For Mardi Gras last month, I made the Mardi Gras King Cake from King Arthur Flour. I chose this recipe because it includes a cream cheese filling; a few years ago I made a king cake with no filling and decided that I don't particularly care for a king cake that is just bread.
It's easy to make the dough in a stand mixer. You just dump all of the ingredients (melted butter, lukewarm milk, eggs and an egg yolk, flour, sugar, dried milk, salt, instant yeast, ground nutmeg, and Fiori di Sicilia) into the mixer and knead until you get a smooth, silky dough. I let the dough rise before rolling it out into a long rectangle. The dough was easy to work with; it didn't stick or tear.
I made the filling by mixing softened cream cheese, sugar, flour, an egg, and Fiori di Sicilia. The recipe on the King Arthur website instructs you to spread the filling down the center of the rectangle of dough and to fold over the dough to encase the filling, such that you end up with a tube of dough around a single layer of filling. But the website also has a blog post about this recipe that describes a slightly different technique, where you spread the filling all over the dough and roll it up like you would when making cinnamon rolls. I decided to try the latter technique, thinking that the result might be more attractive and have a nicer shape.
I didn't have any trouble shaping my roll of dough into an oval, and I let the bread rise again before brushing it with thinned egg white and putting it in the oven to bake. My cake started out with a huge hole in the middle of the ring that completely closed up during baking; I was surprised how much the cake expanded in the oven. The cake had a beautiful shiny dark brown crust (I tented it with foil for about half of the baking time) and I waited until it was completely cool before adding a glaze (powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, and milk) and colored jimmies.
When I cut into the cake, I was expecting to see neat swirls of cream cheese frosting. Instead, I could barely make out small patches of filling here and there; for the most part, the filling appeared to have disappeared into the cake. This cake had a tender texture and good flavor, primarily citrus from the Fiori di Sicilia. However, I would have preferred a thinner crust. Also, I wished that there was more filling. The little bits of cream cheese filling here and there added both flavor and a nice creamy element, and I definitely wished there was more. I'm not sure if shaping the bread with a single layer of filling in the middle would have made a substantial difference; several comments on the recipe are from bakers who complaining that there wasn't enough filling, or even doubled the amount of filling. So maybe the cake just needs more filling!
I definitely prefer this king cake to the previous recipe I tried, but if I make it again, I would use more filling. I think this recipe produces something more like bread as opposed to a cake, and I guess I still have a bias against king cakes that are too bready. But as far as bread goes, it's pretty tasty!
Recipe: "Mardi Gras King Cake" from King Arthur Flour.
Previous Post: "Let the Okay Times Roll: King Cake," March 20, 2014.
It's easy to make the dough in a stand mixer. You just dump all of the ingredients (melted butter, lukewarm milk, eggs and an egg yolk, flour, sugar, dried milk, salt, instant yeast, ground nutmeg, and Fiori di Sicilia) into the mixer and knead until you get a smooth, silky dough. I let the dough rise before rolling it out into a long rectangle. The dough was easy to work with; it didn't stick or tear.
I made the filling by mixing softened cream cheese, sugar, flour, an egg, and Fiori di Sicilia. The recipe on the King Arthur website instructs you to spread the filling down the center of the rectangle of dough and to fold over the dough to encase the filling, such that you end up with a tube of dough around a single layer of filling. But the website also has a blog post about this recipe that describes a slightly different technique, where you spread the filling all over the dough and roll it up like you would when making cinnamon rolls. I decided to try the latter technique, thinking that the result might be more attractive and have a nicer shape.
I didn't have any trouble shaping my roll of dough into an oval, and I let the bread rise again before brushing it with thinned egg white and putting it in the oven to bake. My cake started out with a huge hole in the middle of the ring that completely closed up during baking; I was surprised how much the cake expanded in the oven. The cake had a beautiful shiny dark brown crust (I tented it with foil for about half of the baking time) and I waited until it was completely cool before adding a glaze (powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, and milk) and colored jimmies.
Recipe: "Mardi Gras King Cake" from King Arthur Flour.
Previous Post: "Let the Okay Times Roll: King Cake," March 20, 2014.
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