
We didn’t hide a plastic baby in this cake, just one whole almond. Nobody breaks a tooth that way! If you’ve never had King Cake, it is made hundreds of different ways. Ours is more like a sweet bread coffee cake (the tradition in Louisiana). There are also hundreds of variations on the filling. We prefer the lemon cream cheese filling because it tastes like a cheesecake, somehow made into a rich, soft dough. It tastes like a breakfast cream cheese Danish.
It can be rolled more like a cinnamon roll filling if you prefer the look and feel of that style of King Cake. You may add a tablespoon of cinnamon to the filling if you like it in your cake. This is a very soft, rich dough, and we recommend keeping it in the original mixing bowl for the first rise.
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 ½ cup lukewarm milk
4 cups Panhandle Milling Organic All-Purpose Flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. Red Star Instant Yeast
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp. Lemon zest* (* fine ground outer yellow skin lemon) or 2 tsp. lemon extract
16 oz. cream cheese
½ cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp. Cornstarch
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon zest
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp. almond extract
3 Tbsp. hot water
yellow, purple, and green fine sparkling sugars