It's just a few days past 12th Night (aka - 3 Kings Day/Epiphany), and it is now carnaval time in the NOLA (New Orleans, LA) area, leading up to Mardi Gras!
Parades happen all throughout, and many, many festivities!
As the hoopla is getting going, so is the desire for Cajun dishes.
Our family celebrates Mardi Gras (now), even though we've never been to the NOLA area during this time. My hubby has been there for some mission work to help with some cleanup from Hurricane Katrina, but that's the extent of it.
One of these days, I would love to go! I have an online friend that lives there & keeps me up-to-date. I want to go meet her, too. In the meantime, I recreate what I can, here in the midwest.
We usually make Dirty Rice around this time. I've made my own, but we tend to be convenient & use either Zatarain's or Knorr's. I add our own ground beef, sausage, bell peppers & celery when I make it.
Last year, we switched it up! We did a divided shrimp boil with potatoes, corn & sausage. YUM!! I also used Zatarain's Red Beans & Rice to accompany it. Sometimes we use Knorr's version of it, too.
I've also made some versions of a Hurricane mocktail. I even bought short hurricane vases to use as glasses to serve it up in! I just need to track down what I actually did for it. That's for another time.
I also added another Carnaval/Mardi Gras staple to the celebration last year. I finally faked a King Cake!! I say "faked" since I needed a shortcut to get the same type of result. I was trying to find which recipe I basically used from last year, but couldn't find it, or even very few others, due to links being gone/broken or now having a virus or spam attached to the link. Bummer. So, I remember the basis & was ready to do a test run as I attempt to make it a few times during this year's Carnaval as it leads up to Mardi Gras! I also research & try to do my best to recreate something as authentic or authentic-like as possible...even in short-cut mode...yet still respectable.
(check out some of my past Mardi Gras celebrations HERE)
Here's what I did:
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RESPECTABLE KING CAKE
Ingredients:
* 3 Cinnamon roll cans, with cream cheese icing (set aside)
* 2-3 T butter, melted
* 1/4 C brown sugar (not packed)
* 2-3 T ground cinnamon
* 1 T lemon juice or 1/2 tsp lemon extract
* sanding or decorating sugars in purple, green & gold/yellow (the darker colored, the better)
* 1 tiny plastic baby (without the King baby, it's only "cake")
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F or what your canned cinnamon roll packaging tells you
2. On a flat, clean, then floured surface, open the cans of cinnamon rolls, setting the icing packets aside for later, and use hands to squish it all together to create a lightly-kneaded cinnamon roll dough ball; I unrolled them all, first, then squished them together
3. With a rolling pin, gently roll out the dough ball so it makes one large rectangle-like shape, about 20-22" long; be careful not to make it too thin, maybe a quarter-inch to haf-inch thick
4. In a microwave-safe dish or bowl, melt the butter for just a few seconds; 20-30 seconds should probably do the trick
5. When the butter is melted, with a spoon or basting brush, "paint" the butter over the top side of the flattened cinnamon roll dough
6. Once the surface of the dough is covered in melted butter, sprinkle the surface with the brown sugar & ground cinnamon (you may not use all of it, but even sweeter if you do)
7. After the dough is covered with butter & brown sugar, begin tight-rolling the dough back up; start from one of the long sides & roll to the other - keep tucking & rolling (it may take some time depending on how long your dough is rolled out to be), until you have the dough rolled into a log
8. Take a bundt pan (or fluted pan) & spray it with cooking spray (I love using the one with flour already in it)
9. Carefully take your cinnamon roll dough log & snake it into the bundt pan, pinching the ends together, when it makes a full circle, to close it as best as you can; make sure the "seam" of the roll is facing upward in the pan
10. Place the pan with the cinnamon roll cake circle into the oven for about 20-30 minutes, until golden brown (check to make sure it's baked thru - not to "squishy")
11. While the cake bakes, take the packets of cream cheese icing & combine them together into a small bowl or directly into a small storage baggie
12. Add the lemon juice/extract (I used lemon juice) into the cream cheese icing, then mix it together (if it's in a small baggie, close the baggie & "mix" it by squeezing & "pinching" the mixture); set aside, best in the fridge until ready to use
13. Once the cake is done baking, remove from inside the oven & allow to cool IN THE PAN for about 10 minutes
14. After the cake is fairly cooled, take the tiny plastic baby & insert it SOMEWHERE in the cake
15. On a round plate or platter large enough for the cake, invert the cake pan onto the plate so the cake exits the pan & onto the plate/platter
16. When the cake is cool enough that icing won't melt when added to it, drizzle/spread the lemon-ized cream cheese icing over the top of the King cake (now there's the baby in it); if you are using a storage baggie with the mixture, cut a hole in one of the bottom corners of the baggie & squeeze the icing over the top of the King cake; let it "drip" down the sides, then use a little rubber spatula or small knife to even out the covering, if need be, depending on how thick the icing is
17. While the icing is still "wet", begin to sprinkle the sugars in alternating colors in a stripe pattern to adhere to the icing
18. Allow icing glaze to set & harden; about 30 minutes to an hour
19. Slice CAREFULLY (there's a baby in there!) & serve
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| No baby...just layers of sweet deliciousness... |
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| See? There's a baby in there! |
Yield: up to 18 (depending how small you cut the pieces)
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The pics, above, are from my early test-run. After I went thru all the steps I need to so I could remember what the heck I'd done before, I now know what I need to do differently the next time around. I will update this post when I have pics of the updated product. Use the ingredients I have listed!! It's what I will use next time around...
