Justin's Birthday King Cake Recipe

I came home this past Monday afternoon to find three chicken feed sacks on the old double wash stand on the back porch with a King cake recipe on top of them.  I didn't know where the feed sacks came from at the time but the recipe was from Mrs. Jeanie.  She was wondering if I could make the king cake for Justin's birthday?  Well sure -- no problem.  And it wasn't.  The whole thing turned out nicely enough that folks have been clamoring for the recipe.  Wwwwwwellllll this one isn't mine.  It was copied and pasted and sent via email to Mrs. Jeanie so I don't know where it came from and lay no claim to having come up with it. I'll gladly put it out here for y'all to make at home and if you ever run across the origin of it, let me know;  I'd like to thank them in person!

To differentiate it from any other King Cake I'm going to call it Justin's Birthday King Cake.  The ingredients and instructions are written exactly as they came to me.  If I'd have know how well it was going to turn out in advance, I'd've done a tutorial...

King Cake
Ingredients

For the dough:
1/4 ounce package active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
8 tablespoons butter

For the filling:
1 pound cream cheese
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
zest of 1/2 lemon

For the icing:
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup buttermilk
green, purple, and yellow sanding sugars

Instructions:
Make the dough.  In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a hook, combine yeast, 1/2 teaspoon of the sugar, and 1/4 cup water heated to 115 (tepid).  Stir to combine and let sit until foamy, about ten minutes.  Add remaining sugar, milk, light brown sugar, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk.  Beat on low speed until thoroughly combined, approximately one minute.  Turn mixer off and add flour and salt.  Mix on medium speed until the dough just comes together.  Turn mixer speed to high and knead dough for four minutes.  Add the butter and continue kneading until dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, about six minutes.  Remove bowl from mixer, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Meanwhile, make the filling.  Combine cream cheese, brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon, salt, and zest in a large bowl and beat on medium speed of a hand mixer until combined, set aside.

Punch down dough and turn it out onto a heavily floured surface.  Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a large circle, about 1/4 inch thick.  Cut a hole in the center of the circle and pull with your fingers to widen.  Place dollops of filling evenly around circle halfway between outer edge and inner hole.  Drape outside edge over filling and continue rolling outside inward until filling is covered, widening inner hole as needed until dough covers the seam.  Transfer rolled dough circle to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for one hour.  Heat oven to 350.  Uncover cake and bake until golden brown, about thirty minutes.  Let cool completely.

Make the icing:  Whisk together the sugar and buttermilk in a small bowl until smooth.  Transfer king cake to a cutting board or serving platter;  spread icing evenly over top of cake and sprinkle evenly with sanding sugars.

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A foodie mentioned on FB the other day that she found sanding sugar on sale and bought it.  I was stunned. Amazed.  People buy sanding sugar?  Seriously?  NNNNnnnaw... Put enough granulated sugar for the task in a ziploc bag and drop in a drop of color.  Massage/shake/ mix the bag until the coloring is distributed.  Voila! Sanding sugar.

The squeeze bottles didn't work well at all for getting the sugar on the cake.

That's just a little FYI so you don't think it might!

The buttermilk icing is very thick and almost wasn't enough to cover the cake.  ohhh wow!  I'd never made a drizzle with buttermilk before and was very pleasantly surprised to find it was delicious!  When you make yours, go ahead and increase the buttermilk a few drops. 

There are a few things I'd tweak about the filling recipe:

Maybe, since I live in the Deep South, I don't exactly know what the maple syrup is doing in here.  I couldn't taste it at all so next time, I'm leaving it completely out.  The Chinese cinnamon came from Penzey's spices and was absolutely the cat's meow!  I'm so grateful to my cousin that brought me four different kinds of ground cinnamon from Penzey's -- I love and can discern them all now.  Maybe the lemon zest was supposed to be barely tasted?  I think I did because I knew it was in there.  It didn't do anything.  The magic of the filling is the brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans, and cream cheese working together.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to leave it at that next time.

Annnnyways.  It's almost midnight... I'm going to set all the dry ingredients out tonight so I can put together another one after church tomorrow.  Try one in your own kitchen.  And don't forget the baby!  I forgot the baby.  Enjoy!

Back to Reality, Kara's Cake Strawberry Filling Recipe and Not a Whole Lot More in Particular

It's been kind of a busy week in Greene County of Southeast Mississippi.  In the restricted reality in which I exist, the children I keep as a home-based child care provider were coming back from the week's hiatus called Spring Break.  They had to be patiently and gently prodded into observing manners, particularly being patient and not prodding each other, also getting back to a small amount of self-sufficiency lacking in their homes.  And critical thinking skills.  There's nothing like a week with parents, grandparents, and older siblings to turn a well-mannered young Southern Lady or Gentleman back into a youngster that asks "You know what?" five times in a single sentence, chews with mouth open (YIKES!  Is there anything worse than hearing someone's food go around and round in their mouth as they're chewing while sitting at the table with you???) and with elbows propped on the table.  They've forgotten basic social skills such as waiting their turn to talk or play.  It was expected.  The cold front coming through wasn't though and I found myself scurrying to make giant paper hats from newspaper to cover the tomato plants that are almost tall enough to be staked.  Yep.  And in true Deep South form, the grass needed mowing two days later.

