{heureux de mardi gras}

Happy Mardi Gras, fellow bloggers!

I've been missing all the fun and action while here in Denver. Not to fret, however, as I make do. Today, rather at the ass crack of dawn, I made a King Cake for my co-workers. Lemme tell ya, it was bon apetit!
I'll let you in on my little secret as well... I cheat majorly with my King cake! I have a recipe for a homemade cake. It's 4 pages though!!! Do you know how intimidating that is?! Anyway, so I cheat. Here's my recipe...

2 cans of crescent rolls
a sugar/cinnamon mix (I've used white or dark brown)
melted butter

The website with the actual recipe I use is Real Cajun Recipes. It's ridiculously simple to make. There are other recipes that use crescent rolls also but none quite this simple. One note that the recipe does not tell you... How thick you roll your crescent roll "jelly roll style" is dependent on how thick you want your cake. I roll up, width-wise so that the cake is a thinner and longer for one cake and, for the cake below, I rolled sideways, length-wise so the cake is thicker but shorter. It fit into a pie baking dish this way. Make sense? Eh, you'll figure it out. ;)

I've also never used the sugar recipe on the Cajun recipe website. I always use...

2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbls lemon juice
2 tbls water

The leomony-tasting icing makes a great contrast to the sweet cake.
After the cake cools *this is important if you want to have that white glazed icing look*, drizzle the icing over the cake. I just pour it all over it. ;)

You'll also need purple, yellow, and green sugar crystals. You can make your own according to the recipe above, or be convenient like myself, and buy them pre-colored.

Alternate the colors on the icing and, voila!

I then added a plastic baby and decorated it with beads I bought at Party City (none of which are pictured... I forgot! and didn't think of it). You see how my icing just melted right off the hot cake? That's because I was in a hurry and didn't let the cake cool enough.

I also warned everyone there was a plastic baby inside and to not choke on it. You do not have to include the baby; it's just generally tradition.

Anyway, so that is my King Cake. It was a hit, everyone loved it that tried it. Even if they didn't love it, I loved it and had 3 small slices of it!!!