King Cake with Cream Cheese Filling

In honor of Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, I decided to make a King Cake. It had been awhile since my last tasting of the New Orleans treat. I remember wanting to buy one at the grocery store last year, but it seemed a little silly to buy an entire cake for just the two of us. Fortunately this year, we had guests over the weekend, so we had the perfect excuse to make a King Cake.

Dustin was a little annoyed I didn't hide a baby Jesus inside, but I had no idea where to find one except on Amazon where they were way overpriced. I'll just say eating any slice of my King Cake will bring you good luck.

This cake was a big hit, and it wasn't really that hard to make. It did require a little elbow work with the kneading and some planning since we had to wait for dough to rise, but it's all worth it once you taste this treat.

I made the dough using this recipe, originally printed in Southern Living magazine, and I used the cream cheese filling from this recipe for King Cake cupcakes from Confections of a Foodie Bride along with a few handfuls of pecans for good measure. They were an excellent combination.

The texture was perfect and doughy, and the cream cheese filling oozed out the sides in deliciousness. On of our friends told me it tasted like he remembered the King Cake one of his clients had sent him directly from New Orleans (at the cost of about $180 or something crazy like that) and then went back for a second slice. Then I was told I should open a bakery and sell my baked goods. I can't take credit for creating this recipe or many others that I make, but I'm glad everyone seems to enjoy my baking. According to Dustin, I've gotten much better.

I didn't pinch the dough down into each other quite enough to form a perfect cake.

But once you add the vanilla glaze and lots of colorful sprinkles, you really don't know the difference. Obviously if I were trying to sell this cake, I'd want it to look a little prettier, but for our personal consumption it was quite delicious and didn't look that  bad considering it was my first attempt at making a homemade King Cake. I think I'll have to make this a yearly tradition.

Happy Fat Tuesday!