Thursday was spent working on cakes.  The cakes I make are almost all layer cakes.  I make a few pound cakes, cheese cakes, cupcakes, pies and a bit of candy, too - but the real income enhancers are mostly layer cakes, with or without homemade specialty fillings and icings.  They're heavy;  a single sheet of cardboard won't hold even a small one and so I cut my own from industrial cardboard salvaged, i.e. snatched, from the dumpster at the furniture store on Main Street.  I cover it pretty and appropriately for whatever the cake is for. 

This week I had four rather large cakes to get out.  One of them was for Darla's step-daughter, Kara.  Darla is quickly approaching forty-something.  We go way back.  She's the baby in her family too, so she understands very well the mistaken opinion folks have of thinking you're spoiled simply because you're the baby.  When she was in my mother's kindergarten, her own mom had to be at work well before the school and kindergarten day started.  She was dropped off at our house, still asleep more often than not.  Mama would put her in bed with me and we'd finish our sleeps together.  We'd lollygag about getting out of bed and stress Mama's last good nerve at trying to get me to school and her and Darla to the kindergarten on time.

Over the years, there were several youngsters that piled up in the bed with me in the early hours of the morning when their own mamas had to get to work.  When you take children in your care, the way Mama did and I do now, they become your own for the day and get treated just like yours - actually better, because you're done with them at the end of 10 or 12 hours and get a bit of rest when they go home.  I don't know if it bothered Mama or not, taking in a child that early, perhaps I should ask her.  I don't think it did, though.  She still loves those also-aging ladies as well as she did when they were in her care.

Anyways.  Darla's Kara and my oldest son graduated high school together and I feel like I know her pretty well.  Her favorite cake is a butter cake with strawberry filling and cream cheese icing.  This is all about the strawberry filling.  I'm sharing my recipe with you.  See?  I'm not spoiled at all!  AND, before going any further - this is the way I do it, okay?  Once you make it, it becomes your recipe.  Cook it the way you like;  amend the ingredients.  It's no skin off my back and I'll be absolutely tickled you thought enough of it to try it anyways.  Hmmmm... Maybe I am a little spoiled?

This is what you'll need:

And an 8 cup measuring cup for the microwave.  Or you can cook it on the stove.  But who likes standing there stirring and waiting for something to boil and thicken?  Nuke the stuff!

Put the dry ingredients in a food processor and give it a little whiz to get the granulated sugar, potato starch, and strawberry jello all mixed together.

 I used to use corn starch and it is easily substituted here by adding another tablespoon (or is it two?).  I've a grand niece with severe food allergies that I'm slowly but surely adapting lots of recipes to become Caroline-friendly.  This is one of them.

You can do this with a whisk.  I like the food processor, though, because I like a smmmmooth (<-- two syllable word there) strawberry filling.  Add the strawberries to the dry stuff and process until **giggle** smooth.

There's the large measuring cup.  A couple of years ago Pampered Chef parties were all the rage in the area.  I purchased two of these.  They've been in constant use.  Pour the amalgamation of strawberries and sugar and potato starch and jello into the measuring cup and cook on high in the microwave for ten minutes.  Stir it and put it back in for two minute intervals several times or until it looks like this:

It's very thick.  Some recipes for cooked fruit fillings add flavorings and butter at this point.  It's up to you.

Cover with plastic wrap to keep from forming a nasty hard skin on top and let cool.  To assemble a cake, pipe a border of icing around the edges to keep the filling from oozing out the sides, add filling, and smooth out to edge.

It looks like an 'a' doesn't it?  Not a script A, either, just an 'a' for awesome.

 Repeat with rest of cake layers.

In my fervor to get the process documented I forgot to take the photo of the crumb coated cake.  To decorate a cake pretty, it needs a thin coating of icing slathered on all the exposed surfaces to set firmly and seal all the crumbs in place.  Or I do, at least.

Decorate as desired.

Nom-a-licious!

Those ingredients are:

1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons (or roughly half a small box) strawberry jello
8 tablespoons potato starch
24 ounces sweetened sliced strawberries

Combine dry ingredients in food processor and pulse a few times to thoroughly mix.  Add strawberries and process until smooth.  Pour into microwave safe container and heat on high for 10 minutes.  Stir.  Return to microwave for 2 minutes, stir again, and repeat until thick.  Cover with plastic wrap and let cool.

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So that's the big thing I've done for myself and the blogosphere this week:  actually write down a recipe I've eyeballed for several years and post it for posterity's sake.  

These were the other cakes done Thursday and early this Friday morning:

And one last thing:  I turned the air conditioner on.  I had said I was going to wait until I was miserably hot to turn it on, until all that miserable cold from January and February in the Deep South couldn't possibly be recollected.  But the cakes demanded less humidity.  The condensation on the crumb coat formed the moment they were brought out of the refrigerator and was a barrier to decorating.  I had to turn it on.  For the sake of the cakes.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.