Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make Traditional King Cake.
This Mardi Gras favorite is a cinnamon-spiced mix between bread and cake.
It's generally served during Carnival season,
which kicks off every year on January 6th and ends on Fat Tuesday,
and luckily it's pretty easy to make.
Start by pouring 1 cup of warm milk into a large mixing bowl,
or you can use a stand mixer.
You want the temperature to be between 105 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit,
and you can warm that up either on the stovetop or in the microwave,
I did mine in the microwave,
it took about 45 seconds to get it the right temperature.
Then you'll add in 2 tablespoons of active dry yeast,
and 1/2 cup of sugar,
and we'll whisk this together and let it sit and proof for about 10 minutes.
Instant dry yeast will also work and there will be no need to let it sit and proof.
Then we'll add in 5 egg yolks,
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla,
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon,
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg,
and then about 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon zest, which is optional,
you could get away with leaving it out,
but it adds a nice bright flavor.
Then we'll pour in 1 cup of melted butter.
I'm using salted butter,
if you're using unsalted you'll want to add in just a pinch of salt.
Then we'll whisk this together.
I am showing you how to do this by hand without a mixer,
but of course if you do happen to have a stand mixer,
you can always use that.
Just put on the dough hook and mix it all together.
Next we'll start adding in all purpose flour.
You'll need somewhere between 3 1/2 - 4 cups total.
Because I'm doing this by hand, I'll start stirring it with a wooden spoon.
Keep on mixing or stirring until the dough easily pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
If it gets too hard to stir you can always move to your hands to kind of knead it together,
and make sure everything gets mixed in.
Now because King Cake is a cross between a bread and a cake,
you'll see that the dough is a lot softer than maybe your traditional bread dough,
and a lot more greasy.
You can just leave it in the bowl it was mixed in and cover it with either a light tea towel or plastic wrap.
Let this rise until double in size, which will take about 1 hour.
After an hour sprinkle some flour onto a clean countertop,
then we can transfer our dough from the bowl to that lightly floured countertop,
and it's ok if it sticks just a little.
I'm going to show you 3 different ways to shape your King Cake,
and they all start out the same way.
Roll your dough out into a giant 10 inch x 20 inch rectangle.
Alright the first shape I'm going to show you is the easiest.
It's a simple round loaf.
Start by spreading 4 tablespoons of softened butter in an even layer over your dough.
Then we'll put together a quick cinnamon sugar mixture.
You'll need 1/3 cup granulated sugar,
and 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon,
and give this a quick mix.
Then we'll sprinkle this cinnamon sugar in an even layer over the butter on our dough.
Now a traditional King Cake has a little baby in the middle.
You can buy these online and they are made food safe for baking.
The tradition is that whoever gets the slice with the baby is king or queen for a day,
and then they're supposed to make the next king cake to keep the party going.
You can place the baby anywhere you want.
I kind of like to put mine in the middle.
Then working lengthwise we're gonna roll this up tightly,
kind of like you would for cinnamon rolls,
and then gently roll it to seal the edges.
For the simple round loaf it's really easy.
You'll just pull the edges together and kind of seal them up,
and then place it onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
The second shape I'm going to show you is really pretty.
It starts the exact same way,
you'll put on your butter, cinnamon sugar, your baby, roll it up tightly into a log,
but then you'll grab a sharp knife and slice your dough log in half lengthwise.
Then you just kind of pinch the ends and twist the 2 pieces together.
Pull it around into a circle or even an oval shape,
and then kind of tuck in the ends to form one complete circle.
Then you just transfer this to a parchment lined baking sheet.
The third method is a braid and it takes just a little bit more work,
but it also produces a really beautiful result.
This time once you've rolled out your dough you're going to slice it into 3 even strips,
because this time we're going to create 3 separate little logs to then braid together.
So then we butter each of these individually,
and when buttering these I always leave just a little room at the top of each one so I can more easily seal the edges.
Then once again we'll sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar mixture,
we'll place our little baby, and I kind of press it in,
and then we can roll each one up tightly,
I do try to roll these as tightly as I can,
and then just be careful when you're rolling over the baby to kind of tuck it in there,
and yes it does sound super weird to say "to tuck in the baby" when you're baking something,
but that's a King Cake for you.
Seal them up the best you can and then line them up like so,
I like to kind of pinch the ends together,
and start to braid.
Then before finishing off the braid,
I twist it and bring the ends together,
and then you can kind of finagle a braid here.
Where you can kind of just tuck them in and connect the 2 ends.
Carefully transfer this to a parchment lined baking sheet.
Let the loaf rise for another 20-30 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then no matter how you shaped your loaf,
we're gonna bake it in the 350 degree oven for about 30-35 minutes.
Once it's done baking you'll transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.
I already have one done.
This one was done using the second shaping method where we sliced the log in half,
you can see just how pretty that is.
Once the cake is completely cooled it's time for icing and decorating,
so you will need some sprinkles,
and the classic colors for King Cake are green purple and gold,
or you know you could always use yellow.
Making icing is super simple.
You'll need 2 cups of powdered sugar in a little mixing bowl,
then you're going to whisk in somewhere between 3-4 tablespoons of milk.
We're not going to drizzle this frosting necessarily,
so you don't want it too thin,
but you do want it to be a little more thin than what you would use to just spread on a cake.
So we'll take that icing and begin to spread it out over our cooled king cake.
Now I don't like this to be too thick because ultimately this is really just our glue so that we can add on our sprinkles.
Now you can get as creative with the sprinkles as you'd like,
and alternate adding on the gold, purple, and green.
The whole point is that this cake should end up looking like a fun Mardi Gras party.
Since sprinkles were involved,
once you've cleaned up your mess you will be ready to slice and serve.
This cake is best eaten fresh of course,
but it will stay good for about 2-3 days.
Thanks for watching.
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