Foodie Obsessed

Mardi Gras King Cake

by Tracey Thompson on February 4th, 2008

 The Twelfth Night or King Cake has a long legacy, dating back to pre-Christian pagan rituals.  Megan O. Steintrager has the scoop:

Go into any office in Louisiana during Mardi Gras season and you’re almost sure to see employees feeding on a donut-shaped cake gaudily decorated in the colors of the Carnival (purple, green, and gold—apparently established by an early Mardi Gras king to represent justice, faith, and power, respectively). King Cakes range from simple coffee-cake-like affairs to giant concoctions filled with just about anything you can imagine shoving into a cake—including pecans, fruit, various flavors of cream cheese, and chocolate. But the secret ingredient in every King Cake is a tiny plastic or porcelain baby. The person who discovers it in his or her slice is branded as the purchaser of the next cake, and so it goes at offices, schools, and parties from Twelfth Night (12 days after Christmas) until the aptly named Fat Tuesday.

In order to avoid liability, most bakeries sell the cake with the baby on the side, leaving the actual hiding to the purchaser. Fear of choking on a plastic child doesn’t stop people in the Big Easy from chowing down on more than 750,000 King Cakes a year, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, and many Louisiana bakeries now ship their royal confections across the country, making it unlikely that the sun will soon set on this cake’s kingdom.

There is much lore about the origins of today’s King Cake ritual. One fanciful tale traces it to Western European, pre-Christian societies in which whoever found a coin or bean in a special cake was crowned King for the year; afterwards, he was sacrificed to ensure a good harvest—which makes having to pony up for the next cake seem like a mighty good deal. Whether they stole the idea from the pagans or not, Christians have long served cakes containing coins or gilded beans for the Feast of the Epiphany or Twelfth Night, a celebration of the visit of the three wise men—the Magi or Kings—to the infant Jesus 12 days after his birth. Current King Cake practices in New Orleans evolved from the late 1800s when Mardi Gras ” krewes ” (the fancy term for parade and party organizing societies) used these cakes to choose queens and kings to preside over weekly Twelfth Night balls—after a regal seven days, the winner would provide the cake for the next ball. With the bean now a baby and the ball a bacchanalian binge, it seems the cake has come full circle.

Now I have seen various recipes.  One of the most complicated comes from the Picayune’s Creole Cookbook originally published in 1901.  King Cake is a more like a sweet bread or brioche.  What I have had in the past is a filled King’s Cake.  The Official Mardi Gras Website has several recipes for King Cake, but the one which I think fits the celebration is from Myriam Guidroz, a food columnist for the Time-Picayune. You could really fill this with any fruit.  The one I had was pineapple.  They suggest that if you want, you can use a bread machine, just follow a brioche or sweet roll dough recipe. 

King Cake with Cream Cheese and Fruit Filling

Basic King Cake Dough

1 envelope dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup milk
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
4 cups, approximately, unbleached flour Mix the yeast with the warm water. Stir 1 teaspoon of the sugar and 1 teaspoon of the flour into the yeast and set aside. By the time you have measured the other ingredients, the yeast should be beginning to bubble and show signs of life.Bring the milk to a boil and stir in the butter and the sugar. Pour into a large bowl; the mixture should be lukewarm. Beat in the egg yolks, whole eggs and the yeast.Beat in approximately 2 cups of flour, until the dough is fairly smooth, then gradually add enough additional flour to make a soft dough that you can form into a ball. Knead it, by hand or machine, until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a bowl, turn the dough once or twice in it to grease it lightly all over, cover with a cloth and leave to rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.Pat the dough down and cover the bowl with a damp towel, plastic film over that and refrigerate until the next day. This recipe makes enough dough for two king cakes. Extra dough may be frozen, or make two king cakes and freeze one. Thaw frozen cake and reheat 10 minutes in a 375-degree oven.

FILLING

1/2 recipe king cake (above)
1 (16-ounce) can cherry, apple or apricot pie filling
8 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 dried bean (to bake in the cake as per tradition)
Colored sugars or confectioner’s sugar and food coloring Remove dough from refrigerator and with well-floured hands, while it’s firm and cold, shape it into a long sausage shape. Using a floured roller on a floured surface, roll out the dough into a 30-by-9-inch rectangle as thin as pie crust. Let dough rest.If necessary, drain extra juice from pie filling. Mix the cream cheese with the sugar, flour, egg yolks and vanilla. Spoon an inch-wide strip of fruit filling the length of the dough, about 3 inches from one edge. Spoon the cream cheese mixture alongside the fruit, about 3 inches from the other edge. Brush both sides of dough with egg wash. Insert the bean.Fold one edge of dough over the cream cheese and fruit, then fold the other edge over. Gently place one end of the filled roll onto a greased pizza pan or large cookie sheet. Ease the rest of the roll onto the pan, joining the ends to form a circle or oval. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes. Brush again with egg wash and cut deep vents into the cake. Sprinkle with colored sugars if desired.Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until cake is well risen and golden. Cool before icing with confectioner’s sugar mixed with enough water to make a spreadable paste and tinted purple, green and gold. Make one cake that serves 10 to 12 people. If using a plastic baby instead of the bean, insert it into the bottom of the cake after it is cooked.

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POSTED IN: Misc. Foodie Stuff, Recipes