King Cake!!

Happy Mardi Gras! This holiday is very near and dear to my heart. It's one of the only days that miss living in Louisiana! I think it takes moving away from your home town to really appreciate it. One thing I love about Louisiana is that it is so culturally rich. So much history, hospitality, and most of all- the best food on the planet! I love Texas and I absolutely love living in Austin. But there's no place like home : -).

Today, just for fun, I read my kindergarteners a story about Mardi Gras and let them wear purple, green, and gold beads all day. At the end of the day I played some traditional Mardi Gras music for them to dance to-- and they LOVED it! One girl said, "I wish I lived there so I could do this every day!" With a room full of five year olds, there's never a dull moment!

Mardi Gras is a celebration that happens on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. It's become a day where people indulge themselves before the Lenten season. One of the traditional foods for this time of year is King Cake. I found a somewhat simple recipe for King Cake, so I decided to bring a little bit of Louisiana to Austin and have my own little celebration.

For my first attempt, I think it came out great! It did not look as great as the ones that you buy from a bakery, but it tasted very similar. Next time I will add more cream cheese to the filling to make it even better.

Ingredients:
- 2 cans of original crescent rolls (you will need about 12 triangles)
- 1/4 cup of cream cheese
- 2 tablespoons of milk
- purple, green, and yellow food coloring
- 1/3 cup of brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon of melted butter

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Unroll the dough and separate the triangles. Place each triangle side by side with top points (the narrow side) touching in the center, to make a circle. Press the seams of the wide side of the triangles together.
3. In a bowl, mix together the cream cheese and 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar. Spread this all around on the crescent triangles.
4. In another bowl, mix together the brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon and pour on top of the cream cheese.
5. Now it's time to roll up the triangles to make a circular cake. Start with the narrow side (the points that are in the middle of the pan). Fold point over to reach the wide side. Then roll over once more. Do this all the way around the pan until you have a circular looking cake.
6. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
7. While the cake is cooling, make combine the powdered sugar and milk to make the icing. You might need to add a little more milk until desired consistency is reached.
8. Separate the icing into 3 separate bowls and use food coloring to make purple, green, and gold icing. When cake has cooled, drizzle each color icing on the cake with a spoon.
9. Voila!

  Get Cookin'!