One of my all time favorite desserts is King Cake, and it's a shame that not enough people know about it. In the south, especially around Louisiana, you can find them everywhere this time of year. However, most of my friends in Seattle had never even heard of this.
Prep Time | Cook Time | Serves |
3 hours (2 hours of resting) | 45 minutes | 8-12 people |
King Cake Recipe
1/2 lb yukon gold potatoes
3/4 cup warm milk 180g
2 eggs
3.5 cups ap flour 420g
1/4 cup sugar 55g
salt
1 packet of active dry yeast
1/2 cup cubed butter - softened
Filling
1 stick butter
1.5 cups sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon
Icing
4 tbsp butter
4 oz cream cheese
lemon juice
vanilla
1.5 cups powdered sugar
Step 1: Cook Potatoes
Take one half pound of washed and peeled yukon gold potatoes, and cut them down into pieces for boiling. Add those to a pot of cool water and bring it up to boil. Once that water’s boiling, drop the heat and simmer these until nice and tender, roughly 15 minutes. They’ve got to be cooked enough so there won’t be any chunks of uncooked potato in the dough, or that would cause an uneven rise. Once these are tender, strain out the water and get to mashing. My recommendation is to push these through a sieve with a spatula, or use a potato ricer if you have one. This sieve method is what I use to get really smooth and creamy mash for stuff like shepherds pie or a side for steak. Set the mashed potatoes aside for now.
Step 2: Mix Dough and Proof
To a small sauce pot, add 3/4 of a cup or 180ml of whole milk, along with 1/4 cup or 55 grams of white sugar. Begin heating this sugar milk mix over medium flame until it reaches around 110f, or a little warmer than body temperature. To this warm milk, add one packet or 2 and one fourth teaspoon of active dry yeast. Turn off the heat and mix the yeast in. The bubbling confirms that the yeast is alive. If it’s doing nothing after 5 minutes, you’ve got dead yeast and you’ll need to start this mix again.
Once you see that your yeast is alive and kicking, you can grab a stand mixer and begin building the dough. To your mixing bowl, add 3.5 cups or 420g of all purpose flour, along with a large pinch of kosher salt. Add the mashed potatoes and yeast/ milk mix. Let that run on low until most of the wet has incorporated into the dry. With the beater running, add 2 room temperature large eggs, one at a time. Let the first one almost fully incorporate before adding the second one. Once the eggs are combined, add one whole stick of unsalted butter in stages. Each piece of butter should be fully combined into the dough before the next one goes in.
If you’re doing this correctly, it should take a few minutes of mixing to fully incorporate the butter. After all this mixing, you should have a well formed, stretchy dough that we can turn out onto a floured surface. A few final minutes of hand kneading on the board ensures a solid gluten network, and the dough will pick up any last minute flour it needs to correctly hydrate.
After a couple of back and forths, the dough should spring back slightly when poked. Place this in a floured bowl and cover with piece of plastic wrap. 1 hour in a warm spot will allow the yeast to give this dough it’s initial rise.
Step 3: Make the Filling
The filling starts with 1 stick of melted butter. To that, add in 1.5 cups of white sugar, as well as 1.5 tablespoons of cinnamon. Mix that till combined and that’s the simple cinnamon sugar that makes this so craveable. If you want, you could add some nutmeg or cardamom just for a little pop.
Step 4: Roll and Braid
After the hour proof the dough should be doubled in size. Place down a large piece of parchment and flour it to make the rolling and braiding easier. Remove the dough from the bowl and place on the floured parchment. Roll it into a rectangle, roughly 12 inches by 22 inches.
If you don’t want to braid it, you’d leave it in a rectangle, fill it and roll it just like a cinnamon roll. For the braiders out there, cut this into 3 even pieces lengthwise (the pieces should be thin and long). Split that filling between the three pieces of dough, and begin gently spreading it out so there’s even coverage. It’s more important that the mixture runs the full length of the dough rather than the full width of it. Nobody wants a piece of king cake without the filling. Be careful not to tear the dough here, or you could end up with a bunch of cinnamon sugar blowouts. Once they’re all coated, each piece can be rolled up and sealed on the end. Just pinch the end shut once you get there.
For the braiding, start at the middle and cross the two outer ones slightly to the left side of the middle piece. That middle piece is now on the right, outside of that initial cross, pass it over the closest dough strand. With any braid, you’re essentially taking the outermost piece and crossing it over, going from back and forth from the left side to the right. The rhythm is easy once you start getting it down. At the end, you can sort of press the 3 pieces together then turn the whole parchment sheet 180 degrees (this is why the parchment is so important). To braid the other half, you have to work in reverse. The outer piece will go under the middle instead of over it. Watch the video above to help with the process. Pull the dough together to form a tight circle and move the whole parchment braid onto a large sheet tray. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and let this proof one last time for an hour.
Step 5: Bake and Rest
Set your oven to 350f. The cake should be light and puffy. Gently brush this with a little bit of whole milk or cream if you’ve got it around to ensure some extra browning on the exterior. Place the tray in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the cake is deeply browned. 30 may be too short depending on your oven's heat. The dough will brown and take on some slight complex nutty flavors, and a little of the cinnamon sugar filling will pour out and caramelize. After that 30 minute bake time, you should have a fully risen, beautifully golden brown king cake.
Let the cake solidify in the pan and then slide it onto a wire rack to cool. As it cools, mix together the icing. Into a mixing bowl, add half a stick or 4 tbsp of softened room temperature unsalted butter, along with 4 oz or half a stick of softened room temperature cream cheese. Whisk these together until fully combined. To this combination, add powdered sugar, vanilla extract and lemon juice. From here, add just enough milk to create an icing that just barely falls from the whisk. If you lift your whisk, and it’s not moving, it needs a touch more milk. If it’s dripping like crazy, you’ve added too much liquid and can adjust with more sugar.
Step 6: Decorate
After about 30 minutes of cooling, you can safely apply the icing without worrying about it melting. Spread on the icing and then top it with the defining king cake decor. Gold, green, and purple sprinkles. With that, your king cake is complete, well besides hiding the baby. Traditionally, a plastic baby is secretly added to one piece. Whoever gets this in their piece is the person who’ll bring the king cake next year. Baby or not, this is the perfect dessert for coffee. You get the bitter hot coffee, and the sweet tender king cake. It should be light enough to cut with a fork, and sweet enough to get you absolutely buzzing. It’s truly like a cinnamon roll on steroids, and one of my all time favorites.
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