Real Delicious

My husband and I are both from a small town in southern Alabama with a strong Mardi Gras tradition.  It is a time for   celebration with family and friends and we miss it!  So, inspired by my good friend Martin and the desire to bring a little carnaval to Birmingham I decided to make a King Cake.  Yes, they have king cakes at Publix, but then I wouldn't have made one on my own. And I'm glad that I did, this is the best king cake I've ever had. I highly recommend it.

The recipe I chose was this one from allrecipes.com.  The reviews looked good and I was excited to try making another yeasted bread.  I've done a couple of loaves but nothing too complicated before. this turned out to be pretty easy, very much like a cinnamon roll.

I changed a couple of things from the written recipe. First I only made half since I seriously don't need two king cakes kicking around my house. Second, I baked at 340 for 28 min.  I also omitted the raisins and added a cream cheese and apple filling that I made on the stove. I used the other filling on the other half so that when I rolled it up both fillings were in each roll.

Apple Cream Cheese filling

• One large Granny smith apple, cored, peeled and diced
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp apple pie seasoning
• 1/2 cup water
• 5 ounces cream cheese

Simmer the first four ingredients over the stove for roughly 30 min until the sugar has thickened into a thick syrup and the apples are soft.  While still over the heat stir in cream cheese until smooth. 

I will definitely be making this again next year and might make one for something else. It would be great for a brunch or on Christmas morning. I would really love to try a lemon filled one, but the Genius is anti-lemon so that would have to be for another day.  I think a lemon filled with pink or blue sugar on top would be precious for a baby shower.

I made my colored sugar by mixing liquid food coloring with white sugar.  I attempted to create purple by mixing red and blue, but it was a murky sort of purple so I dug out my Wilton gel food coloring and used the violet. It turned out to be a bright, royal purple. Perfect for Mardi Gras. I know it looks blue in the photo but it really is purple.

This Tuesday is going to be Fat Tuesday, aka Pancake Tuesday, so I think we will be having some blueberry pancakes for dinner that night. I need to mix up a batch of Alton's Good Eats instant pancake mix.