Carries Arizona King Cake

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1. chijourno March 2, 2022

   **Carrie’s Arizona King Cake** is from my blog **Traveling Between Meals.** The recipe is below, but the post also has a LOT of fun pics and discusses some of the history and finer points of king cakes, trinkets and history/traditions:

   https://travelingbetweenmeals.com/2022/03/01/king-cake-recipe/

   # Carrie’s Arizona King Cake

   **Dough Ingredients**

   * 3.5 cups of AP Flour (NOT cake flour)
   * 1 package Quick Rise Yeast
   * 1/4 cup of granulated white sugar
   * 1 cup of whole milk
   * 1.25 tsp salt
   * .25 tsp cayenne pepper
   * 2 large eggs, local ones with orange yolks
   * 1 tsp each lemon and orange peels zested with microplane
   * 6 TB butter (more expensive butter is worth it here) cut into 12 pieces while cold, then softened to room temperature.

   **For Filling:**

   * 1 TB fresh ground cinnamon
   * 1/2 tsp. ground anise seed (alternately, try cardamom here instead)
   * 1 1/3 cups packed light brown sugar
   * 8 TB butter softened to room temperature
   * Icing Ingredients1 cup powdered sugar
   * 1 TB milk, more if needed to thin
   * 1/2 tsp real vanilla
   * 2 tsp fresh citrus zest (I used some lemon, some tangerine.)

   **To Decorate:**

   * Sparkly sugar in purple, green and gold
   * A plastic baby, ceramic bird, or other féve/trinket to hide in the cake too big to be swallow-able
   * Throw beads or other Mardi Gras trinkets to decorate the platter
   * Gold cardboard circle or purple/green platter

   **Cake Instructions:**

   1. Begin warming milk, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and milk is between 120º to 130º. Do not boil!
   2. Mix 2 1/2 cups flour and yeast in mixing bowl, using them e paddle attachment, on low for about 30 seconds.
   3. With mixer on low, pour in liquids and mix until incorporated.
   4. Add eggs one at a time. Continue mixing until a shaggy dough forms.
   5. Clean off paddle and switch to dough hook.
   6. Mix in the remaining 1 cup flour, a little at a time, until a soft dough forms. Stop adding flour.
   7. Continuing with the dough hook on medium speed, add the softened butter pieces one at a time until all are absorbed.Leaving the dough hook at a medium speed, knead until a smooth and elastic dough is produced – maybe 6-8 minutes.
   8. If it seems too sticky, you may add a sparing amount of flour, a spoonful at a time, to correct.
   9. Form dough into a ball and place in a buttered bowl twice its size. Flip the dough over, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate an hour.

   **Prepare Filling:**

   1. With paddle attachment in mixer or stirring together by hand, thoroughly combine cinnamon, anise OR cardamom and softened butter.
   2. Fill and Shape DoughRoll dough out into a 10 x 20 inch rectangle, and spread filling along one side lengthwise, leaving a border, and then fold the not-covered side of the dough over the filling.
   3. Press the two sides of the dough together firmly to seal.
   4. Leaving an inch or two uncut at one end, make two even cuts lengthwise through the dough, forming three strands connected at the top. This is what we braid.
   5. We’re looking for a longer braid to shape into a ring, so don’t braid the strands too tightly. Depending on your skill/ambition, you may want to try turning the strands as you braid them, so some of the filling is more exposed.
   6. Seal the ends of the braid together with firm pressure. (Those who hide the féve in the cake before baking sometimes do so here.)
   7. Prepare your pan, covering with parchment or giving it a healthy greasing. Think about gooey burnt sugar and cinnamon on your pan and decide to go with parchment paper or a Silpat liner after all.
   8. In preparation to form the ring, gently stretch your braid, being careful of exposed filling on edges. Form a circle with the braid, tuck the tail of the braid under and press into the top of the braid to join.
   9. The shape of your rectangle influences the finished crown. A more elongated rectangle makes longer thinner strips, a longer braid and a crown that has a larger diameter. Mine is the converse, producing a fat crown with a smaller interior space.
   10. Preheat oven to 350 F/ 177 C
   11. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rise an hour in a warm place. If it rises in a cool spot, it will take longer to proof. To test, press with a finger. If there is no indentation it’s not proofed enough. If it springs back, but slowly, you’re in the sweet spot: bake it! If your indentation does not spring back, well, you’ve over-proofed it. Better get it in the oven and better luck next time for a perfect proof!
   12. Bake until golden brown, 20–35 minutes. This is a WIDE time variation, and that’s because the correct time depends on what you did with the braiding and shaping. A wider, thinner circle will cook faster, and a fat, more-closed circle will take longer. It should be firm to the touch and an internal temperature of 190 F indicates the dough has become cake.
   13. If you’re on parchment, it will be easy to move to a cooling rack immediately. If you didn’t use parchment or Silpat, wait a few minutes for the molten sugar to set up and then move to the rack to cool completely.

   **Make the icing:**

   1. Add all four ingredients in a mixing bowl with a pouring lip. Alternately, you may want to use a piping bag if you want to get fussy/fancy.
   2. If you didn’t bake your doll/féve into the King Cake, this is an optimum time to hide it; before the icing goes on. Some people cut a slit on the underside of the cake and shove it in, or wedge it into one of the slashes.
   3. When cake is fully cool, drizzle with the icing and then have some fun with the sparkly sugar. Some cakes are kind of striped with the three colors in their own lane. Others are a bit more mosaic, like mine.

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