Cream Biscuits

5 ingredients. 4 biscuits. 3 minutes. 2 hands. 1 easy bleeping recipe.

You don't have to be fussy with the temperature of your butter. You don't have to worry about over handing your dough. You don't need a rolling pin. You don't need any patience at all.

All you need is a handful of ingredients and a biscuit cutter. You also need to be comfortable with adding more or less cream than the exact amount given, because taking into account the humidity of the day, the type of flour you've bought, and how you measured it, you may need a (slightly) different cuppage. Also, this recipe is seriously adaptable. Add cheese, herbs, whatever you're craving.

The good people of America's Test Kitchen are GENIUSES, I tell you. Why don't you subscribe to CooksIllustrated.com (or better yet, the magazine) yet? They never let you down. Seriously.

Cream Biscuits

adapted from ATK; makes 4-5 biscuits; ready in 20 minutes or less

1 cup flour

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 425º. Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt (and any add-ins) in a medium bowl. Add 1/2 cup of the heavy cream and stir, adding more until you achieve a cohesive dough.
2. Turn out onto a lightly-floured countertop and knead until smooth, about 30 seconds. Press into a circle (about 6-inches in diameter) and cut out with a biscuit cutter (or other sharp-sided utensil). You can recombine, press, and cut out more biscuits if your dough allows, but try not to do this too many times.
3. Throw in the oven and bake until tops and bottoms are golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Serve warm.

Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls: 2 Ways

Cinnamon Rolls and I have a complicated relationship.

There was once a time when I believed their origins to be exclusively bound up with a puffy white spokes-thing emblazoned on a blue can, a blue can that you had to press (in great fear and anxiety) with the back of a spoon to get to pop open. Oh, the delicious Sunday mornings that can and I shared together.

Then I learned cinnamon rolls could be got in other ways, namely at restaurant drive-thrus before the clock struck a bitter 10:30 a.m. Equally sweet. Equally tooth-decaying. Equally delicious.

About 5 years ago, Southern Living told me you could buy a bag of frozen biscuits, thaw them out, pat them together, cover them in cinnamon sugar, and achieve a "homemade" result (long before Sandra Lee earned television time to teach me similar stultifying tricks). I felt empowered. I felt confused. Is this what cinnamon rolls are supposed to be?

Then somewhere along the line, I stumbled into scratch baking, which meant I had no one but a recipe writer to help me achieve can- or drive-thru-transcendence. It was then that I discovered the true essence of the cinnamon roll: the soft, bready roll, the gooey brown sugar center, the cream cheese blessing to be showered over top.

This was also about the time that I discovered 27-year-olds cannot get away with eating the things 17-year-olds do. And though I often crave (and I mean reeeally crave) the gooey goodness of a cinnamon roll first thing on a lazy weekend morning, I just can't bring myself to eat that for breakfast anymore. But dessert? That's another story.

So cinnamon rolls it is! Four of them, to be exact, adapted from ... well ... from an unidentified recipe that has been in my cookbook for several years now. Because the pumpkin train keeps rolling these days, I also did an alternate version of these rolls using the orangey goodness. Both are divine.

Part 1: Plain Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls

makes 4 rolls; can be ready in about 30 minutes

Filling:

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp white sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt

dash nutmeg

1/2 Tbsp melted butter

Dough:

1 1/4 cup flour

1 Tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

3 Tbsp melted butter

Icing:

1 Tbsp cream cheese, softened

1 Tbsp buttermilk

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 425º. Combine filling ingredients in a small bowl and stir together until mixture resembles wet sand. Set aside.
2. For dough, whisk together dry ingredients in medium bowl. Add buttermilk and butter, and stir until you get a shaggy dough. Turn out onto a well-floured surface and knead a time or two. Pat into a 6 x 9 inch rectangle, then sprinkle all of filling evenly over top. Roll from one 6-inch side to the other, pinching dough shut when rolling is complete. Cut into 4 rolls.
3. Transfer rolls, pinwheel side up, to a small, greased pan (a 5 x 5 size was perfect for me), and smush them down just a little, until they touch. (NOTE: If you have a choice between a pan that is too small and one that is too big, air on the large side. You want these rolls to spread out, not up.) Bake in preheated oven for 20-23 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, combine icing ingredients, whisking until smooth. Spoon over top and serve warm!

