Every year for the past four-ish years, I've made and brought a king cake to work to share with my coworkers. Because I've still got half full bottles of sanding sugar in purple, green, and yellow, I figured the tradition should continue... except after a spin class Monday evening I wasn't feeling the extra steps involved in the yeasty-breadiness of a traditional king cake.
At first I was going to go super semi-homemade and knock back a bottle of vodka with Sandra Lee put refrigerated cinnamon roll dough in a bundt pan, but it just didn't feel like my style of baking. So I kept the bundt pan in the equation but decided to use my Peepaw's favorite pound cake recipe and add my own king cake twist.
Good ole Betty Crocker's pound cake recipe is absolutely beautiful. It's simple, contains ingredients anyone has on hand at any time, and takes no time to assemble. It does take over an hour to bake though, but passive baking time beats active baking time when it's late in the evening.
The king cake twist is the addition of two tablespoons of ground cinnamon to the batter to simulate the cinnamony goodness in a real king cake. And let me tell you, it smelled amazing while baking. Like a gigantic cinnamon roll. MMM. You're going to hate not being able to eat this while it's warm.
Bundt King Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 ½ cups sugar
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 large eggs
- 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 cup milk
Icing
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 to 4 tbsp hot water
Topping
- purple, green, and yellow sanding sugar
Instructions
Cake
- Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom, side and tube of 12-cup fluted tube cake pan with shortening; lightly flour.
- In medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt; set aside. In large bowl, beat granulated sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed 5 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat flour mixture into sugar mixture alternately with milk on low speed, beating just until smooth after each addition. Pour into pan.
- Bake 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours.
Icing
- Heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat until melted.
- Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla.
- Stir in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until smooth and the consistency of thick syrup. Pour over the completely cooled cake.
- Immediately decorate with sanding sugar, alternating between the green, yellow, and purple sanding sugars.
After the hour plus ride in the oven, it was almost 10 p.m. and I was starting to get tired and was looking for a way to cool it off so I could glaze it before going to bed. Waking up early and glazing it before work of course, was always an option too except not a feasible one. I am the worst about getting out of bed, especially now that I have a dog that sleeps with me every night. The cold night air gave me an idea... and that led to this cake chilling outside in the 37 degree temps for about ten minutes. Hooray for winter, for once!
I like to think of this pound cake as a way to still enjoy a cake on Mardi Gras without contributing too much to creeping pan-Southernism as Southern food historian Robert Moss discussed in the Charleston City Paper... even if it is still in the lurid hues of a cathouse. I mean, how else am I going to use up those colored sanding sugars?
