WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: Bananas Foster Mardi Gras King Cake

Bananas Foster Mardi Gras King Cake

Bananas Foster Mardi Gras King Cake

by Chef Gary Platt

Bananas Foster Filling Ingredients

• 4 to 5 bananas, peeled & sliced diagonally
• 1 to 1.5 sticks butter
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 8-oz. package of creem cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup dark rum

Melt butter in a saute pan. Add brown sugar. Stir mixture until it makes a syurp. Add bananas and baste with syurp until bananas become moist. Remove saute pan from burner. Add the rum. Place pan back on the burner. Ignite pan with a match. Shake pan back and forth until the flame dies. Fold in the cream cheese to the mixture. Set aside.

Briouche Dough Ingredients

• 1/2 cup lukewarm water
• 2 packages dry yeast
• 4.5 - 5.5 cups sifted flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 1/2 cup lukewarm milk
• 3 eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsalted sweet butter, softened
• 1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 miniature doll
• Sugars Ingredients:
• Green, purple, and yellow food coloring pastes
• 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Icing Ingredients:

• 3 cups confectioners sugar
• 1/4 cup strained fresh lemon juice
• 3-6 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 350*

Dough Preparation:

In an electric mixer, fitted with a dough hook, combine the water and yeast. Let it rest for 10 minutes until it gets frothy or bubbles on top. Sit together flour, sugar, nutmeg, and salt. Add lemon zest and 1/2 cup lukewarm milk to yeast mixture and combine. Add eggs and egg yolks to the yeast mixture one at a time until liquid ingredients are completely combined. Add dry ingredients a little at a time. Mix until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. Remove dough from mixer. Form into ball on floured surface. Place dough into bowl. Rub vegetable oil all over ball of dough and onto sides of bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise until double in size. Punch down dough on a lightly floured surfae. Roll out dough into a five inch by fourteen inch strip. In the center of the dough add your filling, folding the dough over and pinching the sides to seal. Bring the two ends together to form a circle. Insert miniature doll into cake so that it is hidden. Place cake on a lightly buttered baking pan. Brush top and side of cake with the egg and milk mixture. Place in the 350* oven and bake twenty-five to thirty minutes, or until golden brown. Slide cake onto a wire rack to cool.

Sugar Preparation:

Squeeze a dab of green past in the palm of one hand. Sprinkle two tablespoons of sugar over the paste and rub your hands together to color the sugar evenly. Set aside and repeat process with green and two tablespoons of sugar. Repeat this process for purple or yellow. Do not mix sugars. Do not use liquid food coloring because it will make the sugar dissolve.

Icing Preparation:

Combine the confectioner's sugar, lemon juice, and three tablespoons of water in a deep bowl and stir until smooth. If too stiff to spread, add in one teaspoonful of water at a time until icing mixture reaches desired consistency. After cake has cooled, spread icing mixture over top of cake. Allow it to run down the sides. Immediately sprinkle the colored sugars over the icing in two-inch wide strips of purple, yellow, and green.