Part 2: Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (alterations marked in bold)

Filling:

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp white sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt

dash nutmeg

1/2 Tbsp melted butter

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Dough:

1 1/4 cup flour

2 Tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

dash nutmeg

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup buttermilk

3 Tbsp melted butter

Icing:

1 Tbsp cream cheese, softened

1 Tbsp buttermilk

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

• Follow instructions for Buttermilk Cinnamon rolls, whisking spices into dry ingredients for dough and adding pumpkin with the buttermilk and butter (you could even decrease the butter if you wanted, since the pumpkin will provide plenty of moisture). Everything else is the same.

Apple Jacks

Apple flapjacks, of course. Back in the days (last week) when I was feeling all homestead-y, I had a show down at the farmer's market with a certain 10-lb. bag of apples. Apparently it prevailed because that bag has been plopped in one of the chairs at my kitchen table, just high enough to peek over the surface and taunt me with its perishability.

Thankfully apples are hearty and, I recently learned, in a plastic bag with a few slits cut in it, will last for weeks in the back of your refrigerator. Hopefully the pioneer spirit will return to me soon and I will engage in some apple saucing or butter-ing, but until then, don't be surprised if those little beauties start showing up with great frequency around these parts.

Here's a perfect apple pancake for a crisp fall morning. Maybe you know or maybe you don't, some secrets to making pancakes: (1) Do not over beat the batter. You want to mix the wet ingredients together as well as the dry, then combine the two just until the dry stuff is moistened. Small pockets of flour are a-ok. This is one of the secrets to fluffiness. (2) Let the batter rest 10 or so minutes. Ever wonder why the first batch of 'cakes is always a throw away and the last ones are perfect? Partly it's you figuring out how hot your pan is, but its also the batter itself. If you give it 10-15 minutes to rest, you'll get more of the perfect kind and less of the give-that-one-to-dad-he'll-eat-anything kind.

Apple Pancakes

serves 2; takes about 20 minutes, including rest

1 egg

3/4 cup buttermilk (or just plain milk is ok)

2/3 cup white flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour (or just 1 c white)

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 large apple, cored, quartered and grated (leave the skin on--more fiber!)

1. Whisk egg and buttermilk in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, combine flours, sugar, soda, and cinnamon. Pour dry into wet and using a spatula, mix the two until flours are distributed but NOT fully incorporated--lots of white streaks. Add the apple and continue to stir until evenly distributed. Don't overdo it! Let batter sit 10-15 minutes
2. With 5 min to go in your wait time, set your preferred pancaking-pan over medium heat and allow to heat up gently.
3. When your pan is ready, scoop out batter in about 1/4 cup amounts. Use a spatula to flatten into thin circles. Because of the apples, these won't cook as easily or quickly as regular pancakes, so you don't want them to be too thick. Wait for bubbles to appear on surface and flip. You've made pancakes before, you can take it from here.
4. Serve with real maple syrup or, if you're me, peanut butter!

Beer Cheese Bread

This one comes from a recipe I have long loved from Cook's Country. Who doesn't love beer, and also cheese, and also bread? This yeasty, gooey, crunchy miracle muffin is perfect alongside any bowl of soup.

The recipe calls for gruyere--which I have done and loved--but I only had extra sharp cheddar--which turned out quite fine. A piece of bacon crumbled into the batter probably wouldn't have hurt either.

Be sure to choose a mild beer, like Bud, for this recipe. If you get much more assertive than that, your bread may turn out bitter.

Beer Cheese Muffins

makes 3-4 muffins, depending on size; start-to-finish about 30 minutes

2 oz. gruyere or extra sharp cheddar cheese; 4 oz grated (about 1/4 cup) and 4 oz cubed (about 1-inch cube, cut into 16 smaller pieces)

1/2 cup white flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 Tbsp honey

1 tsp baking powder

healthy pinch each of salt and cracked black pepper

1/2 cup light-bodied beer

1 Tbsp melted butter

• Preheat oven to 375º. Mix cheese, flours, honey, baking powder and spices in a bowl. Add beer and stir to combine. Divide between 3-4 well greased baking cups (don't use muffin papers like I did, big mistake) and drizzle melted butter over top of each. Bake 15-18 minutes, or until tester comes out clean.

Buckwheat Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup

What do you know about buckwheat? Well, for starters, are you aware that it's not even wheat?

Buckwheat is a plant grown mostly for its kernels (like cereal grains, plants of the grass family whose seeds are used as food grains, named for the Roman corn goddess, Ceres; think wheat, rice, barley, oats, ryel, maize, millet, etc.) and is an entirely separate entity from wheat. In fact, buckwheat is not a grass at all; the kernel that we eat is really a fruit seed. Because of the similar ways in which it is cooked, though, we tend to mentally lump it along with other cereal grains. Its name comes from the Dutch, bockweit, meaning "beechwheat," apparently earned from its seeds' resemblance to beech nuts. But I digress.

