Okay, so I hate cooking. But I love to bake. I figure if I must slave in the kitchen, sugar should be involved, right?
Well one thing I miss terribly since going Gluten Free over 6 years ago, is King Cake. Our family doesn't even celebrate Mardi Gras but I LOVED king cake.
So, I wanted to attempt a GF version.
Now, if you eat GF you know, what you make GF is never EXACTLY like the original. I've accepted that and a new level of dessert contentment helps me accept that!
(Please excuse my photos, it was an overcast day and the lighting in the kitchen is awful)
This is ONLY GLUTEN FREE. If you have other allergies, you'll have to make your substitutions.
Ingredients:
Chebe Cinnamon Bread Mix and required ingredients for basic recipe (on box)
Cream Cheese Filling (optional):
8 oz Cream Cheese
1/4 C sugar
1 tsp lemon zest (I didn't have this and it was fine)
1 tsp vanilla
Icing:
3 TBSP soft butter
4 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4-6 TBSP milk
Now there are other icing recipes that involve only powdered sugar and lemon juice, but I had no juice, so I found this one. Worked for me.
DIRECTIONS:
Make cinnamon chebe (which is delicious by the way), as directed on box. I doubled the recipe to make two separate king cakes. If you want a larger king cake you could double the recipe and roll the dough, intertwining it like you would a bread.
But I digress, make the chebe bread as directed to the nearly last step about rolling it and cutting. This is where you decide how you want to design your king cake. You can make 'mini' king cakes by continuing in their directions and basically making a cinnamon roll with king cake toppings. I rolled mine flat as directed then cut it in half. Then I rolled each piece into a 'log' and connected it to make a circle (traditional king cake shape).
The dough was a little skinny, but that was fine with me.
(by the way, it is NOT pretty by any stretch of the imagination)
IF you want the cream cheese filling, make the filling then insert it in the dough BEFORE YOU ROLL IT. To make the filing just beat the filling ingredients until smooth.
Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.
Once out of the oven, I prefer to let it cool a bit. I left the blue/green cake cool, I did not let the red/yellow cake, and you can see the difference when you pour on the icing.
To make the icing:
Beat the butter until softened. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and continue to beat, gradually adding milk until a glaze consistency is achieved.
Okay, I'll be honest, I totally didn't do it this way because I didn't read the directions first....I just put the butter, vanilla and milk in one bowl and added it straight to the powdered sugar. When I started beating it, it didn't glaze up well so I just put a bit of milk in it until it reached glaze consistency. Still worked out okay.
Pour icing on top of king cakes and then add colored granulated sugar on top.
Enjoy!!
VERDICT: No, it's NOT the same as Randazzo's or Rouses's king cake, but until they make a GF version, it's better than others I've tried. I DO NOT KNOW how it will turn out if you change anything for allergy reasons. I'm hoping the cream cheese one is better after it sets up a bit because the cream cheese still tasted warm when I tried it, and I'd rather it be cooler. I'll be sure to try it again tonight just to check :)
