Jazzy Lady King Cake... because it wasn't a jazz class

Why not give it a try? That afternoon cause me so much embarrassment and gave me such a dose of humility, so I thought I might see what all the fuss was about that "Jazzy Ladies" had to be about a king cake-making demonstration instead of a jazz class (see January 28th's post). This won't show ALL the parts of the recipe, just what I remembered to photograph. Enjoy!

First I scalded (microwaved) the milk and added the butter, sugar, salt, and beaten egg. Then came the yeast. This was the trickiest part. My friend who is a pasty chef warned me against putting the yeast in while the milk was too hot because though the milk was scalded to kill the enzymes that would hurt the yeast, the heat could kill it. SAVE THE YEAST!! Then you wait for the bubbles.

Add the flour and knead it. The recipe card said the pour all this into the bread machine and hit "dough cycle." Well guess who doesn't have a bread machine.


Next, to let the yeast rise, the recipe said to put it in an oven for 45 minutes, but my friend said I could just put a damp towel over the bowl and place the bowl on my drier while I dry a load of towels! Genius!

Then I rolled out the dough... well, once I moved half my kitchen appliances out the way and dug all over my kitchen for the cotton pickin' rolling pin, I rolled out the dough.

This was fun. I decided to do a filling of roasted pecans and brown sugar. I chopped my pecans and realized that I didn't have any brown sugar. So I got Steen's Syrup and cooked it down with the pecans... and a crazy amount of ground cinnamon. Then I slathered butter all over the rolled out dough, (Never enough butter. NEVER), poured the pecan/syrup mixture on the dough, then cut little slits on the sides of the rectangular shaped dough.


The tricky part. I took the creation and VERY VERY Carefully picked it up and placed in in a circular shaped on the baking dish. It's not fun unless you almost drop it multiple times. Then, of course, more butter and cinnamon.


Then the recipe said to let the dough rise one more time for about 45 minutes. Of course, this wouldn't be a Kate recipe if I didn't forget to do something, so I didn't do that. I just stuck it in the oven. 375, for 15 minutes. I also made the icing: powdered sugar, milk, and more almond extract than the human body should have in one sitting. I dyed some sugar and icing, and tah tuh!!!

And whose recipe is this? None other than the fabulous Brenda Nabours!! Lake charles natives know of the beautiful woman of whom I speak. I hope she would be proud.