King Cake Rising!

CUBE

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Good Fat Tuesday Guys. I love Mardi Gras season. I make three King Cakes every year for work. This year they are a combo of chocolate chips, blueberries, apricot jam, cream cheese spread, sugar, spice, and everything nice.

Anyone else doing something to celebrate?
 

b.c.

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Good Fat Tuesday Guys. I love Mardi Gras season. I make three King Cakes every year for work. This year they are a combo of chocolate chips, blueberries, apricot jam, cream cheese spread, sugar, spice, and everything nice.

Anyone else doing something to celebrate?

USED to pass by Randazzo's in Chalmette to get ours, before they moved out to "MET-ry" Locally, theirs is the best, but yours sounds mighty yummy.

Last Tuesday's Saints parade was a blast, but DAMN it was cold in the CBD this afternoon. Doubtful we'll make Harry's parade tonite. ...Catch it on T.V.

Anyway, dress warmly, kiddies.
 

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I love to research desserts. I think it is my diabetic irony of life. Anyrate, I went to Mardi Gras the season before Katrina. I had some good King Cake there and met many people of the city that were just great. I don't know what happened to these people but hope they got through ok. I started making King Cakes that year and bringing them to friends to remind myself not to take the people I know for granted and to celebrate them. Have been making them each year ever since.
 

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I love to research desserts. I think it is my diabetic irony of life. Anyrate, I went to Mardi Gras the season before Katrina. I had some good King Cake there and met many people of the city that were just great. I don't know what happened to these people but hope they got through ok. I started making King Cakes that year and bringing them to friends to remind myself not to take the people I know for granted and to celebrate them. Have been making them each year ever since.

Post-Katrina (the first Mardi Gras)--I went to New Orleans on a business trip. I did get to go to a little bit of the Mardi Gras. It was really fun. The French Quarter was shoulder-to-shoulder crowded. (I didn't get in there.)

I would have loved to have gone to the Cafe Du Monde. But the line was crazy. You would've thought that they had a popular rollercoaster in the tiny space. I did get a bunch of Mardi Gras beads. I still got some. I gave some to my boyfriend (now ex) and my sisters.

I wanted to get a chance to eat some Nawlins cuisine before I left but I only got to eat one well-seasoned spicy crab. It was delicious.

I ate at POPEYES Chicken and Biscuits on some nights in Westwego...it was late when I got off from the job.

One eerie thing I did see when I left New Orleans was SIX FLAGS New Orleans. It was like a swampy ghost town. There is nothing sadder than a ruined amusement park. It was in shambles.
 

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I just was alerted to another interesting seasonal ritual, the "Shrove Tuesday Derby Football" which is played by huge masses of people in the streets and is now on Twitter

BBC Derby Shrovetide (BBCshrovetide) on Twitter It reminds me very much of the game foote-the-ball in Discworld, described in Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett.
 

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Here is celebrated as Fasnacht Day, and a flat square dougnut is made deep fried in lard, traditionally Fasnachts were made as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat, and butter, which were traditionally fasted from during Lent.
 

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One eerie thing I did see when I left New Orleans was SIX FLAGS New Orleans. It was like a swampy ghost town. There is nothing sadder than a ruined amusement park. It was in shambles.

I drive by it often and it still is.

I'd said (when they opened it) that the planners must have been idiots to open a park in sweltering summertime New Orleans without a waterpark component.

Fact was, Six Flags was losing their asses on the park before the storm (there are various other theories why), and no doubt considered the storm a fortunate turn of events for them.

While the city tried all they could to get the company to satisfy their lease obligations Six Flags dismantled everything salvageable (instead of repairing the park) and moved it to other locations. So fuck Six Flags.

Now with new people in office and renewed interest in the area maybe someone else will get moving with developing this location.
 

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why don't you share the recipe?

