King’s Cake (Mardis Gras 2011)

So, I’ve made King’s Cake (gateau des rois) before, at around this time.  One time I made 2 for a class of culinary arts students (during the week I was teaching pastry to them).  It’s a fun cake because it’s so colorful and flavorful but it’s also a good demonstration of a yeasted bread.

~This year I was a bit lazy and didn’t want to make croissants for my daughter’s French class.  Since they happened to be talking about Mardis Gras, I thought I’d make them some King’s cake.  My daughter and I had a discussion about galette des rois versus gateau des rois.  The galette uses puff pastry and frangipane; whereas, the gateau des rois is made with brioche.  In New Orleans, they usually put a little plastic baby (or pecan or something else) into the cake, but because this was going into her class, I didn’t put anything other than filling in –> I wanted to avoid lawsuits.

~Being who I am, I chose 2 different recipes.  One recipe is from the Allrecipes site (you can find it here) and the other is Emeril’s recipe.  Emeril’s recipe resembles a more traditional brioche (with lots of butter and egg yolks); whereas the Allrecipes version is a leaner loaf.  I used the Allrecipes filling for both and for the frosting, I used 5 cups poswered sugar, 3T melted butter,2 T vanilla, and 6T milk for the frosting.

~You can see the difference between the two loaves.  The Allrecipes version is lighter and produced a gigantic loaf.  If I made this recipe again, I would definitely split it into 3 loaves.

~Emeril’s loaf was denser and smaller.  The smell and flavor was just a bit more rich.

~In both cases, I let them rise with a small glass to hold open the hole but removed the glass before baking.  The hole filled in during baking…

~For these first 4 loaves,  my daughter wanted to make the icing.  We let the loaves cool overnight and she frosted and decorated before school.  Notice the beautiful, even job that she did.

~I’ve been interested in coconut oil and products for years now and since last week’s NYTimes article discussed coconut oil.  I re-made Emeril’s loaf:  reducing the 5 yolks to 2 eggs, using non-fat milk, and substituting coconut oil for the butter.  The result = the loaf looked essentially the same.  You could not taste the coconut oil (unlike some other true cake applications that I’ve made with coconut oil).  I placed rolled aluminum foil to keep the hole open during baking and removed them after the loaves were done.

~For these last 2 loaves, she made the frosting and my daughter and nieces decorated.

~Bottom line:  Everyone enjoyed all versions.  Unfortunately, today is Mardis Gras and so that means we can’t try again until next year.

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