RECIPE: Easy King Cake (Laissez les bons temps rouler!)

King Cake, a pastry common to the Cajun culture with origins in 12th century France to celebrate the coming of the Three Magi to see the Infant Jesus, is a fantastically fun way to celebrate from Epiphany through Mardi Gras. King Cakes tend to be big, and messy and gaudy. They're frosted with gold, green and purple icing (I make a simple buttercream) and of course, each color is significant. The gold stands for kingly power, which I assume is the power of the newborn king who was also the living God; the purple stands for justice and the green stands for faith. That's nice, isn't it? It is until you actually see the King Cake -- the icing is generally glopped on and it runs down the inside and the outside of the cake in a haphazard manner. When I say inside and outside, I mean that the King Cake is made of braided cinnamon bread dough baked in a bundt or tube pan. The idea is that the cake is baked in a circular shape to signify the eternal nature of God and the continuity of Christian faith. Thrifty and more self-controlled people use an easy powdered sugar-and-water glaze, but to my mind, there's nothing like about a pound of colorful buttercream frosting flowing all over over the place to make you want to par-tay.

Some people decorate the cakes with colored sugars on top of the icing, adding little colored candies. Some people wind strands of Mardi Gras beads around the outside edge of the cake. I've also seen cakes with little flags -- Lousiana, French and papal -- stuck on top. Basically, what you're going for is not a Mies van der Rohe-of-the-patisserie kind of look, all simple and clean lines and constructed with minimalism in mind. No, you're going for a party-shop explosion of a cake, the more decorated the better.

But it's what's inside the King Cake that makes it truly special. See that little package of plastic babies I'm holding in the photo above? I got those at Balloons, Etc. in the baby shower aisle for about two dollars. For an authentic King Cake, you take one of those babies (representing the Baby Jesus) and stick it in the cake after it's finished baking. Then you slop all that colored buttercream over everything to help disguise the baby's whereabouts -- because the three kings had to search for the Holy Family on their travels, right? -- and decorate accordingly. NOW you have yourself a King Cake.

If the people who are going to be eating the King Cake are not hip to the fact that there's going to be a plastic baby in there somewhere, you might want to warn them. I'm thinking that chomping down on a plastic baby might not be such a happy way to celebrate the Magi and the visit they paid to the babe in the manger with their rich gifts.

The person who gets the baby gets a little prize of some sort and the honor of being the one to bring the King Cake to the next year's Epiphany or Mardi Gras party (or any party in between those two dates.) The little prize could be religious in nature, like a rosary or a little bottle of holy water or some holy cards. Or it could be some candy, preferably something in gold wrappers, like Rolo candies. If the finder of the plastic baby requires the winner to show her boobs before she can claim her prize, YOU ARE AT THE WRONG KIND OF PARTY AND PROBABLY MAKING THE BABY JESUS CRY.

EASY KING CAKE

Ingredients
3 cans of refrigerated cinnamon roll dough, like Pillsbury or similar

1 cup of butter, softened
approximately 8 cups confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup half-and-half

purple, green and yellow food coloring (I prefer Wilton's gel icing colors, which produce a deep, rich color)

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. On a clean working surface, unwrap the containers of cinnamon roll dough. Unroll three strands of dough and pinch them together at the top, then braid them into a nice, long braid. If you have daughters and spent their childhood years braiding their hair, this will be a very easy task for you. Repeat with the rest of the cinnamon roll dough; it will come out evenly.

Place the braids into a Bundt or tube-style cake pan that has been well-misted with cooking spray. As you add each braid, pinch it onto the one you put in before so that there's a cohesive mass inside your cake pan. Place the cake pan in the preheated oven and cover with a strip of aluminum foil to prevent over-browning. Bake for twenty minutes. At the end of twenty minutes, remove the foil and continue baking for another fifteen minutes or so.

[Make your buttercream icing while the cake is baking]

Warning: This is one of those recipes where you're going to have to rely on your sense of smell to know when the cake is finished baking. And also, depending on the size of your Bundt or tube pan, the dough may rise up over the top, necessitating an evening-up kind of maneuver once the finished cake has cooled. That's because our familiarity with cinnamon rolls generally extends to them being baked separately on a cookie sheet, whereas now they're all squashed together in those braids, so being able to smell "doneness" would be a great thing. If the dough gets too brown in spite of your best efforts, comfort yourself with the thought that it's all going to be covered up with a ton of icing, so no one will be the wiser.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about fifteen minutes on a wire rack. Carefully invert the cake pan over a cake plate. There are chances that the cake will be lumpy and bumpy instead of smooth and taking on the scalloped shape of the Bundt pan, if you're using one. That's okay. This is a King Cake and we're not looking for wedding confectionery perfection. While the cake is still cooling, take one of your plastic babies and stick it somewhere in that inner circle where it can't be seen.

