Don't Eat The Plastic Baby

In New Orleans, (and particularly if you're Catholic), the holiday party season kicks into high gear just when it's winding down for everybody else. Mardi Gras festivities begin on January 6, (also known as "Epiphany," "Twelfth Night," and "King's Day," it's the day the fabled three kings visited the baby Jesus, bearing swag and likely jockeying for position in the blessings queue), and end on Fat Tuesday, which is the day before Ash Wednesday, which signals the beginning of Lent, with its requisite deprivation, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Confused? Okay then, let's forget the Catholic part, (most eventually do), and talk cake, King Cake to be precise.

The European custom of King Cake parties during Carnival season was brought to the southern United States by colonists from France and Spain, and dates back to eighteenth century New Orleans. Shaped in the rough approximation of a crown, (use your imagination), and decorated in the Mardi Gras colors of purple (justice), green (faith), and gold (power), the traditional King Cake is really more sweet bread than cake. Think coffee cake with a message and a tiny plastic doll tucked inside to represent the baby Jesus. Whoever gets the plastic baby is obligated to host the next party, but will also blessed with good luck throughout the coming year. That's providing, of course, that you don't swallow the baby; in which case you probably won't be expected to do anything, and you can forget the good luck too, since you'll likely have choked to death.

Done right though, King Cake is well worth the risk; a damn good coffee cake with a whiff of danger and a taint of the divine. As an honorary lapsed Catholic New Orleanian, (by marriage), I decided to embrace my inner fat chick parading Uptown in a skimpy mermaid costume with fishnet stockings, stilettos, and blessed little else, and made King Cakes myself.

The hardest part was finding little bitty plastic babies and purple sugar crystals. I finally located a bowl full babies at a hobby shop in North Hollywood, for just 50-cents apiece, and found the elusive purple sugar crystals at Sur La Table. I made the dough in a double batch, and filled one cake with a traditional cinnamon filling and the other with cream cheese. They were both very good King Cakes, and nobody swallowed a baby. Laissez les bon temps rouler.

TRADITIONAL KING CAKE
(Makes enough dough for two cakes)

1 16-ounce container sour cream
1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated, if possible)
2 1/4-ounce envelopes active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
6 to 6 1/2 cups bread flour (or all-purpose flour)
1/2 cup butter, softened

Fillings of your choice (see below)

Creamy Icing

Green, Gold and Purple sugar sprinkles

2 plastic babies

Heat first 5 ingredients in a medium saucepan or double boiler over low heat, stirring often, until butter melts. Set aside and cool.

Stir yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar into 1/2 cup warm water and let stand 5 minutes. (Make sure to use a bowl or container with at least a 2 cup capacity as this stuff bubbles up and over.)

Beat sour cream mixture, yeast mixture, eggs and 2 cups of the flour at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until smooth. (NOTE: Bread flour produces a light, airy cake. Cakes made with all-purpose flour will have a denser texture.)

Replace mixer beaters with dough hook, reduce speed to low, and gradually add remaining flour (4 to 4 1/2 cups) until a soft dough forms.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes). Place in a well-greased bowl, turning to grease top.  Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, until dough is doubled in bulk.

Punch down dough and divide in half.  Roll each half into a rectangle (about 22 x 12 inches).  Spread each rectangle with 1/4 cup of the softened butter, leaving a 1-inch border on each side, followed by the filling of your choice.

Roll up each dough rectangle, jelly-roll fashion, starting at 1 long side.  Place each roll, seam side down, on a large baking sheet lined with parchment. Bring the ends together to form a ring, pinching the edges to seal.  (NOTE: Placing an oven proof ramkin in the middle makes it easier to form the cake and keeps the sides from fusing together as it bakes.)

Cover the cakes and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes until doubled in bulk. While the cakes are rising, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden.  (Don't be concerned if the dough splits during rising and baking and some of the filling leaks out, that's what the parchment is for!)

Find a likely spot and push a plastic baby down into each cake. Cool on wire racks. Ice with creamy frosting (recipe follows) and sprinkle with green, gold and purple colored sugars, alternating to make bands.

CINNAMON PECAN FILLING
(double ingredients for two cakes)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup melted butter

Combine all ingredients, crumble onto buttered dough rectangle.

CREAM CHEESE FILLING
(double ingredients - except egg - for two cakes)

1/2 cup sugar
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat all ingredients with electric mixer until smooth. Spread onto buttered dough rectangle.


CREAMY ICING
(Makes enough for two King Cakes)

6 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 to 8 tablespoons milk

Stir together first 4 ingredients.  Add 4 tablespoons milk, then additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, until icing reaches spreading consistency.

Ice cakes, sprinkle with sugars, eat, enjoy!