New Orleans King Cake - Bucket List Bake Club February
February's Bucket List Bake Club challenge is New Orleans style King Cake. My version is a soft tanzhong brioche filled with a cinnamon sugar filling and topped with a vanilla glaze. Instead of the traditional purple, yellow and green glitter I've used lemon zest, lime zest and purple edible flowers.
NEW ORLEANS KING CAKE
Makes one 25cm king cake
SWEET TANZHONG BRIOCHE
90G WATER
20G FLOUR
100G MILK
30G SUGAR
9G (1 TBSP) INSTANT ACTIVE DRY YEAST
1 EGG
¼ TSP VANILLA BEAN PASTE
1 TSP SALT
330G FLOUR
50G BUTTER
In a small pot mix the flour (20g) and water together. Cook over a low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture is thick, this won't take very long.
Tip this into a stand mixer bowl (or a normal bowl if you want to mix your dough by hand) and add in the milk, sugar, vanilla and egg. Whisk to combine, this step is to cool down your tanzhong, it will still be quite lumpy but don’t stress about it!
Whisk in your yeast, then add in your flour followed by the salt. Begin to knead your dough, either by hand or in a stand mixer, until you have a rough dough. Add in the butter and continue to knead until you have a smooth, elastic dough, adding a touch of flour if required to make your dough manageable.
Wrap your dough in clingfilm and leave to rest in a warm place for an hour until doubled in size, or in the fridge overnight.
Once doubled in size split your dough into two pieces, and roll each piece into a 45x18cm rectangle. Spread half your cinnamon filling over each piece. Roll each piece of the dough up to create a long, skinny log. Squish the long edge of the dough when rolling to close the log tightly. Twist the two logs of dough together and kind of squish and tuck the ends of each to create a wreath of dough. Place your dough on a lined baking tray and place a 25ish cm springform cake ring around the wreath - this is optional but will help keep your king cake round.
Spray the wreath with spray oil and leave it somewhere warm to double in size, and your finger leaves a light imprint when you press down on the dough. This took about 30 minutes for my dough but may take longer on a cold day.
Preheat the oven to 180c. Bake the king cake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and after a minute or two remove the springform tin. Allow to cool before glazing.
CINNAMON FILLING
120G SOFT BUTTER
120G BROWN SUGAR
1 1/2 TABLESPOONS GROUND CINNAMON
Whisk everything together to form a smooth, spreadable paste and use immediately as directed above.
VANILLA GLAZE
250G ICING SUGAR
35G WATER
1/8 TSP VANILLA BEAN PASTE
ZEST OF 1 LEMON
ZEST OF 1 LIME
EDIBLE FLOWERS
Whisk the water, icing sugar and vanilla bean paste together, adding more icing sugar or water as required to achieve a thick but pipeable icing. Pipe the icing over the top of the cake, gently easing the icing over the edge of the cake to create a drip effect. Decorate with the lemon and lime zest and edible flowers. The king cake is best enjoyed the day you made it, but will last up to three days in an airtight container.