As a member of the Clique of Whole Grains, buckwheat shares all the fiber-soaring, heart-healthy, potentially cancer-fighting characteristics of that bunch. It also has some lipid lowering effects that have been shown to help prevent high blood pressure and cholesterol levels. So swap these pancakes out for your regular recipe every now and then. I admit, whole grains can be an acquired taste sometimes, but just think about all those years you're tacking on to the end of your life! And then pour on the blueberry syrup.

Buckwheat has no gluten, so it must be combined with higher protein flours to get the lift you want in most baked goods. According to those geniuses at King Arthur, you can sub up to one-third of the flour in a bread recipe with buckwheat if you so choose. (Buckwheat flour in sweeter creations was not recommended--stick to pancakes, biscuits, and other breads.)

Buckwheat Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup

serves 2; total time about 10 minutes; adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bakin soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 beaten egg (scramble up the rest to go with your b'fast)

1 Tbsp molasses

1 cup buttermilk (OR a mixture of yogurt + milk OR orange juice + milk)

1/2 Tbsp veg oil

1. Stir together flours, powder, soda and salt. Make a well in the middle.
2. Whisk together egg and molasses, then add buttermilk and oil. Dump wet ingredients into dry well, then stir just until dry ingredients are good and moist (do not over mix!).
3. On a preheated skilled (preferably cast iron), scoop out 1/3-cup amounts of batter and cook 2-3 minutes, or until you start to see bubbles. Flip and cook 2-3 minutes more. Serve warm with blueberry syrup, if you like.

Blueberry Syrup

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1 Tbsp sugar

• In a small saucepan, stir together blueberries and sugar over medium heat. After a few minutes (a bit longer if they are frozen), berries will start to break down and release their juices. Boil just a minute or two, until thick. Use warm.

Faker Naan

We've been doing a lot of Moroccan food around these parts lately, a LOT. While you're desperately trying to pass the time waiting for that post, why don't you practice mastering the flatbread that is most certainly necessary to any Middle Eastern meal?

Because I may be a genius, I took the Moroccan bread recipe from Paula Wolfert's classic Moroccan cookbook and adapted it to Zoe Francois' brilliant no-knead method. The result? Easy-as-pie flatbread, with really no effort. You just need a little patience.

No-knead Flatbread

Takes about 2 1/2 hours

3/4 cup warm milk

3/4 cup warm water

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp sugar

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups white flour

olive oil

• Combine milk, water, yeast, salt, sugar and garlic in a big bowl or food container. Stir in flour until well mixed. Cover lightly with plastic and walk away. For two hours. That's it. I took pictures so you would believe me. Before (left) and after (right):

• Ok, after 2 hours, dump your dough out onto a really well-floured surface. With well-floured hands, divide into 4 (or as many as 8) balls. Roll or press into 1/2-inch thick rounds. Let rest while your pan heats up.
• Heat a heavy skillet, preferably cast iron, till hot and smoky. Brush one side of bread with olive oil and place oiled-side-down in pan. It will bubble and rise. Brush the other side with oil. When you can move it with tongs (1-2 minutes) but before it's fully charred, flip and cook one minute more.
• Repeat until all dough is cooked, keeping cooked flatbreads wrapped in a clean kitchen towel (for softness).
• Eat warm!

You know what else you really need with this? A cucumber yogurt sauce. Take 1/2 cup plain yogurt, stir in 1 Tbsp finely chopped cucumber and 1-2 tsp (depending on your taste) finely chopped red onion. If you have fresh mint, chop that up and throw it in too. Season with plenty of salt and dippity-doo-dah!

Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits

I like to think that somehow, the whole wheat in this recipe cancels out the butter. No? Not the case? So I shouldn't have eaten three out of the four biscuits it made this morning? Oops.

Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits

(adapted from Whole Grain Baking -- a real gem of a cookbook -- start to finish, about 25 minutes; makes 4 biscuits)

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 Tbsp bread flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 1/2 Tbsp cold butter

1/3 cup buttermilk

1 Tbsp honey

1. Preheat oven to 400º. Mix together dry and wet, separately. Add buttermilk/honey to flours all at once and mix with a fork just until combined. Dump out onto a well-floured counter surface and knead it just 3 or 4 times, till it becomes a lump mass. (Sprinkle it with extra buttermilk if need be.) Press into a 1-inch thickness and cut biscuits using about a 2-inch diameter cutter. You'll probably get three, then combine scraps -- handling them as little as possible-- press again and cut one more.
2. Brush tops with buttermilk and bake for 15-18 minutes. Serve warm.

