3b5f8daba4.html
2 thoughts on “King Cake”
Looks great! I
thank you!!