The buttercream icing is so easy to make. The most important thing is to make sure that your butter is SOFT but not overly melted. If your butter is too stiff, there will be ugly little lumps in the icing. If it is too melty, you won't have a good texture for spreading and you'll wind up with bare patches on the cake's shoulders and huge puddles of gooey frosting on your cake plate. So stir those ingredients together, adding the confectioner's sugar little by little so that you don't cause whiteout conditions in your kitchen. Divide the completed frosting into three bowls, add a small drop of each food coloring to each bowl. Stir and add more to make the color more vivid, if you'd like; you simply cannot be gaudy enough with a King Cake. You may not need ALL the icing, it's hard to tell. Wait until the cake is well cooled and start glopping it on there. You be the judge. You can also use cream cheese icing, by the way, but it is so enormously rich on the already-rich cinnamon bread that I think it's just a little too much of a good thing.

If you have them, you can sprinkle gold, purple and green colored sugars on the cake. Be-dazzle the cake with little silver dragees or M&M's in the appropriate colors. GO WILD. Do not show your boobs to anyone who comes into the kitchen. That will make you a bad, bad cook, even if your cake tastes delicious.

RECIPE: Hot Fudge Cake (lower sugar recipe)

Hot fudge cake is one of my favorites to make when we want a little something sweet in the evenings, especially at this time of year. Hot fudge cake is the kind of cake that bakes on the top into a crinkly, brownie-like crust and then has a layer of "hot fudge" underneath; you don't slice it so much as you scoop it. After baking, you keep it in the fridge covered with plastic wrap and when you want to serve it, you dig out a wedge with a spoon, dribble some of the topping over it and then microwave it for a minute or so. It heats up very nicely and comes out of the microwave all steamy and cocoa-fragrant, ready for a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream or a squirt of whipped cream.

It's a nice little dessert for cold evenings, if you're not too susceptible to the ravages of sugar, that is, both in your bloodstream and at your waistline. Which is why I tinkered with this recipe from a magazine my mom gave me (that's their image, by the way; I kept taking pictures of my own cake and with my decidedly amateurish photo-taking skills, I kept coming up with images that looked like bowls of roofing tar) so that I could reduce the amount of sugar without reducing the rich, chocolatey taste. I think I was successful, so I hope you'll give it a try if you're a sugar-avoiding chocolate lover and let me know if you liked it.

By the way, this is one of those recipes that's usually baked in a 9x9 pan, but I have a family and we like a sweet treat in the evenings, and if I bake this in a 9x13 baking pan, we can have a piece for about four nights running, which is very nice indeed. If you don't want that much cake -- and if you don't, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??!! -- then just cut the recipe neatly in half and use the 9x9 pan.

HOT FUDGE CAKE (lower sugar recipe)
Ingredients:

Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups Splenda sugar substitute
1/2 cup cocoa powder, divided
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (1%, 2% or whole, your choice)
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Topping:
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Splenda
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3 1/2 cups hot water

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine flour, Splenda, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Stir in the milk, melted butter and vanilla until smooth.

Spread mixture into a 9x13 baking dish that's been lightly coated with cooking spray. Combine the topping ingredients (brown sugar, Splenda, cocoa) and sprinkle them over the batter. Pour hot water over all; do not stir. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Cake will be jiggly when you take it out of the oven because of the fudgy "topping" underneath the baked cake.

Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream. Re-heats very nicely. Looks cute with some festive red and green sprinkles on top.

RECIPE: Amish Lemon Squares

I posted over at Facebook around Father's Day about whether I should make lemon squares or Key Lime pie for my in-laws (I ended up making both) and a great number of people sent me messages asking if I'd be willing to share my recipes with people.

Naturally, I was all, "Well, SURE!" because I am all about being kind to people and doing nice things for them, even if I sent them a friend request that it took them over a month to answer, as if they were running a background check on me and had to wait for the results before confirming that they knew me.

