In The Kitchen: King Cake

 

Quarantine has taught me how much I enjoy cooking classes. I may not be the best at whatever we are making, and I may experience some frustration, but I do enjoy learning and trying new recipes. This year, I decided that I was going to attempt to make a king cake ... from scratch. I saw that Yelp had a virtual event with Murmurs of Ricotta to make her Soft & Fluffy Mardi Gras King Cake. While I was unable to attend the class, we were all sent the recipe in advance, so I got to attempt to make it on my own time. 

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I had some issues both times I tried to make this king cake. 😂 The first time, I didn't have the milk quite hot enough to activate my yeast. Then I don't have a paddle attachment or dough hook to my stand mixer, so the dough kept trying to climb out of the bowl which led to me mixing it by hand, literally with my hands...and if you know me, then you know I HATE mixing dough with my hands. I opted to do a chocolate filling that I found online instead of the cinnamon one, as my family is not big on a lot of cinnamon. Even with all the complications, my king cake (or king croissant as my boss called it) turned out pretty lovely. 

This king cake was one of the tastiest I've ever had, so I was anxious to make it again for Mardi Gras Day! Round 1 had a few hiccups but turned out great, so Round 2 should be even better! So I thought ...

I started this second attempt to make a king cake super excited and ready to take on the world! I got my milk at the perfect temperature and my yeast began doing exactly what the recipe said it should be doing. I felt very confident going into the whole dough mixing, dough folding, dough sitting in the fridge overnight process. 

Proof that I have been mixing this dough by hand 

Monday hit and what do you know...it seems like hell literally froze over and spilled over into Louisiana. I had heard the rumors that we might get ice, snow, freezing temperatures, etc. These are things that I've heard before and had not happened, very much like the boy who cried wolf. Well, the wolf was here! There was ice everywhere and since I did not mix my dough by hand for nothing, I decided to wake up early and try to get this king cake baked before we lost power. 

Let's do this!

I started making my filling, and already I could tell that something was off. No matter how many extra tablespoons of flour I added, it just would not thicken up. Oh well, gotta make it work! I moved on to rolling out my dough, and even with rolling it out on parchment paper that was floured AND sprayed with some no-stick spray, it was sticking to the parchment paper. Oh well, gotta make it work! I poured my filling on the dough and attempted to roll it up and make the flip onto the baking sheet. My filling kept coming out, the dough refused to stay rolled, and I could see that a flip was not going to be possible. 

Oh well, gotta make it work! Since my dough was already on parchment paper, I decided to call this piece of "bakery art" a molten lava style king cake, to salvage what little of my pride was now left on the floor of the kitchen after I had repeated for the 30th time this cake was a disaster. 

Before the bake

But, I did not go through all of this work to throw this in the garbage. I was baking this beautiful in its own way molten lava style king cake. I didn't proof it for the last hour and a half before baking because I was concerned that my electricity would go off before I put it in the oven. Oh well, gotta make it work! In to the oven it goes, and I told myself I wasn't rotating it halfway through the bake time like you were supposed to because those seconds could be the difference in getting this cake baked before power went out. 

The timer goes off and it's time to see my finished product. It's not winning any beauty contests, but it does taste pretty good. Kiddo refuses to eat it because she says it looks like someone pooping, and I now have a "poop cake" all to myself, and I'm not sad about it. 

Oh well, gotta make it work! Was the mantra of this second baking process, and I think God was laughing at me the entire time because he never let us lose power so I get to see my poop cake every time I go to cut a slice in all of its glory. 

If there is anything I learned from this experience, it is that king cakes are worth every penny you pay for someone else to bake them. Support your local bakeries, and save yourself the heartache and the loss of your self-worth and pride. At least I have some chocolatey goodness to ease that ache with. 

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!