King's Cake

You can't celebrate Mardi Gras without King's Cake.  Well you can, but since there'll be no shirt raising over here, I'm sticking with dessert as a great way to celebrate.

I had to improvise a bit for this, because the plows didn't make it through until mid-afternoon, and I just didn't want to get stuck in the snow.  I started with my brioche dough, but was out of garfava flour, so I substituted sorghum flour for it.  After letting it rise for an hour,  I turned it out onto my counter that I had liberally dusted with sweet rice flour. 

I sprinkled more flour ontop and gently rolled it out into a rectangle about 20"x10".  I didn't have a block of cream cheese in my frig, but I did have a mixed berry whipped cream cheese spread.  Extra bonus:  it was a fantastic purple color - almost like I planned it that way.

I mixed in 1 cup of confectioners' sugar and spread it out on the rolled out dough.

I sprinkled on 1 cup of golden raisins, 1 cup of chopped pecans, and 1 tbsp cinnamon.

A King's Cake is rolled up on the long side

 to create a very long roll that you'll shape into a circle.  Overlap the ends a bit and smoosh it together so you can't tell where the seam is.

But before the dough is rolled up all the way, a small doll, or crown, or coin is hidden in the dough.  Whoever finds it in their piece is the "king."  I didn't have the traditional baby doll, so I dug into the foreign money box and came up with a centime.  I thought a french coin was rather appropriate for this purpose.  After washing and drying it thoroughly, I buried it in the cake.

Let the dough rise again for 45 minutes, and brush it with some egg wash.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.  When it comes out of the oven, let it cool slightly, then glaze it with 1 cup of confectioners' sugar + 1 tbsp bourbon and enough milk to make it a pouring consistency.  Sprinkle on purple green and yellow sanding sugars.

The boys decided not to wait until tomorrow to eat it, and dove in after dinner.  WD had a second helping hoping to find the coin(he claims it was just so tasty, and it was, but I know he just likes to win.)  I know where it is and we haven't gotten to it yet.  It's important to let everyone know that they're searching to be king, so that nobody accidentally swallows the prize.

Thanks for popping in and baking with me.  I'm linking this up to Gluten-Free Homemaker's Gluten-Free Wednesdays.