I knew I should have used both my maiden and married names on my Facebook profile.

Anyway, my mother and I got this recipe from an Amish lady in either Middlebury, Indiana or Shipshewana, I can't remember which. The lady was running a little bakery out of a picturesque shed behind her house and I can't even tell you the wonders we beheld in the glass case that was set up in there. Or that she was really kind about the fact that I'd stepped in gum and left clingy bits of sticky pink goo all over her pristine linoleum floor.

We left sans gum but with this recipe, which was not really a fair trade. Especially since the lemon squares are so easy to make, but I'm sure those little bits of nasty bubble gum were a real pain in the prayer bonnet to get up off the floor.

AMISH LEMON SQUARES

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup soft butter, plus 2 tablespoons (yes, you read that right)
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup ReaLemon concentrated lemon juice
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together first three ingredients in a medium mixing bowl until mixture clings; press evenly into a 9x13" baking pan and bake at 350^o for twenty-five minutes.

While crust is baking, rinse out the mixing bowl. Break the four eggs into the bowl and beat; add sugar and ReaLemon. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture, stirring to combine. Pour over baked crust and bake for twenty-five minutes at 350 degrees. Allow lemon squares to cool and sprinkle with a bit of powdered sugar. Cut into squares and serve.*


*In the Amish lady's pastry case, the lemon squares were about as big as my head. So depending on what you're looking for in a lemon square, whether it is a full-on sugary citrus rush or a dainter specimen you can nibble while drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea, cut them in whatever size suits your need.

RECIPE: Cranberry-Pecan Biscotti

Now that we have a coffee maker, I felt called upon to make some kind of treat to go with each sweet, milky cup. Heaven knows, I'd like to just go out and buy six boxes of Little Debbie Dunkin' Sticks and let the wrappers fall where they may, but as I said earlier today, we're all watching our calorie intake and I have to keep a close eye on my blood sugar so Little Debbie and I have had to have a tearful parting, promising to get together and to stay cool and have a good summer. I comforted myself by buying Kieren four boxes of Fudge Rounds as part of his Christmas present.

I've spent some time on the internet researching biscotti and how to know a good recipe from a bad one and what goes good with coffee and would I have to have three thousand exotic ingredients, or could this just be a simple venture. After reading about twenty recipes, I cobbled together one that I thought would please the family. You can see it there above in the picture, where you also may note that I haven't yet got the technique for rolling the dough into logs and cutting it into the thin sticks by which biscotti seems to be characterized.

Here's the simple recipe, which tastes delicious, even if I don't quite have the correct shape. It's very, very simple to throw together, requires no fantabulous ingredients like the eyelash of a baby unicorn, and leaves you with very little to clean up. A keeper!

CRANBERRY-PECAN BISCOTTI

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup Splenda
6 tablespoons butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 beaten egg
2 tablespoons of sugar for sprinkling

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment or by spritzing it with cooking spray.

While the oven is heating, mix the first four ingredients in a small mixing bowl; set aside.

Combine the Splenda, butter, eggs and vanilla in a larger bowl and mix until creamy. Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing until a soft dough forms. Stir in the pecans and cranberries.

Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, take half the dough and shape it into a log with your hands, kind of like you'd do with modeling clay. The log should be about nine inches long and about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Place it on the baking sheet and repeat with the second ball of dough. Flatten both logs slightly. Brush with beaten egg.

Place baking sheet in oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the logs are firm to the touch and golden brown on top. Remove from oven and cool on the baking sheet for fifteen minutes. Don't turn off the oven! The dough will have increased in size, so cut both logs in half lengthwise, and then cut into shorter "sticks." After the fifteen minutes of cooling, sprinkle the sticks lightly with sugar and return to oven; bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven, cool and serve with coffee. Store the remainder in an airtight container.

This recipe can easily be doubled, although you may need to use two baking sheets to accommodate your extra logs of dough. The yield will depend on how long you want your biscotti sticks to be, if you see what I mean. I intend to experiment by seeing if I can make my dough logs longer, so that I can make sticks that are both longer and thinner. As you can see from my photo, they're a bit short and fat. Kind of like their maker.

