Mardi Gras King Cake – Topping

The King Cake is all finished and there is a wonderful smoked sausage inside.  It needs to have the traditional Purple, Green and Gold topping.  The Purple is for justice, Green is for faith and Gold is for power.

A traditional King Cake with the pecan, brown sugar spicy filling would be topped with icing, colored sugars or sprinkles, but we needed something very different.  Don came up with the great idea of making our 30 Minute Mozzarella cheese.

In the picture to the right we are straining the whey to separate the curds so they can be pressed and kneaded to make the cheese.  This gives the cheese a great texture.  During this time we also added basil and garlic to give a great flavor to our cheese.

This is also when we added the food coloring – Purple Cheese?  Why not!  And while we were at it,
we made green and gold cheese just to be accurate.

I do have to say that purple cheese was a little different at first, but it is very tasty.

We cut thin slices of cheese to put on top of our King Cake to give it just the right look – looked like frosting actually.

The cake didn’t last long when it arrived at the local Mardi Gras festivities.  It was definitely an Outside the Box King Cake.   Next time we might saute some breakfast sausage, onions and bell peppers.

The sky’s the limit!

Mardi Gras King Cake – Outside the Box

2/26/17 – Mardi Gras King Cake – Outside the Box

King Cake is that beautiful pastry we have during the Mardi Gras season – or is it.  Does it have to be sweet with colored sugar and filled with pecans and cinnamon?  Not here – we took the King Cake outside the box this year. We made a whole wheat bread using out own home ground flour.

For the filling there are many versions, but for the most part the pastry is stuffed with varying combinations of  brown sugar, nuts, raisins, spices, etc.  As you can see, ours was just a little bit different.  We used a smoked sausage.

After we rolled the dough and shaped the bread it had to rise a little more before we put it in the oven.  It did not want to stay in the traditional shape, so we used a wooden skewer to hold it. 

Home ground flour takes a little while longer than store bought flour to rise, but it is so much more flavorful and healthy that it is worth the effort.

While we were rising and baking the King Cake, we had some other important tasks to perform.  Tomorrow we will add those important steps and show you just how our Outside the Box King Cake turned out.

Recipe for the Dough

Mix and Disolve

1 Tbsp. Yeast
1 Tbsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1 C Warm Water

Add, Mix and let set 1 hour

1 Cup flour

Add Mix and Knead

1 Cup Flour (plus probably about 1/4 c to make the dough right for kneading)

Rise one hour

Roll out the bread dough, add the sausage (cooked breakfast sausage could be used – maybe even with peppers and onions)

Rise 1 hour (or until doubled)

Bake at 350 F for et minutes (could take longer in other ovens)

Check back tomorrow to see what happens to our King Cake next.