Since I'm more than 1,000 miles away from Louisiana for Mardi Gras this year, I decided to make a king cake and share it with my coworkers. The King Cake newbies seemed a little alarmed by the colored icing, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. It involves a lot of butter and elbow grease (for the stirring) but it's totally worth it. This can definitely be filed under "All I want in life is a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer."

I got the recipe from a Web site, made it once before and decided to make a few changes the second go round.

1/2 c. warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 c. plus 1 tsp. sugar
About 5 cups of flour, more or less as needed
1 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. warm milk
5 large egg yolks
1 stick plus 2 T. butter, cut in slices and softened
1 egg slightly beaten with 1 T. of milk
lots of ground cinnamon (I used about 3-5 tablespoons)
1 tiny plastic doll (you can find the dolls at a party store in the baby shower section)


Optional Cream Cheese Filling all creamed together:

1 8-ounce pkg. cream cheese
1 c. confectioner's sugar
2 T. flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract
a few drops of milk



Cake Directions:

Pour the warm water into a small shallow bowl and sprinkle yeast and 2 teaspoons of sugar into it. Allow the yeast and sugar to rest for several minutes, then mix thoroughly. Set yeast mixture in a warm place for 10 minutes (I put mine in front of a space heater). Combine 3 and 1/2 cups of flour, remaining sugar, nutmeg, a tablespoon of cinnamon and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make sure the ingredients are all mixed up.

Separate center of mixture to form a hole and pour in yeast mixture and milk. Add egg yolks and using a wooden spoon, combine dry ingredients into the yeast and milk mixture. When mixture is smooth, beat in 8 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Soften the butter in the microwave but be careful not to let it totally melt.

This is the arm work. Keep stirring the mixture for about 5 minutes. It will start to get really elastic. The recipe claims that it will turn into a "medium soft ball" but in neither attempts did this occur until I started mixing in a little more flour.

I used my counter top to knead the dough, cleaning it well ahead of time and cover it in flour. Keep kneading it and adding more flour until it's no longer sticky. Knead for another 10 minutes until "shiny and elastic."

Using a pastry brush, coat the inside of a large bowl evenly with one tablespoon softened butter. Place dough ball in the bowl and rotate until the entire surface is buttered. Cover bowl with a heavier kitchen towel and allow dough to rise in a warm place for about 1 and 1/2 hours or until it doubles in volume.

Coat a large baking sheet with one tablespoon of butter and set aside. After the first rising, place the dough on a floured surface and punch it down with a heavy blow.

On second attempt I decided to split the dough in half and make two cakes. They fit better on the pan, were less doughy (which was kind of not good) and allowed for a filed and plain version.

Beat the dough out into a long rectangle. Sprinkle a good deal of cinnamon over the middle of the rectangle. For the cream cheese filled variety, spread it over the middle. Fold the rectangle in half long ways and twist so it's spiral shaped.

Then bend it around to make an oval, pinching the ends together. Place it on the buttered cookie sheet.

Place the completed ring on the buttered baking sheet, cover it with a towel and allow it to rise for 45 minutes or until it doubles in volume. After the second rising, brush the top and sides of the cake with the egg and milk wash. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and hide the plastic baby inside the cake.

For the cake pictured above, I just used food dye to color store bought icing. But last time I made a really delicious royal icing recipe.

For the icing:

5 tablespoons powdered egg whites (found on the baking aisle of your local grocery store)
6 tablespoons water
1 pound powdered sugar
2 tablespoon vanilla
food dye

Combine all ingredients except vanilla and food coloring. Beat with a hand mixer until they form a stiff peak. I did this once using real egg whites and it took much longer to get to peak.

Stir in vanilla and food dye and spread away.

---- Ginger

Ever since I got back home to Louisiana for break, I have made about 20 pans of cracker candy. I honestly don't even want to look at the stuff again. Which is why I forgot to take pictures. What is cracker candy, you ask? Um, delicious (when you haven't been handling it for 10+ hours). My mom and I have made it for our family and friends every Christmas since I could use the oven. It's a great gift because a) lots of people haven't had it before b) you can put it in pretty bags with ribbon and c) it's goooooood.

Cracker Candy
1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter
1 cup of brown sugar
30 saltines
1 package of chocolate chips (I like the miniature ones because they spread better)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Lay crackers out side by side on a foil lined cookie sheet (5 by 6 rows). Heat butter and sugar in saucepan over medium heat. Stir OFTEN or it will burn. Heat for about 5 minutes or until bubbly. Like most candy, you want the sugar and butter to be combined and you want it to be pulling away from the sides of pan when you stir it. Pour sugar mixture over crackers and bake for about 6 minutes or until bubbling (again). Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Wait a few minutes, then spread with a spatula until all crackers are coated with layer of chocolate. Freeze cracker candy until hard, then peel away foil and break into pieces. Keep refrigerated.

As for packaging, I like to either put them in cute cellophane bags with sparkly wire or in brown paper bags (put cracker candy in ziplocs first) with holes punched in the top and rafia. I found some cute labels here at one of my favorite craft blogs. The Pretty Procrastination blog has all kinds of great PDF dowloads of cards and labels and other crafty goodness.


Not bad, eh? What are yall baking up this season? I believe I heard Ginger tweeting about some holiday cookies...

p.s. How much fun is it that we're all on twitter now? Readers (if we have any lol), add syokubaitis57, gingergibson, erinparker and krys930 to hear more about our cooking adventures!

-Sarah

Erin asked for my Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie recipe a few days ago, and being the blog crazed person I have been lately, I decided to just put it up here. I got this recipe from covering a luncheon in Lake Charles for the American Press. It was more of a cooking demonstration than a luncheon, and they handed out recipes in the end. I love this recipe because you make the crust in the pie plate, and its quick, easy and less messy. The crust is kind of salty to make up for being less flaky than other pie crust, which is good next to the chocolate. But if that's not your thing, just use a frozen store-bought crust. I've never done this, but during the demonstration the chef topped the pie with peppermint whipped cream. He made fresh whipped cream with a mixer, then added a few tablespoons of peppermints that he had ground up in a food processor until they were superfine like sugar. It was amazing on the pie -- and on top of coffee.

Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie
Crust:
1 1/2 C of all purpose flour
1 t of salt
1/2 C oil
2 T milk
Combine ingredients and press into a 9'' pie pan.

Filling:
1 C sugar
1/2 flour
2 eggs, well beaten
1 stick of butter, melted
1 t vanilla
1 C chocolate chips
1 C pecans, chopped
1/2 C coconut
Mix sugar, flour, eggs, butter and vanilla. Fold in chocolate chips, pecan and coconut. Pour into unbaked pie crust. Brush edges of pie crust with cream or egg wash (optional) to brown crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until brown.

So there you go, EP. Enjoy!

As for me, I'm looking for a good pumpkin pie and an apple pie. Does anyone have tips/recipes? Or other favorite pies?

-Sarah