Though I've sworn of sweets since a day or two before New Year's, Twelfth Night, or Epiphany if you prefer calls for a King's Cake, something that is easy pickings in France, Italy, Greece, Cypress, Mexico and New Orleans, where storefront bakeries line windows and shelves with all sorts of colorful interpretations of this irresistibly sticky, January treat.
Three Kings Cakes feature a tiny trinket (usually a small plastic baby representing Jesus) inside and whoever is served the slice of cake bearing the trinket is not only named King or Queen for the day, but is also responsible for rustling up the cake the following year. I guess this means that to participate in a bite, you really should know what you are letting yourself in for!
Brought to the U.S. by French colonists in the 18th Century, the most simple of the New Orleans versions of Three Kings Cake is a ring of twisted sweet bread topped with purple, green and gold icing or sugar and filled with cream cheese and praline or a simple brown sugar/cinnamon/butter affair more like a cinnamon roll.
Traditional Twelfth Night Festivities in England included a bean hidden in an early British version of Kings Cake and the first record we have of this is courtesy of none other than scribe of the ages, Samuel Pepys.
Documenting a party in London 6 January 1659, Pepys wrote: "...to my cosen Stradwick, where, after a good supper, there being there my father, mothers, brothers, and sister, my cosen Scott and his wife, Mr. Drawwater and his wife, and her brother, Mr. Stradwick, we had a brave cake brought us, and in the choosing, Pall was Queen and Mr. Stradwick was King. After that my wife and I bid adieu and came home, it being still a great frost."
Well, nothing much has changed. There's still a great frost in London this Twelfth Night, 2010. All that remains to be seen is if I will manage to muster up the enthusiasm to produce a Sonoma County version of a modern Three Kings Cake.
Post Addition: I did, and here it is, in photographic evidence. All green and purple and gold glitters.
Here's my recipe, adapted from the Boston Globe of all places.
Sonoma County Three Kings Cake
Makes 1 large ringDough
Clover Butter (for the bowl)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 envelope active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm Clover milk
1/2 cup unsalted Clover butter
2 tablespoons of baker's sugar
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups King Arthur Flour
2 free range eggs
Extra flour for sprinkling
Filling
4 large tablespoons of unsalted Clover butter
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 dry red bean (in the style of Samuel Pepys) or a little plastic baby figurine (as frequently used to convince expectant moms at baby showers that childbirth is a piece of cake) from a party shop
Frosting
Cup Confectioners Sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
2 tblsp Clover Milk
Purple, Green, Yellow food colorings
Butter a large bowl. In a separate, warmed bowl, pour water and sprinkle on yeast. Stir until dissolved. Add in milk, butter, granulated sugar, nutmeg and salt. Blend together. Add a cup of flour and blend again. Stir in eggs and remaining flour and form a soft dough. Lightly flour a sturdy surface and knead dough for five minutes or until smooth and elastic, adding a little more flour if necessary. If you have a bread machine (like the one I have stashed somewhere behind the wine barrels in the garage in an old cardboard box, you might as well dust it off and bring it back to life at least for the kneading routine).
I'm notoriously challenged when it comes to baking with yeast, just don't have the patience I suppose. Yet there's an exception to every rule and a Three Kings Cake calls for a yeast revival in the vineyard kitchen.
Transfer dough to the buttered bowl and turn dough until it has a good coating of butter. Cover with clean towel and let the dough rise in a warm spot for around an hour, or until double in size.
Punch down dough and lightly flour the work surface a second time. Roll out dough to a 30 inch by 9 inch rectangle. Brush with melted butter. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the dough. Form a jelly (Swiss) style roll by taking the longer length of the rectangle and rolling into a tube. Form a circle on a baking sheet and pinch ends together. Stick a bean somewhere on the underside but don't bake a plastic baby figurine, please, we don't want to make anyone toxic this early in the year. Plastic baby may be comfortably tucked into the underside of the baked cake. Cover and let rise for another 40 minutes or so.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake for 30 minutes and cool on a wire rack. Tuck in baby. Mix confectioners sugar, almond extract and one tablespoon of the milk into a paste. Add remaining milk. Split into three small bowls or cups. Add food coloring. Drizzle over cake. Gather clan. Light candles. Don't forget to take down the Christmas decorations by the end of Twelfth Night.
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