RECIPE: Chocolate-Cinnamon Sheet Cake

This is just one of the best cakes in the world. So deliciously chocolatey -- if you like that sort of thing, Kayte -- and it's big. So it goes well with a family gathering. I took one to CousinFest so that we could just munch on a piece whenever we wanted. Susie ended up having some neighbors over for an impromptu party after the fireworks, and it fed everyone who wanted a piece and there was still a little bit left over for guilty snacking. By the end of the four days, it was gone.

This is a big one at family reunions, parties and, er, funeral dinners, plus it featured largely at James Whitcomb Riley Elementary School back in the 1970s as their featured Happy Birthday cake for each month of the year. It's known in some places as Texas Sheet Cake and in other places as Picnic Sheet Cake, but it's known everywhere as y-u-m-m-y. There are several variations on the recipe -- some call for buttermilk, some call for sour cream, others for more or less cinnamon -- but this recipe is from my cousin Cathy.

The most important part of this cake is the pan it is baked in -- a jelly roll pan, which is 10 1/2 x 15 1/2 x 1. That's what'll give you the nice, big cake.

The second most important part of this cake is the icing -- the velvety, scrumptious, home made icing. I dare you not to lick that spoon.

CHOCOLATE-CINNAMON SHEET CAKE

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar

2 sticks of butter (I know, I know....)
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup water

1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400^oF. Combine sugar and flour in a large heat-proof mixing bowl. In a medium sized saucepan, bring the butter, cocoa and water to a rapid boil. Pour into the flour-sugar mixture. Stir in sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon, eggs and baking soda; pour into an oiled sheet cake pan and bake for 20 minutes.

ICING

1 stick of butter (yes, I know)
6 tablespoons milk
4 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound powdered sugar

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional

In a saucepan (preferably the same medium-sized one you just used for the cake) bring the butter, milk and cocoa to a boil. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and stir until velvety smooth. Pour over hot cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. You can sprinkle the cake with nuts, if desired.

Allow cake and frosting to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting. Icing will set and be firm.

RECIPE: Myla's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Myla, God rest her soul, was my dear friend Beth's mother, an indefatiguable gardener, a fierce card player, an unflappable midnight sandwich maker. She was the favorite of all my friends' moms, just for being so funny and so easy to talk to.

She was also an amazing cook with a huge repertoire of recipes of maximum deliciousity. A few weeks back, I wanted to make a sour cream coffee cake like Myla's, and I knew I had her recipe. It was written, however, on an old-fashioned 3x5 recipe card and stuck down out of order in my old-fashioned Longaberger recipe basket. Honestly, I just didn't feel like digging around for it, so I found a recipe for sour cream coffee cake on a website I trust. It sounded a lot like Myla's, until I got to the part where I had to put the batter in the tube pan. Then I knew something was very wrong, and later on when I served the cake, I was proved right. It wasn't even close to Myla's feather-light cake and I was gruesomely disappointed.

So today, I sat down with that recipe basket and dug through it until I found that 3x5 card, written out in Myla's own handwriting for me about twenty years ago -- I asked for it one night after Beth, Julie, Hoot and I stopped by late for a bite to eat and a game of Hearts. Myla served us coffee cake and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and I was hooked.

The recipe is so old that the writing is almost obliterated, so I think I'd better copy it down while it's still legible. I'll think of Myla every time I make it.

MYLA'S SOUR CREAM COFFEE CAKE

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sifted flour (the sifting is very important)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sour cream

"RIBBON" IN THE MIDDLE

1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350^o

In a medium mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, beating well until combined; add the vanilla. Carefully sift in the dry ingredients, stirring them with a nice, slow spoon until dry ingredients are moistened. Tenderly fold in the sour cream. BE GENTLE, goshdarnit!

In a small bowl, prepare the "ribbon" topping.

In a 10" tube pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray, carefully spoon half the batter. (I love writing sentences in the passive voice.) Gently spread the "ribbon" over all the batter, and then spoon in the rest of the batter. SLOWLY, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!

Place tube pan in oven with the tender care you'd use to place a sleeping baby into a bassinette and bake for 55-60 minutes. When you remove it from the oven, allow the cake to cool completely before trying to remove it from the pan. You might want to use a flat spatula to gently go around the inner edges of the tube pan to help unstick the cake, especially if your tube pan is fluted; it seems that no matter how much non-stick spray you use, this cake will still try to break your heart by clinging to the pan. I know this from painful experience.

