New Orleans King Cake-American Cake

It is a very pretty cake. Very much delightful for breakfast. 

This is cake 3 from American Cake. It's a yeasted cake rolled around cinnamon, sugar and butter. There's a surprising half teaspoon of nutmeg in the dough, the icing has almond extract. These two flavors set it apart from a giant circular cinnamon roll. The outside texture of the cake does too in that it's dryer than you'd expect. Having baked yeasted pastry plenty of times, I anticipated to be directed to brush the roll with beaten egg or melted butter before baking. Having double checked the book that step wasn't called for.

She's a pretty little beast for sure. However, so far MBW Gingerbread aka Cake 2 has been  the stand out winner of the first 3 cakes.

Cake Recipe
.25 cup warm water
1 packet or 2.25 teaspoons yeast
.25 cup warm whole milk
.5 cup butter at room temperature
2 tablespoons sugar
.5 teaspoon nutmeg
.5 teaspoon salt
3 cups bread flour
2 large eggs

filling:
6 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

icing:
1.5 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
.25 teaspoon almond extract

In a large bowl combine water with yeast. Let foam. Add milk, sugar, nutmeg, salt and stir until the granules are few. Add milk and 1 cup of flour. Mix. Add the 2 eggs and blend it into the dough. Add the remaining 2 cups of flour.

Turn out on to counter and need for 5 minutes. Rest in a lightly greased bowl. When doubled knock out the air and roll it the dough 26x12 inches. Combine the sugar and cinnamon together. Brush with butter and sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon. Starting on the long 26 inch side of the rectangle roll evenly. Transfer to a parchment covered sheet and form into a circle. You can cut it into slices like I did, but leaving it whole seems more typical. Also, I lost some filling through the slits. So I won't do that again.

Allow it rise 1 hour or until it looks soft enough. Bake 30 minutes. Allow to cool slightly then cover with icing. If you want to be even more current spring the icing with purple, green and gold icing sugar and throw some beads on it and shove a toy baby or whole nut inside.

Nice Spirals!