The King Cake disaster...

I told Boyfriend that I wanted to make him a King Cake for his birthday.  "Wonderful!" he said.  If you don't know Boyfriend's background, he's Cajun/ French-Acadia...and he's a hott one too, so the fact that I was even going to try and attempt to make the boy a King Cake for his birthday was like telling him that Heaven was going to come on Earth. (Ended up being more like Hell coming into my kitchen) 

I went to the grocery store early Saturday morning (the day of Boyfriend's birthday party.) Now, grocery shopping is not something I'm particularly fond of, and it's usually only fun if you have a crap-load of coupons (coups as I like to refer to them) so when you get to the register you can calculate all $5.19 that you saved using them & you can be proud of yourself. But this time around that wasn't the case and all I was shopping for were the ingredients for the King Cake & frozen meals for the week. Grocery shopping also sucks when you can't find what your looking for either.... I figured out that day that "lemon zest" does not come pre-packaged- what in the world am I going to do with a zester now? Ugh.

I finally get home from my excursion up and down each aisle at Tom Thumb and unload my groceries just in time to bid Roomie & our sweet friend Raven off to their own adventure for the day. (<<<--Roomie blogged about their adventure)  So there I was, all alone in the kitchen, just me and the recipe left to do business.  I think I read the recipe over about oh...a good...mmm 10 times before I began just so I could make sure I was following it step-by-step.

Some of the first steps in the recipe involved yeast.  Growing up watching my dad the Master Chef cook, I always remember how sensitive he had to be when he baked bread because it involved yeast. I knew I had to be VERY careful and I wasn't REAL sure why...but I went with it.  Serveral steps in to the recipe I was pleasantly surprised when I mixed my yeast mixture into my flour-- it looked like I was headed in the right direction....I had dough! I had to be doing something right if I had a clump of dough in my hand right?! Yeah, that's just what I thought. After letting my dough sit in my covered bowl to rise in a warm place for about 2 hours, I uncover my dough all to see that it hadn't gotten any larger. Wait, what was happening here?  I thought this thing was supposed to double and triple in size! Hmm, well maybe it did and I just don't remember it, I mean it was 2 hours ago and my memory is horrible...maybe it has grown. I moved on...

Let's pause and note (now looking back) that this was mistake #1. After calling The Master Chef (dad) he figured that my yeast was bad. Fabulous.

Now, usually King Cakes are formed in the fashion like that of a ring or circle, I've even seen some fancier ones that have been braided...."BRAIDED?!"  I thought to myself.  "I looove to braid, I can be crafty with this, I can make it work."  Side note: Never ever..EVA eva eva try to be crafty with a recipe that #1 you've never made and #2 that you have NO business being crafty with. Grande mistake-o.

So after that first rising is when I decided to be crafty and put my cream cheese filling into the dough...to be braided...oh. dear. heavens. What was I thinking? Well that thought popped into my head 2 seconds too late after I had cream cheese everywhere and my kitchen was covered in dough. Looked like a dang near bomb went off. I think this is when my frustration and discouragement kicked in.  I had failed, and now it was time for the second rising.

During my second rising is when I called Dad and told him about my issues with the bread not rising, he said that my yeast was bad & that it might possibly be "ok", but I would probably come out with a very dense King Cake. I had decided I better have a back up plan at this point, but I was going to try to salvage what I could...even if it was dense.

After the second rising I went ahead and baked my King-that-now-looks-like-a-dilapidated-pauper-cake and to no surprise...yeah it was definitely ruined. Doughy and dense and hard and horrible! Almost 4 hours of hard work for NOTHING! Having a flour bomb explode in my kitchen for NOTHING!  Every faucet, edge, handle, counter, coated with sticky (& now hardened) dough for what?...NOTHING!

Lesson was learned and my advice to you:  If you ever want to try to make a King Cake from scratch without ever having tasted one....do NOT attempt it, I repeat DO NOT even try to attempt to make it; it will only end in disaster.

The disaster...ugh painful

Web-site of the Day: My plan B after the disaster, recipe for Bread pudding with Whiskey sauce. http://www.gumbopages.com/food/dessert/bread-pud.html  It's a great recipe and instead of raisins I use pecans & instead of whiskey I use rum.