Turn the cake out onto a pretty cake plate and sift some powdered sugar over it -- such a pretty cake! This is especially enjoyable with some hot Earl Grey or some cold iced tea. I think the flavor is too delicate for coffee, myself.

RECIPE: Christmas favorites from our house

Now, before I get started, let me just tell you that we are not highbrow foodies at our house; much to Susie's glee, we still sprinkle paprika on deviled eggs around here, a practice which she assures us went out with Donna Reed as she falls laughing about the kitchen. If we're feeling really fancy, we garnish them with half of a stuffed green olive.

The recipes I'm getting ready to type all come from that magical era of 1930s-1940s United States culinary magnificence that nearly drove 1950s foodie humorists Peg Bracken (The I Hate To Cook Book, A Window Over the Sink) and Betty MacDonald (The Egg and I, Onions in the Stew, the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series) to the brink of despair. But we love them. They are fattening, laden with cholesterol and unrepentantly bad for you. But if you die while eating these things, you will die with a small onion-scented burp on your smiling lips, happy and replete. If you don't like fattening, artery-clogging treats at Christmas, then go gnaw on a celery stick, Mr. Scrooge. I just don't want to hear it.

Smorgasbord Cheese Ball

2 8-oz packages cream cheese

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 4-oz tub crumbled bleu cheese

3-4 dashes bottled hot pepper sauce

3-4 dashes Worcestershire sauce

1 cup chopped pecans (toasted, if you prefer)

Soften the cream cheese and combine the next four ingredients. Shape into a ball; chill for 3-4 hours. Roll in chopped pecan pieces. Serve with crackers, celery sticks or toast soldiers. Garnish with breath mints on the side.

Sister-in-Law Angie's Cousin-by-Marriage Debbie's Beef and Onion Cheese Ball

2 8-oz packages cream cheese

3 2-ounce packages chipped beef, diced into very small pieces

6 scallions, chopped in small pieces (I usually just call them 'green onions,' but 'scallions' is just so fun to type. It has that Julia Child je ne sais quois that I simply can't resist.)

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

2-3 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Soften cream cheese; combine remaining ingredients in bowl. Shape into a ball and chill for 3-4 hours. Serve with crackers, veggies, etc. Keep those breath mints handy from the first cheeseball recipe.

Scotch Shortbread

1 cup butter, softened, and if you use margarine, I will personally come to your house and harm you. Don't think you can get away with it, either, because I. Will. Know.

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 300F. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy; add almond extract and mix to combine. Add flour gradually, mixing to form a soft dough. Roll out on a pastry sheet to a nice thickness, thick enough to make a nice, chewy cookie and not so thin that you come out with a Scotch cracker. It's Christmas; be generous. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with colored sugar, or better still, touch each cookie with a little dab of homemade frosting; we like Vanilla Buttercream or Lemon Buttercream. This is what we like to leave out for Santa. Heh.


Nanny's Christmas Breakfast Casserole

2# spicy sausage, browned and drained

12 slices bread, broken

12 eggs

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese

2 T. dried mustard

2 small onions, finely chopped

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and transfer to greased 9x13 casserole dish. Refrigerate overnight. On Christmas morning, carefully gauging the time when everyone will be done unwrapping presents and is beginning to feel hungry and maybe a little cross from being up too late and rising too early, slide into a preheated 350F oven; bake for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown on top. Serve with coffee, icy cold orange juice and maybe some cinnamon rolls or sour cream coffee cake.

Nanny says that we have had this casserole every single Christmas Day since 1982. She gets really annoyed if anyone tries to make it on any other day of the year. Somehow, perhaps in the same way that I. Will. Know. If you're using margarine on that Scotch Shortbread instead of God's true butter, she can sense that I am making it for a Saturday night treat dinner from 35 miles away.

The phone will ring. I will answer with trepidation.

"Sunshine?" she'll say in a grim, portentous voice.

"Yes, Mommy?" I say meekly.

"You're making It, aren't you?"

"I do not know what you're talking about."

"Has the calendar completely escaped me? Is this Christmas Day? Are you at my house? Did you fill out a form in triplicate and submit it to the proper department before attempting to concoct this controlled substance?"

"No, I did not. But I halved the recipe and I'm baking it in an 8x8 casserole. It isn't the same."

"It is the same thing. And I raised you better than that. No more! Understand, rubber band? Eat it and sin no more."