Mardi Gras - King Cake Cupcakes

It's time to wrap up Mardi Gras week with a super simple and amazingly delicious recipe. King Cake Cupcakes! Our grocery stores have been stocked with king cakes for weeks now and I am always browsing to see which one has the most sprinkles. I've eaten my share of two king cakes so far this year and have resisted the temptation for many more on numerous trips to the grocery. The King Cake is my absolute favorite part about Mardi Gras! They come filled with all sorts of flavors and fruits, but my favorite is the cinnamon filling. So when I was flipping through the Jan/Feb issue of my Cooking with Paula Deen magazine and came across these King Cake Cupcakes this was quickly moved to the top of my baking list for February!

I have made a king cake from scratch before although it's been a few years, which I'm sure you can tell from the photo quality. But when you are given the opportunity to take a few shortcuts and come out with equally impressive results by using crescent rolls, well that's the path I chose to take this year! Thanks Paula for the fabulous idea!

So grab 3 tubes of Crescent Rolls and all the yummy stuff for your filling...cinnamon, brown sugar and pecans.

Unroll 1 tube of crescent rolls at a time and form them into 4 rectangles.

Spread your filling down the center of each rectangle, leaving a small border around the edges.

Sugar and nuts...

Fold the top of the rectangle towards the center, then fold the bottom of the rectangle towards the center.

Fold the left side to the middle. Fold the right side on top of the left side.

Place the dough, spiral side up into cupcake liner and bake.

Prepare vanilla glaze and grab the sprinkles. It's time to decorate!

King Cake Cupcakes (recipe adapted from Paula Deen)
(makes 12)

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 (8 oz) cans refrigerated crescent rolls
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 Tbsp milk
green, purple & yellow sprinkles

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. In small bowl, combine brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans.
3. On lightly floured surface, unroll each can of crescent rolls and separate each into 4 rectangles. Press perforations to seal.
4. Sprinkle about 2 Tbsp brown sugar mixture down center of each rectangle. leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edges.
5. Working with 1 rectangle at a time fold the top of the dough towards the center, then fold the bottom of the dough toward the center and overlap.
6. Fold the left side of the dough in to the middle. Fold the right side on top of the left side.
7. Place dough spiral side up into prepared muffin pan.
8. Repeat procedure with remaining rectangles.
9. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until brown.
10. In a small bowl, whisk confectioners' sugar, and milk until smooth. Drizzle over warm cakes while in pan.
11. Sprinkle with green, purple & yellow sugars.

You really need to give this recipe a try! You will wow all your friends with how amazing these mini king cakes look and taste! I think I'm going to have to keep crescent rolls on hand at all times just in case I need a King Cake fix throughout the year!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras - Mask Cookies

I'm back again with another fun way to celebrate Mardi Gras...mask cookies! You may remember I made some mask cookies a few years ago. Back then I didn't have a mask cookie cutter so I found clip art online and hand traced all my cookies...boy was that a lot of work! This year since I'm planning Sam's 1st birthday and mustaches & ties are the theme I just so happen to have a mask cookie cutter because, well the mustache flipped around makes a mask! It's two for one, gotta love that!

So whip up a batch of masks using your favorite sugar cookie & royal icing recipes. This is my go to recipe! Tint your royal icing green, yellow and purple.

Then pipe the outline of the masks and the shapes of the eyes.

Then grab some sprinkles and get ready to decorate!

Flood your cookies. I always work in groups of 6 cookies at a time when flooding. So after you flood 6 stop and add the sprinkles! Then flood 6 more, sprinkle, and repeat until your are done with all your cookies.

Time for sprinkles, give a generous coating! This is one of my favorite and quickest ways to decorate cookies. You can hide any flaws from your flooding and you don't have to wait for the flooding to dry before you pipe on decorations! And as an extra bonus I love the crunch you get when you bite into a sprinkle covered cookie!

Tip: Allow your flooded & sprinkled cookies to dry for several hours. Then tip the cookie sideways and allow the extra sprinkles to fall off. Any sprinkles that get stuck inside the mask eye holes you can easily remove by gently scraping a toothpick in between.

Look at how they sparkle! I packaged these up this weekend and delivered to some of our friends with kids! They absolutely went crazy over them! I've got one more Mardi Gras recipe coming up on Friday! I've saved the best and yummiest for last so you won't want to miss it! Any guesses what it could be?

Mardi Gras - Push-Up Pops

Mardi Gras is in full swing here in Mobile. Everywhere you look you see purple, green and yellow. Every weekend there are parades all day long with stuffed animals, cups, moon pies and beads a flying! This week I thought it would be fun to share a few easy and festive Mardi Gras treats with you all!

The first up is the Push-Up Pops. You may have seen or even own this book written by Courtney Whitmore of the popular entertaining blog Pizzazzerie. Unfortunately I do not have this book, but I have thumbed through it a time or two while at Michael's. This book is super cute with lots of fun ideas and recipes for making Push-Up Pops. It's also on Amazon's top 100 list...pretty amazing!

I bought my push-up pop containers from Cake Art Party Store back in the fall but they are also available online. So this weekend I figured it was about time to bring out the pops and see what I could come up with! I decided a trio of green, purple and yellow was appropriate for Mardi Gras. So I whipped up a 3 layer white box cake mix and tinted each layer green, purple and yellow. Once the cakes were cool I took the push-up pop container and cut circles into each layer.

Vibrant circles of cake ready to assemble.

