Miniature King's Cakes

I’ve been wanting to make a king’s cake for years now, but the traditional recipes are more elaborate than I have the time for during the week. This year for Fat Tuesday I finally decided to give the Mardi Gras staple a try. I cut the cook time down by using Pillsbury French bread dough as a base. The glaze added a nice level of moisture and flavor to this festive cake. These semi-homemade miniature king's cakes turned out delicious and were so easy to make!

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 tube Pillsbury french bread dough
• 2T butter, melted
• 3T sugar
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t nutmeg
• 1t lemon zest
• pinch salt
• food coloring

Glaze Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1t rum extract 
• 1/4 t vanilla extract
• 3t milk

Directions: 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and spray oil on top to keep the dough from sticking. 
• Open the french bread dough and separate the loaf into 3 equal parts. Place each ball of dough into separate bowls and add food coloring to each and work the food coloring into each until well mixed. Note: You want to end up with green, yellow and purple dough so follow the coloring directions on the back of your food coloring box for best color results. 
• Separate each dough ball into five smaller balls. On a flowered surface roll each of the small dough balls into 3 inch strips.
• One the cookie sheet lay one strip of green out the top with a strip of yellow and purple creating an asterisk symbol with the dough. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Then brush the top of each with melted butter.                                                                                                                                                                                       

• Mix together the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon zest and salt. Scoop about 1 teaspoon of the mixture into each and reserve any excess to sprinkle on top of the cakes before baking. Fold in the sides of the dough. Be sure to add your baby figurine into one of the cakes. Note: If you don't have a figurine you can add in dried bean or even a piece of dried fruit.
• Bake the cakes for 20-25 minutes. Then remove from the oven and cool. 
• While the cakes are baking mix together the glaze ingredients until smooth. Once the cakes have cooled drizzle with glaze and sprinkle with colored sugar.
• Let the glaze set for about 20 minutes before serving then enjoy! Happy Fat Tuesday!