King Cake

My love affair with king cake started about seven years ago. My husband and I had picked one up from a Giant Eagle bakery and we loved it! Sadly, that was also the last year we ever saw one there.

Every year around Mardi Gras, I kept my eyes opened for just the right cake. We've tried several, but none were that good or very memorable. Last year, I went a step further in my search. I contacted several Giant Eagle stores around town hoping to surprise my husband with the real deal. I was so excited when I found one store had the materials to make us one! We were so excited to have our beloved original cake get in our bellies. Only it wasn't our beloved cake. It was completely sub par: dry, bland, mediocre.

This year, I decided enough was enough. It was time to take matters into my own hands. Armed with a delicious sounding (and looking!) recipe from Bunkycooks, I set to work. I had the dough made and rising in about 30 minutes. While the dough rose, I assembled my filling, cleaned up the kitchen, and perused Pinterest, not necessarily in that order.

The dough took about an hour and a half to rise, and was a dream to roll out,  needing very little flour. The entire assembly process for two cakes only took about 15 minutes. After a 45 minute rise, they were ready for the oven. 25 minutes later, they were out of the oven and ready to get fancy. Yea Mardi Gras!

The results were sublime. King cake is a bit of a misnomer as this is definitely a sweet bread, but what a delicious sweet bread it is. The filling which includes brown sugar, raisins, and pecans is so good; the hint of nutmeg in the pastry was just perfect; and the incredibly simple powdered sugar/water icing brought it all together beautifully. I daresay, it was even better than the original king cake we had spent so many years looking for. My good friend Jo declared that making this should become a new tradition and I couldn't agree more.

Even though Mardi Gras is over for this year, do yourself a favor and don't put off making this until next year. Through it together, top it with some pretty pastel icing and call it "Easter Cake." People will thank you. Or throw some green sprinkles on there and it's "Shamrock Cake." Halloween? You know what to do.  

King Cake

Yield: 2 cakes

Ingredients:
Pastry:

• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
• 2/3 cup warm water (110° F)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
• 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 2/3 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup melted butter 

Frosting:

• 2 cup confectioners' sugar, divided
• 2- 2½ Tbsp. water, divided

Directions
For pastry:
Scald milk, remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup of butter. Allow mixture to cool to room temperature. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in the warm water with 1 tablespoon of the white sugar. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

When yeast mixture is bubbling, add the cooled milk mixture. Whisk in the eggs. Stir in the remaining white sugar and salt. Combine the flour and the nutmeg. Beat the flour/nutmeg mixture into the milk/egg mixture 1 cup at a time. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes. Alternatively, if using a stand mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix at medium speed for 6-7 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.

Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1.5-2 hours. When risen, punch down and divide dough in half.

Preheat oven to 375°. Grease 2 cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

For filling:
Combine the brown sugar, ground cinnamon, chopped pecans, 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup raisins. Pour 1/2 cup melted butter over the cinnamon mixture and mix until crumbly.

To assemble:
Roll dough halves out into large rectangles (approximately 10x16 inches or so). Sprinkle the filling evenly over the dough and roll up each half tightly like a jelly roll, beginning at the wide side. Bring the ends of each roll together to form 2 oval shaped rings. Place each ring on a prepared cookie sheet. With scissors or a very sharp knife, make cuts 1/3 of the way through the rings at 1 inch intervals. Let rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes. Push the doll or large pecan, if using, into the bottom of the cake. Frost while warm with the confectioners' sugar blended with 1 to 2 tablespoons of water.
 
Note: My cakes took about 25 minutes to bake. I covered them with aluminum foil at about 15 minutes to avoid excessive browning, and rotated the pans top to bottom/left to right halfway through baking.


Note: When you are ready to ice the cakes, you will want to make the icing separate (1 c. powdered sugar and 1 Tbsp. water) for each cake, especially if you are going to sprinkle them with colored sugars. The icing hardens pretty quickly.

