03 Mar Crescent Roll King Cake
Confession. I’m terrified of working with yeast.
I’ll take on the tallest of layer cakes and the most delicate of cookies, but when it comes to yeast, something inside me shrinks away. It’s actually on my list of things to tackle in 2014, but with Fat Tuesday only days away, and the daylight waning on Austin’s rainy Sunday afternoon, it was no time for facing my fungi fears.
Instead, I chose to squeeze in one more Oscar nominee before the big show (Gravity), and throw together this SUPER EASY Crescent Roll King Cake. It literally took me 15 minutes and the smell that filled my condo in the following 25 minutes was intoxicating.
Gravity on the other hand…not nearly as good as this cake. But that’s okay, I can accept a 50% win. Especially when the winning half involves sprinkles.
Did you guys watch the Oscars last night? I thought this year’s show was one of the best in years. Great dresses, great hostess, great movies. Except for Gravity.
I know I’m being a debbie downer…but seriously. Way out if it’s league.
12 Years a Slave on the other hand deserved every ounce of recognition it received and more. It was such a powerful movie. Watch it with a box of tissues and a hand to hold because it’s intense.
And how stinking cute it Lupita Nyong’o?! Definitely a new girl crush.
Anyhoo, let’s talk Mardis Gras.
As a kid, my parents would take me to the Galveston Mardi Gras every year.
We would get up on Saturday morning, eat some of my dad’s famous pancakes, and then drive the 45 minutes to the Texas coast for a day of funnel cakes (my favorite), parades (Mom’s favorite) and live music (Dad’s favorite). My dad would lift me up onto his shoulders so I could see the parades and I remember being in awe of the elaborate costumes and music from the marching bands and the vivid purples, green and yellows of the floats as they rolled by. And being the adorable toddler that I was, I found myself quite popular with the bead-yeilding, boob-indifferent crowd.
I even remember seeing the Neville Brothers one year. I felt SO COOL perched up on Dad’s shoulders, singing ‘Yellow Moon’ with the crowd. (My parents had the cassette tape so I’d heard it about 100 times from my car seat in the backseat.)
Then as the sun would begin to set and the real Mardi Gras activity started to commence, my dad would start pointing at things to avert my attention and steer us towards the car. A tiny person all hopped up on sugar and weighed down by the weight of my new bead necklaces, I was oblivious to it all.
This King Cake brings back fond memories of those weekend excursions with my parents. If you haven’t heard of a King Cake, they were traditionally made as part of the Christian Twelfth Night Celebration to celebrate the three kings (the wise men who brought gifts to the baby Jesus), but are now more of a symbol that Mardi Gras has hit The South. They’re baked with a plastic baby tucked into the dough, and whoever gets the slice of cake with the baby inside is said to be responsible for the next year’s cake and less traditionally, also granted a year’s good luck. For my cake, I substituted a few dried beans because tiny plastic babies were nowhere to be found at my local market.
Seriously, this is the easiest King Cake you’ll ever make! Short cut fussing with homemade yeast dough and use store bought crescent roll dough to make delicious King Cake in a fifth of the time. Of course, a real King Cake, made the good old-fashioned N’Awlin’s way is unbeatable. But when you’re in a pinch (or you have the same homemade yeast dough fears that I do) this recipe is an easy-peasy alternative.
I wish I could take credit, but alas the recipe’s genius is not my own. I found this gem on about.com while perusing the web and knew I had to squeeze it in before Fat Tuesday. In fact, there is a really great step-by-step pictorial that I encourage you to check out before baking. The photos really help make sense of the directions.
I’m not giving anything up for Lent this year, but I’ll more than happily stuff my face in the name of Fat Tuesday. Any excuse to eat cake, am I right?!
Happy Mardi Gras! XO, Katie
Ingredients
- 4 oz. cream cheese
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup raisins, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes then patted dry
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 cup pecan halves
- 2 cans refrigerated crescent rolls
- 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 3 to 4 Tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- green, purple & yellow sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and line a pizza pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- In a food processor, combine cream cheese, brown sugar, raisins and cinnamon. Pulse until well blended. Add the pecans and pulse until pecans are chopped into small chunks.
- Unroll crescent roll dough and separate into triangles. Position triangles next to each other with the points toward the center, overlapping the long sides about 1/4-inch, forming a large round. Press the seams together only in the center of each seam, leaving either ends of the seams unsealed so you can fold them up over the filling.
- Spoon the filling in circle, about half way between the edges and the points of each triangle.
- Place a small plastic baby or dried bean somewhere in the filling. (The person who gets this piece will have good luck for the year.)
- Fold the short side of each triangle toward the center just to the edge of the filling to cover. Then pull the point end of the triangles toward the outer rim of the pan to fully enclose the filling, tucking under the points. Lightly press the seams.
- Bake 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.
- While your cake is baking, whisk together the icing ingredients. The consistency should be fairly thick but still wet enough to drizzle down the sides of the cake. If you mixture it too thin, add more powdered sugar.
- Once your cake is cool, drizzle or brush the icing onto your cake with a pastry brush. Sprinkle with sprinkles while icing is still wet, alternating colors.
miss messy
Posted at 13:25h, 04 MarchWow this looks super, I love working with yeast, but tall cakes scare me!
miss messy recently posted…$175 Cash Giveaway + Pancakes You Need To Make
KWahlman
Posted at 13:48h, 04 Marchhaha sounds like we’d make a good pair!
dina
Posted at 10:06h, 05 Marchgreat idea! this will definitely make it easier.
dina recently posted…Favorite Foodie Season
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