Mardi Gras and King Cakes

King Cake and Mardi Gras Mask

Mardi Gras celebrations have been in progress in New Orleans for some time already. The culmination is on Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, which this year is on February 12th. In my family, my Mom and Grandma of Slovakian origin celebrated this last day of revelry before fasting with a tradition they called Doughnut Day. Each year on the last day before lent began, mom made us doughnuts. This was a real highlight for us, and I made doughnuts for my children a few times over the years, also.

The tradition of King Cakes in New Orleans was originally brought to North America from France, where the cakes began appearing near the Christmas celebration of Twelfth Night, when the three Wise Men came to pay homage to the birth of Christ. This was a time of special King gifts for children, and the cakes continued to be made up to Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras.

The King Cake in olden times would contain one coin or a bean, and in modern times, a tiny plastic baby, representing the Christ child. The one person who got the slice of cake that contained the prize is meant to host the next Mardi Gras party, or at some parties, is crowned King or Queen of that party. It is supposed to bring good luck to find the baby.

The King Cake itself is generally a yeast coffeecake with various possible fillings. It may be rolled up or braided and formed into a ring, The cakes are decorated with a thin white icing with sugar sprinkles in green, gold and purple strewn over, or the icing made be tinted into the three colors and drizzled on. These colors are the traditional Mardi Gras colors with green for faith, gold for power and purple for justice. Here is my recipe for a King Cake, using a rich yeast dough and a praline type filling.

King Cake

King Cake

CAKE:
3½ - 4 cups all purpose flour
1 packet yeast
¾ cup milk, lukewarm
12 tablespoons unsalted butter 6 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
½ teaspoon salt

FILLING:
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup pecans, chopped
½ cup flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

ICING:
1½ cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
Icing color and/ or colored sprinkles in gold, green and purple

Mix together ½ cup of the flour and yeast in a small bowl. Pour in the lukewarm milk, not too hot or it will kill the yeast. Whisk to combine and set aside. In either a heavy duty stand mixer, or by hand, cream the butter and sugar. When fluffy and light, add eggs, one at a time until combined. Add in salt. Pour in the yeast sponge and combine, adding in more flour, a cup at a time, until the dough is smooth. Knead for about 7 to 10 minutes until nice and elastic. Cover and set aside to rise until doubled in size, one or two hours.

Once the dough has risen, make the filling. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well, then set aside. Flour a surface and turn out dough. Fold over on itself a few times, creating a rough rectangle. Roll out the dough to an approximate 12 x 20 inch rectangle. Sprinkle on the filling. It will not be a thick layer. Roll up from the long edge, dampening the farthest edge with water to help the ends adhere. Grease a baking sheet. Form the long roll into a ring on the baking sheet. Slash through the top layer all around, if desired. Cover and allow to rise for an hour or more. Preheat oven to 350. Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until golden brown.

Make icing by combining all the icing ingredients except the colorings. The icing is usually left white and after icing the cake, sugar sprinkles in gold, green and purple are strewn over at intervals. For this cake I separated the icing into three small bowls and tinted each to the appropriate color. Allow the cake to cool for about a half hour before drizzling on the icing. If the cake is too hot, the icing will completely run off the cake.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Delicious No Matter the Language

Stollen for Breakfast

So many cultures, and so many wonderful recipes. I have focused on my Slovak and Serbian ethnic recipes, and on Guatemalan foods I learned to love, along with Indian. When Christmas time rolls around, regardless how many other goodies there are to eat, German Stollen bread is on my list. Fruit and nut filled and rich with butter and egg, this bread is just marvelous for breakfast or brunch, with coffee or tea on a cold winter's morn. These things are food for the soul, and are made from the heart.

There are many, many Stollen recipe variations, of course. Everyone who writes a recipe declares theirs is the only "right" way. I declare there is no right way to make anything, but only interpretations. All recipes are personal interpretations. We alter a recipe to include an ingredient we prefer, or leave one out that we dislike. Then and there, the recipe is now a personal variation and no longer someone else's.

Small Stollen loaves, just baked
and glazed with a simple icing

I enjoy reading recipes, and variations on recipes. I love seeing the differences and similarities and then making them to my own taste. I rarely make a recipe as it is given. Stollen bread is basically as I described: fruit and nut filled and butter and egg rich. Amounts and specifics are left to personal interpretation. I prefer having my Stollen filled to overflowing with the fruits and nuts. Though many Stollen recipes call for citron in large quantity, I dislike citron and would never put it in anything I make. Does that make it any less good? I think not. Some recipes call for cherries, and some not. I am not generally wild about raisins when baked in a food, but I do use them in my Stollen, because it seems an integral part of the recipe. Golden or dark raisins, either/or, or both. I really love candied orange peel, so that goes in.

But have you ever tried to make such an overwhelmingly rich yeast dough? It is very hard for the yeast to have an effect on such a heavy dough, so the making of Stollen is a long process. Rising times are very long. There is a kind of yeast, available from the King Arthur flour site, called SAF Gold. It is meant for precisely this type of rich dough. Unfortunately, it is only available in 1-pound bricks. The reason behind the slow rising process, as explained in the King Arthur Flour / Baker's Catalogue is this:

“Sweet breads can be agonizingly slow risers. Why? Because sugar attracts water, and when it's in bread dough, it pulls water away from yeast - leaving the yeast thirsty and unable to grow. The special strain of yeast in SAF Gold is ‘osmotolerant’ – it requires less water. So it's able to grow happily despite sugar's attempts to leave it ‘high and dry.”