You can roll out any premade dough into a square. Every inch or two across the square put a line of a goodies of your choice. You can use some jam for one line, choco chips on another line, etc. Then roll it up like a log and place it in a circle and connect the edges. I rub some butter on the top to keep the top crust soft. Then you bake it at 350 for 15 mins covered with foil, then five more with foil off. It cools and your frost it with simple powder sugar icing. Sprinke sugar crystals on the moist icing. The colors are stipes of purple, green, yellow. I then cut a small slit on the side and push in a plastic baby that is about 1/2 long. When you cut the pieces ...and serve them ...whoever gets the baby can get a prize. (Even though the tradition is they make the next King Cake or throw the next party.) So though called a cake we are talking just a sweet roll type product. I added some kalua in the frosting this year. It was good. No complaints and it was all gone fast. It is not high end dessert, nor something I would want everyday, but it tastes good and was a fun little break party at work. I had the entire area decorated etc. YES!
 

invisibleman

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One eerie thing I did see when I left New Orleans was SIX FLAGS New Orleans. It was like a swampy ghost town. There is nothing sadder than a ruined amusement park. It was in shambles.

I drive by it often and it still is.

Yeah, I bet. It is an eye sore I bet whenever you leave New Orleans and the last thing you see is a fucked up amusement park.

I'd said (when they opened it) that the planners must have been idiots to open a park in sweltering summertime New Orleans without a waterpark component.

Well, they probably were going to put up one later as a future expansion. You never know.

Fact was, Six Flags was losing their asses on the park before the storm (there are various other theories why) , and no doubt considered the storm a fortunate turn of events for them.

While the city tried all they could to get the company to satisfy their lease obligations Six Flags dismantled everything salvageable (instead of repairing the park) and moved it to other locations. So fuck Six Flags.

Yeah. :frown1: I remember the ride from New Orleans and seeing that park like that and I teared up a little bit.

Now with new people in office and renewed interest in the area maybe someone else will get moving with developing this location.

I think that Cedar Fair Amusements should take it over and make MARDI GRAS themed park.
 

invisibleman

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You can roll out any premade dough into a square. Every inch or two across the square put a line of a goodies of your choice. You can use some jam for one line, choco chips on another line, etc. Then roll it up like a log and place it in a circle and connect the edges. I rub some butter on the top to keep the top crust soft. Then you bake it at 350 for 15 mins covered with foil, then five more with foil off. It cools and your frost it with simple powder sugar icing. Sprinke sugar crystals on the moist icing. The colors are stipes of purple, green, yellow. I then cut a small slit on the side and push in a plastic baby that is about 1/2 long. When you cut the pieces ...and serve them ...whoever gets the baby can get a prize. (Even though the tradition is they make the next King Cake or throw the next party.) So though called a cake we are talking just a sweet roll type product. I added some kahlua in the frosting this year. It was good. No complaints and it was all gone fast. It is not high end dessert, nor something I would want everyday, but it tastes good and was a fun little break party at work. I had the entire area decorated etc. YES!

:eek: Man, Kahlua in frosting...I bet that was really good. You should start a business making those king cakes. I had a feeling that those kingcakes were kinda like danishes not cake in a cake sense.
 

b.c.

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You can roll out any premade dough into a square. Every inch or two across the square put a line of a goodies of your choice. You can use some jam for one line, choco chips on another line, etc. Then roll it up like a log and place it in a circle and connect the edges. I rub some butter on the top to keep the top crust soft. Then you bake it at 350 for 15 mins covered with foil, then five more with foil off. It cools and your frost it with simple powder sugar icing. Sprinke sugar crystals on the moist icing. The colors are stipes of purple, green, yellow. I then cut a small slit on the side and push in a plastic baby that is about 1/2 long. When you cut the pieces ...and serve them ...whoever gets the baby can get a prize. (Even though the tradition is they make the next King Cake or throw the next party.) So though called a cake we are talking just a sweet roll type product. I added some kalua in the frosting this year. It was good. No complaints and it was all gone fast. It is not high end dessert, nor something I would want everyday, but it tastes good and was a fun little break party at work. I had the entire area decorated etc. YES!

Yep. The deal is, you start buying/making your King Cakes on Twelfth Night (January 6th) and you buy 'em right up until Mardi Gras. Afterward they're hard to come by, unless you go to bakeries that specialize in making them, or you make them yourself. Tradition is whoever gets the piece with the baby has to buy (or make) the next one. (We've never made one).

The dough in almost all kinds down here is usually laced with cinnamon, so I guess you could also use cinnamon roll dough. King cakes here come plain or filled. My favorite kind is a pecan praline filled cake (Randazzo's) followed by the cream cheese filled cakes. These may also have a fruit filling. My fave of these: cherry and cream cheese filling. Yum.

All are traditionally iced over, and covered with sprinkle sugar in the colors noted above.