How To Bake a King Cake

I baked this King Cake for our little Super Bowl gathering. This was my first attempt at baking a King Cake. I had one minor setback that left it a bit dry. A lot of the filling leaked while baking from a small hole in the bottom, so it wasn’t quite as gooey as I was hoping it would be, but it was good nonetheless!

Praline King Cake Recipe

(by www.deepsouthdish.com)

1 envelope (1 tbsp.) active yeast

Pinch of sugar

2-4 tbsp. warm water

1 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. sugar

¼ cup milk

2 cups flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 eggs

½ cup cold butter, cut into ¼ inch slices

Egg Wash (1 beaten egg with a tablespoon of water)

Yellow, green and purple sprinkles

1 plastic baby

Glaze

½ c. powdered sugar

1 tbsp. lemon juice

Praline Filling

¼ cup melted butter

1 cup chopped pecans

½ c. light brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

½ tsp. Allspice

1 tsp. cinnamon

First, you want to dissolve your yeast in warm water and add a pinch of sugar. My recipe called for two tablespoons, but I actually needed quite a bit more than that. Just a few tablespoons more, not quite a ¼ cup. Let stand for about 5 minutes or until foamy.

In a separate bowl (I used a measuring cup), mix the salt and sugar with the milk until the sugar is dissolved.

Then add the yeast to the mix.

Sift the flour and cinnamon together in your mixer bowl

Use your dough hook to mix in yeast mixture and eggs, until fully incorporated.

Mix the dough on low for about 10 minutes or until smooth. If the dough is sticky, you may need to add a bit more flour.

Add in the pieces of butter and mix until they are incorporated, but you want them to still be chunky in the dough.

Turn out into a greased bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap to rise. I forgot to take pictures of the dough after it rises, but I allowed it to double and then punched it down and refrigerated overnight. It didn’t rise much overnight, but it did a little.

When you’re ready to bake, prepare the praline filling. Melt ¼ cup of butter.

Add to a cup of chopped/halved pecans and a ½ cup light brown sugar (packed) with a ½ teaspoon of Allspice and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Mix it all up until it looks like this:

Now, take your dough and roll out into a rectangle (or as close to a rectangle as you can get). Be sure to put flour on the bottom and top of the dough to keep it from sticking. I didn’t have enough on the bottom and that caused the hole that caused my praline link, which caused a dry cake. Spread the praline mix on top.

Roll up into a log (sorry didn’t get a picture of this – time was of the essence) and form into a circle on a baking sheet.

Fold over at the ends he best that you can and let rise for an hour in a warm place until it looks like this:

Brush with an egg wash consisting of one egg and two tablespoons of water mixed.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Now, it’s time to make the glaze. Beware that this is very sweet and lemony. You could really use any type of royal icingish recipe you prefer. The glaze consists of ½ cup powdered sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice. I had to make a couple batches to get it to cover the cake.

Drizzle icing over top and decorate with your green, yellow and purple sprinkles. I couldn’t find purple sprinkles, so I made my own out of granulated sugar and purple food coloring.

If you are including a baby in your cake, which you would traditionally do, insert it from the bottom of the cake just before glazing. I couldn’t find a plastic baby in this town to save my life and it was just my husband and I eating this – so I’ll be providing next year’s King Cake anyway!