I started making my Stollen this morning at 10:30 AM. The last loaves were out of the oven at 6:30 PM. I have been working on many other things today, while waiting for the dough to rise, so its not that I had to be there attendant upon the dough. Just checking in periodically is enough. The bread is made for this year, and I am pleased. The recipe makes two quite large loaves, or three more medium sized loaves. This year I want to give them as gifts, so I made 8 smaller loaves. See the recipe for my Stollen loaves and you might be tempted to spend a nice day inside watching this marvelous bread rising, with the promise of such goodness at the end.

Dough ready to form into loaves

Stollen

Makes 2 large or 6 small breads

6 - 8 cups bread flour
2 packages dry yeast, or SAF Gold, or Instant Rise
1½ cups water or scalded milk (at 85-degrees)
½ pound raisins
½ pound almonds, blanched, peeled, chopped
½ pound candied fruits (cherries, orange peel, pineapple)
¾ cup sugar
1½ cups butter (3 sticks), room temperature
3 eggs, room temperature
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon grated lemon or lime zest
2 tablespoons brandy or cognac (optional)

Blanch almonds in boiling water until the skins soften, drain and rinse, peel and chop the almonds. Or, just use already slivered almonds.

Mix the yeast into the scalded milk, cooled (or water) to about 85 degrees. Allow to rest for10 minutes.

Chop the candied fruits into smaller bits and add a little flour, tossing so the fruits separate more easily. Add in the raisins and almonds, tossing to combine. May substitute golden raisins (Sultanas) for all or part of the total amount.

Once the yeast has bloomed, add in 1 cup of the flour and whisk well. Allow this sponge to grow until doubled in size, about ½ hour.

Cream the butter until light. This may be done in a large, heavy duty mixer, such as Kitchen Aid. Add in the sugar, a little at a time. Beat in the eggs until combined. Add in the brandy or cognac, if using. Add in the fruits and nuts, lemon or lime zest and the risen sponge mixture to combine, then add in another 5 to 7 cups of flour, as needed. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is silky smooth and elastic.

Place the bowl in a warm place and allow the dough to rise until almost doubled in bulk. Once risen, turn out onto a floured surface and divide into 2 sections. Form each section into a loaf and place into greased loaf pans. These loaves may also be formed into oval or round loaves and placed on baking sheets. Allow to rise in a warm place until almost doubled in bulk. Bake the loaves in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

My passion is to teach people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and help pass along my love and joy of food, both simple and exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, trying new things weekly. Join me at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook and Pinterest.

Easy Cookie Making: My Busy-Mom-Method

Simple Vanilla Cookies Sliced, using Busy Mom Method

Back when I was rearing my 4 children, I really had to use my time wisely. One day, I wanted to make cookies, but was in a rush, so I got this bright idea.  Why not just roll out the cookie dough onto the entire cookie sheet and bake it in one piece? Would that work?

I tried this out with a recipe for Simple Vanilla Cookies and it worked great!  Since the part I like least about making cookies is all the little individual scoops, then baking on separate sheets, waiting for one batch to be done, baking the next, and so on, not to mention all the counter space taken up with cooling cookies, this bright idea seemed exceptionally useful. I greased the cookie sheet and patted the dough out into a rough rectangle. The dough needs to be floured lightly, in order to be able to use the rolling pin. I rolled carefully, coaxing the dough to the edges and the corners. The dough is forgiving, and can be pushed around quite a bit. The sheet was popped into the oven to bake.

Simple Vanilla Cookies in cookie form

I quickly made up a small batch of simple icing by mixing up some confectioners' sugar with a pinch of salt, some vanilla and water enough to make a thick paste that fell very slowly from the spoon.  When the giant "cookie" came out of the oven, I quickly poured the icing onto the hot cookie. The icing melts onto the hot cookie, making it easy to spread carefully to all the edges, and in minutes the top had set. I used a large chef's knife and cut the giant cookie into small squares - and voila!  I had cookies in half the time and almost no work!

I have used this method for a few types of cookies and it works well.  It may not work for all cookies, and I have tried with only a few, but since these were some of the easiest to make, these recipes were the ones I made most often.  These Simple Vanilla Cookies were top of the list, but I also would make others like Hermits, redolent with warm spices, and ice them the same way.  Just that thin layer of icing, and what a difference.

Try this out sometime when in a rush, and see if it doesn't come out easily.  Just see what you think!

Simple Vanilla Cookies

Makes about 7 dozen

1 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup shortening or lard
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2¾ cups all-purpose flour

Cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add vanilla and salt. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in flour, mixing well. Drop from a teaspoon 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove immediately from pan.

If you like an iced cookie: make a glaze icing by mixing 1½ cups of confectioners' sugar, with ½ teaspoon vanilla and enough water (or milk) to make a paste, like very soft peanut butter. Add water by tiny amounts, starting with a tablespoon and adding in small bits thereafter. It gets runny very easily. Stir well each time before adding more water. Take each cookie and dip the top into the glaze and set aside to dry.

NOTES: Just for anecdotal trivia...

When I was in Guatemala, one morning I made a batch of these cookies. I popped the last pan in the oven, and set the timer. Itching to get outside for a bit, I stepped out to see what the children were doing. . . and got distracted. By the time I remembered the cookies they had baked and shrunken down to tiny little black hockey pucks - not even the dogs had any interest in them! It pays not to get distracted when baking. 


My passion is to teach people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and help pass along my love and joy of food, both simple and exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, trying new things weekly. Join me at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook and Pinterest.