No, I’m not making up another word for Tuesdays, like my awesome random Manic Mondays. It really is Fat Tuesday. As in, Mardi Gras! Technically, Fat Tuesday is the last day before Lent. So for all of my Catholic friends, live it up so that you can refrain for 40 days! If you’re not Catholic, live it up anyway because life is good. :)
In honor of Fat Tuesday, I wore my purple shirt and lots of beads. And no, I didn’t do anything naughty to get my beads. A server at Pappadeaux’s on Sunday gave me a ton, and I didn’t even have to lift my shirt! Score, right? I ate jambalaya for lunch, and shrimp, and red beans and rice, and I even made my own King Cake. That’s right people, a delectable collection of yumminess and frosting!
Lately, I have been SUPER busy. Like, barely time enough to BREATHE, much less bake. So instead of working on the long, drawn out recipe that I found, I did a quick search on my most favorite website, AllRecipes, for an easy recipe. And of course, it did not disappoint. :) I found this one: Super Easy Mardi Gras King Cake. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but it inspired me to make my own king cake based on the ingredients.
SO! If you’re looking for a super easy and fast King Cake, look no further! If you’re looking for a super authentic King Cake, Google yourself on over to a different recipe. One thing to note: I also made this for about 25 people, so instead of round, I made it rectangular. It was my biggest pan, I wanted to make sure there was enough!
Brooke’s Super Easy King Cake
6 cans Pillsbury Sweet Orange Rolls – with CINNABON stuff in them! YUM! And just because some people asked me what the heck these look like, here’s the tube:
So 6 cans of that yumminess, with the frosting that comes in the can.
1 can (16.2oz) whipped fluffy white frosting
Food colorings – you’ll need stuff to make purple, yellow and green
Sprinkles! I couldn’t find sprinkles so I didn’t have any. So we just had to make the frosting especially bright!
Keep in mind that 6 cans was to make a huge, rectangular cake – so if you want something for just your family, you can scale it back a bit. Use maybe 3 cans, and a 12oz can of frosting instead. My cake made about 25 pieces!
Open the tube of rolls, and don’t separate them. (Set the frosting aside.) If you’re familiar with these types of rolls, they’re rolled up and then cut. Don’t separate on the cuts at all. Unroll the dough, so that you have a rectangle of dough, and then fold it up long way (in school we called it hot dog way… the other way was hamburger way!) and twist. Twist the dough, keeping the twist somewhat thick and start to form your cake. Do the same thing with the next tube, and press the ends of the twists together. Keep doing this with the cans until you have the shape of cake that you want. Press them together really well, so that it forms a continuous shape on the pan. Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn! Mine cooked for about 30 minutes, but again, if you’re making something smaller, keep an eye on it!
<PSA>***Special note to anyone baking challenged, and I only put this out there because Tom thinks this way so I know there’s someone else that would think the same thing. Logic would say that if you use 6 cans of rolls and bake for 30 minutes, that if you use 3 cans you would bake for 15 minutes right? Baking doesn’t work that way, trust me. You can’t just double and half when it comes to cooking/baking times! So please, keep an eye on it. No one likes squishy dough instead of cake or bread.*** </PSA>
And now I feel like a total geek because I totally just used HTML tags in an unfitting situation… Excuse my geekiness. Moving on…
Now while the cake is baking, get three bowls for the frosting. Orange flavored frosting comes with these rolls, so if you don’t want citrus flavors, you might want to get two cans of white frosting to color instead. Because the frosting is orange flavored, it doesn’t work very well to mix it with purple, if ya catch what I mean. :) Think of the frosting from the rolls and the frosting in the can as one unit – and divide it evenly, using the orange frosting for the yellow and green bowls. So put the same amount of frosting in each bowl, using the orange frosting only for yellow and green. Color to your own taste. I like bolder colors, so we used a LOT of food coloring.
Once your cake is done baking, LET IT COOL. I cannot make that text big or bright enough. If you don’t let it cool you may as well not even use the frosting because it will fall off the sides. So let it cool. Have a cocktail. Watch some horrible TV show or make out with your honey while you wait. Then, when it’s nice and cooled off, frost it with alternating colors.
I’m really bad at sharing recipes – not because I don’t want to share them, but because I don’t really follow recipes! It’s very difficult to tell someone “use this much of this, and that much of that” when you don’t know the measurements. I hope this helps anyone that wants to make a King Cake though. Usually there’s a baby inserted into the cake after the cake is baked, (not before, it will melt!) that is a special symbol. There are different thoughts as to what the baby means, but typically whoever gets the piece with the baby in it has to host the next party, and buy the next cake! I was unable to find a baby (wahhh… get it – baby?) so my King Cake was baby-less. It might be best, I wouldn’t want anyone breaking a tooth or something! ;)
So Happy Fat Tuesday to everyone! Indulge, have fun, get lots of beads, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Here is our finished King Cake! Kaden helped me color the frosting. :) It turned out very yummy, and was a big hit!