Five years ago, I had my first Fat Tuesday experience. My boss brought in Cafe du Monde beignets and chicory coffee for the office. Toward the end of the day, we both walked down to Crave and ate an order of “dirty rice balls” that the owner had reserved for us. To this day, I dream about those things! A year later a new coworker introduced me to the King Cake. Since then I’ve made it a point to try to make Fat Tuesday a workplace celebration.
This is my first year with my current employer and I planned to surprise them with a homemade King Cake, but it turned-out they bought one every year, so I came clean and told them that I wanted to make one, as well as make beignets in the morning.
The local grocery store that carried Cafe du Monde products was torn down last year and I procrastinated too long to order them online, so I had to find recipes that I could handle from scratch. These are what I chose to make.
Beignets
My approach to deciding upon recipes involves weighting the top search results against sources I trust. If I see Smitten Kitchen has a post involving a recipe, 9 out of 10 times I’ll just go with it as she’s never failed me. Otherwise, I’ll look for Food Network or Alton Brown or something like that.
Searching for a beignet recipe turned-up a Paula Deen recipe, which seemed like a good match. Unfortunately, I didn’t read the recipe close enough and it wasn’t until I began making the recipe at 5 AM the morning of Fat Tuesday that it dawned on me that a recipe calling for 7 cups of flour was going to make WAY too many beignets for the 10 people I work with. But it was too late to turn back.
They turned-out great, but I wonder if they were a bit chewy because I had to knead them quite a bit by hand due to the fact that my mixer bowl wasn’t large enough to hold it. I made them six at a time in a small deep fryer a coworker brought-in. I was about 1/4 of the way through the batch when they tapped-out, so I decided to freeze half of the recipe and decide what to do with that at a later date.
[flickr id=”72157680935542725″ title=”Beignets” image=”https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/717/33071395701_b9bf482286_b.jpg”]
Gumbo
Just decided to go with a Paula Deen recipe here as well. The prospect of making a roux has scared me in the past, but I had to make one for a fancy gravy this past Thanksgiving with my mom, so I was good with this. I seasoned the chicken breasts a little too heavily, so I cut back on the bouillon cubes in the recipe. And I omitted the shrimp altogether because I don’t buy farm-raised seafood. If the recipe was lacking, I missed it. Nobody else seemed to mind, either, as there was a single bowl left after lunch.
[flickr id=”72157677490883713″ title=”Gumbo” image=”https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2928/32384075683_ae3d279a39_b.jpg”]
King Cake
A former coworker was known for making an absolutely MASSIVE King Cake at my last job. They were monstrous, braided cakes the size of a sheet pan, filled with a variety of nuts and raisins, covered thickly with icing. This is what I’d planned to make and I even got the recipe from her. Fortunately, the recipe didn’t offer specific measurements, which scared me off, so I went with a recipe from the New York Times.
To be honest, I can’t remember why I went with this particular recipe. At one point, I bailed on it because it looked like it was too small of a recipe, but the pictures included with so many other recipes were so horrendous, I came back to this one. For real, there are some ugly King Cakes out there.
I got off work early after a dentist appointment so I could get a head start on the cake. I’m always worried about proofing bread in cold weather and wanted to give myself enough time. I got the bread proofing and then made the gumbo. By the time the gumbo was done, I was able to finish the baking of the cake and loved how it turned-out.
On the morning of Fat Tuesday, I put together the beignet recipe and set it to proof. Then I got to decorating the King Cake. First, I flipped the cake over and cut a little hatch in the bottom for the plastic baby. Then it was time for the icing. Now, the icing for this recipe called for 2 cups of confectioners sugar, 1/4 cup of condensed milk and a 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice. This is when I started to sweat and become concerned. There’s no way in HELL that produces an icing. It was all crumbles! So, I proceeded to add more milk and lemon juice in the same proportions until it came together. Then I struggled getting it into a piping bag, icing all over the place, getting madder and madder. Finally, I managed to get the cake covered with nothing to spare and then threw on the sugar.
At this point, I wasn’t impressed and was actually a little upset. However, once I got it to work and decorated it with the beads and the sun came out, I was happier with it. My coworkers said it was nicer than any cake they’d bought in years previous, so that made me happy. It tasted okay, but I thought it was a bit dry.
[flickr id=”72157679049139811″ title=”King Cake 2017″ image=”https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2854/32354475864_5d06612150_b.jpg”]
Conclusion
I was exhausted by 9 AM in the morning and a complete zombie by the end of the day. I didn’t even unpack when I got home, just unloaded and collapsed. It’s worth it, though. I’m not sure if my coworkers believe that it’s my pleasure to cook for them. My kitchen is where I have the most fun nowadays. If I didn’t have people to cook for, I probably wouldn’t spend a lot of time in there.
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