Prep Time: 1 hr 30 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins
Total Time: 2 hrs
Mardi Gras is coming up next month and we wanted to get a head start and give you some fun recipes. King Cake is a sweet dough in the shape of a hollow circle with a glazed topping and colored sugar. You can make a delicious filling of almond, apple or chocolate. We decided to keep it simple and only used cinnamon and brown sugar.
Ingredients
For Dough
1/4 cup warm water
1 envelope active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm milk
1/2 cup butter softened
2 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
Baby charm (optional)
For Filling
1/4 cup melted butter
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
For Icing
1 cup powdered sugar sifted
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 to 2 tbs milk
Sugar Sprinkles in green, gold and purple
Instructions
Place warm water in large warm bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and stir until it is fully dissolved. Add in the warm milk, softened butter, sugar, nutmeg and salt. Add in 1 cup flour and mix. Stir in eggs and enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth , totaling to about 5 minutes.
Place the dough in greased bowl, cover, and let rise to double the size (1 hour).
Punch down dough after it has risen. Remove to lightly floured surface; roll out the best you can into a 20- by 9-inch rectangle, or longer if you can. Brush the surface with melted butter; then sprinkle to within half-inch of edges with brown sugar and cinnamon. This will be your filling.
Beginning at long end, roll up tightly and make sure you pinch the edges so that they seal.
With a sharp knife, cut the roll in half lengthwise and turn the halves us so that you can see the filling.
Twist the halves together like a braid. This is where you would but in the baby charm, but we skipped it as we were worried to bake it.
Transfer dough to a lined or greased baking sheet. Shape the dough braid into a ring. Cover and let rise again for about another 40 minutes.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until done.
Remove from baking sheet and let cool on wire rack.
Mix all icing ingredients together until smooth. Make sure you divide into three small bowls and tint one purple, one green and one gold. Drizzle over the top of the cake, add colored sprinkling sugar (coarse grain sugar) as desired.
Enjoy!