Once all cake circles were cut out, I placed the green cake in the bottom of the push-up pop first. Then the yellow cake and then purple until the pop was full.

Such a cute, fun and quick idea!

Swirl with a dollop of buttercream icing and add a few sprinkles!

It's the perfect Mardi  Gras treat! I shared a few with our neighbors and they loved them!

Check back soon, I've got 2 more Mardi Gras ideas you don't want to miss!

Mardi Gras "King Cake Inspired" Layer Cake

Mardi Gras has been in full swing here in Mobile for the past few weeks now! I have been to parades, caught strands of beads, nibbled on Moon Pies and even gone to a Mardi Gras Ball. So what better way to add to this celebration than with a "King Cake Inspired" layer cake! I can't believe the carnival season is almost over and I have only eaten one king cake so far this year. In years past it wasn't unlikely for me to devour an entire cake myself in only a few days and run right back out and buy another one. They are just that amazing!

King Cakes are truly one of my favorite indulgences during the year! Last year I even made one from scratch. There is nothing quite like a piece of flaky king cake with a cinnamon and pecan filling covered in an icing glaze and garnished with tri-colored purple, green and gold sprinkles.

A traditional king cake has a cinnamon center, but they also come in a variety of other flavor combinations including apple, strawberry, raspberry, pecan and cream cheese fillings. My all time favorite is the cinnamon pecan. It almost reminds me of a cinnamon roll or a piece of coffee cake! So this weekend as I was happily eating my king cake, the idea popped into my head to create a king cake inspired layer cake. Taking a standard from scratch yellow cake mix I incorporated my favorite cinnamon and pecan flavor into the batter. I created a cinnamon cream cheese filling for inbetween the layers and then frosted the outside with a vanilla buttercream. I am thrilled with how all the components of the cake came together to create a very moist, flavorful and cinnamony (is this a word?) cake! If you like king cakes, you have got to try this recipe!

Mardi Gras "King Cake Inspired" Layer Cake

makes a 3-layer 8-inch round cake

Cake:
-2 cups sugar
-2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
-1 1/2 cups cake flour
-1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
-2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 cup milk
-4 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Mixture:
-1/4 cup brown sugar
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 cup chopped pecans

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling:
-8 oz cream cheese, softened
-2 cups confectioners' sugar
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 cup milk

Vanilla Buttercream:
-2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
-5 cups confectioners' sugar
-1/4 cup milk
-1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 3 8-inch round cake pans with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.
2.In bowl combine all dry ingredients: cake flour, all purpose flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
3.In large bowl of electric mixer beat butter and sugar until combined.
4.Add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.
5.Gradually add flour mixture and milk alternating between dry and wet ingredients and scraping down blow in between additions.
6.Mix brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans into a small bowl for Brown Sugar Cinnamon mixture. Fold in mixture to cake batter.
7.Pour batter into prepared cake pans. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until cakes test done. Allow cakes to cool for 10 minutes in pans. Remove cakes from pans and place on wire racks to cool completely.
8.For the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling, combine cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, cinnamon and milk in bowl and beat with mixer until smooth and creamy. Once cake is cool, assemble the cake and spread the mixture inbetween the layers.
9.For the Vanilla Buttercream, beat butter with electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add in confectioners' sugar and milk and continue to mix well. Mix in vanilla. Reserve 1 cup icing to tint desired colors for decorating. Using remaining white icing cover the outside of the cake using an offset spatula.
10.To pipe vertical stripes on the cake use piping bags and small round tips (#3, 5 or 7). Fill bags with desired icing colors and pipe vertical stripes up the sides of the cake starting at the bottom and going to the top edge. Once all vertical stripes have been piped, using the same tip, go around the bottom and top edge of the cake piping round balls to form a strand of beads around the cake.

I hope you will try this King Cake inspired Mardi Gras Cake! You can't go wrong with the cinnamon and cream cheese hidden between each layer!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras Mask Cookies

Mardi Gras is fast approaching here in Mobile. Only a few weeks left until the first parade hits the town and the crowd goes wild for beads and moon pies being thrown from the elaborately decorated floats. It is truly a month long celebration of weekend parades, fancy costumes and Mardi Gras balls.

To kick off the Mardi Gras season I helped a friend host a mask making party for her Mardi Gras organization, the Butterfly Maidens. Each year all the different groups have a theme and they decorate their floats and make costumes to match.

Here are a few sample masks I made to go with this years theme of black & gold. The black masks were found at our local Mardi Gras shop, Toomeys. Talk about a million types of beads, I have never seen so many different colors, sizes and bead themes in my life.

The gold trim, sequins, jewels, feathers and butterflies were found from the local craft stores.

It was only right for me to make some mask cookies to take to the mask decorating party, right? Since I didn't have a mask cookie cutter I made my own. I found a mask clip art image online and scaled it up to the size I wanted. I printed the shape and cut it out to use as my template. After rolling out my cookie dough I placed the template on top of the dough and using a sharp knife I traced around the shape to create the mask. Yes, this method is a little more time consuming than using a cookie cutter, but it was totally worth it.

I love how the cookies turned out! It was fun to decorate them all differently using purple, green and yellow royal icing and sprinkles.




Everyone at the party loved the cookies! Once the first parade rolls around in February I'm definitely going to have to make another batch, or two or ten!

To learn more about Mobile Mardi Gras click here.

I used this sugar cookie recipe.