Source: Bunkycooks

Homemade Ciabatta Bread

On Thanksgiving Eve, my sister-in-law called and asked if I could bring rolls to dinner the next day. Not wanting to head to the store, I sorted through some previously bookmarked recipes and settled on three different yeast breads... that way we would have variety and a back-up in case one or more didn't turn out well. (I was working with yeast, after all, and while I've had success with it in the past, each time I approach it with a tiny bit of fear, and a smidgen of trepidation.)

Of the three that I made, these were the most work, but in some ways, the most rewarding. It starts out with a biga, or pre-ferment that is made the night before and used to create that beautiful texture found in ciabatta bread. Making the biga is easy as it is essentially combining yeast, flour, and water and allowing it become a big, soupy mess overnight.

The next morning, the biga is combined with more yeast and water, then flour and salt, allowed to rest, then kneaded in a stand mixture for 15-18 minutes. Here's where you have to really keep an eye on things, as my stand mixer tried to walk off my counter at about the 8 minute mark. Trust me, it's totally worth the extra attention.

After a rise, dough shaping, and another rise, and it's ready to bake. I elected to make the rolls instead of loaves, which were adorable, but the next time, I'm going to make the loaves. There was a lot of crunchy exterior to the soft, airy, chewy interior, and it made it harder for the kiddos to eat.

I wish I had taken a picture of the inside (it was beautiful), but you can check out a pretty amazing step-by-step here. They came out just as pictured. I love it when that happens.

A lot of work? Kinda. Worth it? Absolutely.

Homemade Ciabatta 

Yield: 2 loaves, or 16 rolls

Ingredients:

Biga

• 4 ounce (1/2 cup) water
• 1/2 teaspoon active-dry yeast
• 5 ounce (1 cup) all-purpose flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add the flour and stir to form a thick, gloppy paste. Give it a good fifty or so brisk stirs to build up the gluten. Cover and let sit at room temperature eight hours or overnight.
By the next day, the biga will look soupy with many big bubbles dotting the surface.

Ciabatta

• 17 ounces (2 cups + 2 tablespoons) water
• 1 teaspoon active-dry yeast
• Biga
• 20 ounces (4 cups) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt

Dissolve the yeast in the water in the bowl of a standing mixer. Scrape the biga into the water and break it up with your spatula or squeeze it between your hands. You don't need to completely dissolve the biga; just loosen it up and break it into stringy blobs.

Add all of the flour and the salt. Stir to form a thick, very wet dough. Let this rest for 10-20 minutes to give the flour time to absorb the water.

Fit your standing mixer with a dough hook and knead at medium speed for 15-18 minutes (Level 5 or 6 on a KitchnAid). Keep a close eye on your mixer as it has a tendency to "walk" on the counter at this speed.
The dough will start off sticking to the bottom and sides of the bowl. Around the 7-minute mark, it will start to pull away from the sides of the bowl, collect around the dough hook, and regularly slap the sides of the bowl. If it doesn't, nudge your mixer speed up a notch. Also, if the dough starts climbing the dough hook, stop the mixer and scrape it down again. By the end of kneading, the dough will look smooth and creamy with a glossy shine. It will puddle back into the bowl once you turn off the mixer, and this is fine.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise at 70° - 75° for 2-3 hours, until tripled in bulk.

Dust your work surface heavily with flour. Set two sheets of parchment near your work surface. Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto the flour, taking care not to deflate it too much. Dust the top of the dough with more flour. Using a pastry scraper or pizza wheel, cut the dough in two pieces for loaves or into 16 pieces for rolls.

Brush your hands with flour. Working gently but swiftly, scoop the the loaves (or the rolls) one at a time from the work surface to the parchment. Press your fingertips about halfway into the dough to dimple the surface and slightly flatten the loaves (or rolls). Let the loaves (or rolls) rise, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes. When ready to bake, they should look pillowy with many big bubbles just beneath the surface.

Preheat the oven to 475°F while the loaves are rising. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven now.
When ready to bake, slide the loaves, still on the parchment, onto a pizza peel or baking sheet. Transfer them to the oven to cook, either on the baking stone or directly on the baking sheet if you don't have a stone. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Slip the parchment out from under the loaves and cool completely before eating.

Source: The Kitchn