This time, I didn't use enough cinnamon rolls to make the cake a bit thicker & fuller, and maybe baking it a minute or so longer than I did this time.
My NOLA friend was kind enough to send me a couple of King babies to use in future cakes (yes, the one in the pic, above, is one of them). And, after I was worried how my King Cake looked last year, she saw the pics & said it looked like King Cake to her! WHEW! I do try really hard to get culture as authentic as I possibly can...within my skill set & resources.
(By the way, King Cake is also delicious the next morning for breakfast with your coffee. It's pretty much a beautifully decorated cinnamon roll. BOOM! You're welcome.)
Also, when you serve the cake in slices, whoever ends up with the baby usually gets a special prize or holds the next get-together...something. And they can keep the baby to use in their making of King Cake!
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| Someone is getting da baby... |
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| Looks like it was my hubby who got da baby! Guess I need to figure something special. LOL! |
Also, a little history in some of what's going on with the King Cake/Carnaval/King Cake colors...
Purple - Justice
Green - Faith
Gold - Power
On a semi-different, but totally the same, note, there were 3 gifts given by the magi to Baby Jesus, celebrated on Three Kings Day/12th Night (aka - the 12th day of Christmas), which is January 6th. Even though the Bible states 3 gifts given, it's often depicted as 3 wise men, one to bring each gift...even though it's never stated how many magi showed up. It's plural...so there were at least 2, but not sure how many for sure.
Some have pointed out that the colors of Mardi Gras/Carnaval also seem to represent the gifts:
Gold - gold
Green - frankincense
Purple - myrrh
And they were on their journey to find Baby Jesus (aka - King Baby), which actually took them 1-2 years after Jesus was born. Interesting fact! Right?
Oh! You need to remember...the cake without the baby is just "cake"! Maybe a Carnaval Cake?? Can we make that a thing that sticks in case you don't have the baby but want to make the cake? You'd still respect the cake. Amm-i-rite?
See? An easy-peasy recipe AND we learned a little something! You're welcome.
Hope you enjoy it & make it a few times between now (or beginning January 6th) thru Mardi Gras!
Laissez les bon temps rouler!
(That's French for "Let the good times roll!")
ENJOY!
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UPDATE:I finally got around to doing a cake with the right amounts of stuff & a couple of tweaks.
Isn't it beautiful? Yeah it is!
I have figured out that I should bake this for about 25 minutes in MY oven. I still say start checking at 20, and keep it in, if needed, for around 30 minutes. Each oven is a bit different. You want golden brown & not super squishy. I slightly over baked this one by leaving it in for the full 30 minutes without checking. Hey...I was multitasking...and just forgot. Thank God for the timer!
Also, when I prepared the icing glaze, I also added some extra powdered sugar to insure it was less runny. I added about a quarter of a cup & squished it in with the cream cheese icing & lemon juice. It worked like a charm! A perfect dripping without running. And it gave a beautiful canvas for the colors.
I decided to make the colors pop a bit more with one of my favorite decorating tools: spray color.
So, with the thicker white icing with the colors sprayed was already awesome looking...but you know I was adding the colored sugar, too! And I wound up with a bold color cake! So happy with it!!
But I'm going to make a confession about this update, I didn't put the baby in it. So it's what I consider "Carnaval Cake". It looks like King Cake...but it doesn't have the baby.
And even with it being slightly over-baked (it was NOT burned), this turned out fabulously! I cannot wait to do it again & I am now satisfied with my cake, whether it be Kinged or just Carnival.
Hope you enjoy trying this, too! BOOM!