Tasty white pizza + Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Everyone and their moms in the food world have been spewing about a recent book by Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Their premise sounded intriguing enough to me: you make a dough that's wetter than your usual kneaded bread, you let it rise on it's own at room temperature, then you just store it in the back of your fridge, snipping some off when you want to bake. You can take as much or as little as you want at a time, and the dough is good for almost two weeks.

Well, I finally broke down and bought the book. I cracked the spine and started scanning, and half an hour later I had read it cover to cover. I promptly marched into the kitchen and made my first "loaf," and I am now a total convert. If you like the smell, taste, or even just the idea of freshly baked bread, buy this book. If you don't trust yourself with yeast breads, buy this book. If you want to make all kinds of crusty-edged, multi-flavored, savory-and-sweet breads with seriously minimal effort, BUY THIS BOOK. Just buy it.

Now, to dinner. I used the book's European Peasant Loaf recipe for pizza dough. The recipes are written in sizable quantities, because you can mix up a bunch and bake it off for two weeks. I halved the amounts given, and it made the perfect amount for one large pizza (serves 4), or two small (serves 2). I cut off half and made just enough for me and the man.

White Pizza
(total prep/rise/cook time, about 3 hours; if you have the dough premade, only about 40 min)

Dough (European Peasant Loaf)
(adapted from Artisan Bread, total prep/rise/cook time 4 hours)
3/4 cup lukewarm water, from the tap

3/4 Tbsp yeast (active and instant are both fine)

3/4 Tbsp salt

1/4 cup rye flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

In a large bowl or food-safe container, stir together water, yeast, and salt. Add flours and stir to make a shaggy dough (you may need to wet your hands and get in there to incorporate all flour). Cover lightly and let rest at room temperature 2 hours. Seriously, that is IT. It will rise and flatten out on its own.

After 2 hours, you can either move it to the fridge and use it over the next 12 days, or cut off what you need and use it immediately.

Toppings for the pizza
This is a white pizza, which = no tomato sauce. Just plenty of olive oil and cheese.

Caramelized onions (see below)
1 head roasted garlic (see below)
5 thin spears of asparagus
1 baby yukon or fingerling potato, thinly sliced
1/2 cup grated manchego, parmesan, asiago, monterey jack or some combination of the above cheeses
1 Tbsp fresh thyme

To caramelize onions (the cheater way), take 4 medium red onions and slice thin. Place in a microwave-safe bowl and cover with a microwave safe plate. Cook on full power 15 minutes, stirring halfway through. Heat a small skillet with about 1 Tbsp of oil and add partially cooked onions plus a healthy pinch of salt. Stir to coat. Then add 2 Tbsp each of: white wine, water, white vinegar, and brown sugar. Sprinkle in some thyme if you have it. Stir until most of moisture has evaporated. Set aside.

To roast garlic, take 1 head of garlic and slice the whole thing in half. Slather in olive oil, then wrap in foil. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes at 400º. If not cooked, return to oven or squeeze the cloves out into a skillet and finish there. [This can be done in large quantities and/or ahead of time. Store roasted garlic, wrapped, in the fridge.] In a small bowl, squeeze out the roasted cloves and add a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt. Using a fork, mash it into a paste.

To cook:

20 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven with your pizza stone** to 500º. Flour the surface of the stored dough, snip off about half, and place it on a well floured counter top. Form into a ball, then either roll or stretch into a 10-inch circle. Allow to rest until oven is ready.

When your oven and stone are heated, carefully pull out the pizza stone and awkwardly move the dough onto the stone (it will start to cook immediately, don't be frazzled). Working quickly, smear the garlic paste all over the dough. Then layer caramelized onions, half the cheese, the asparagus and potatoes [toss them in oil first!], and the other half of cheese. Drizzle olive oil over the whole thing. Return to the oven until cooked through, about 15 minutes.

When it's done, sprinkle with fresh thyme, slice, and eat up.

***If you think you're going to be a regular pizza eater, or if you want to make super crusty bakery-style bread, get a pizza stone. You heat it up with the oven, so when the dough hits the hot stone it immediately begins to form a crust. This is the easiest (only?) way to get that crust in a home kitchen. You can get a nice one online or, I've heard, you can just buy a quarry tile from your local hardware store for a lot cheaper.

School of Bread

Today, as David and I were doing some casual shopping in Harvard Square, I started to complain. "Can we go soon? I have too much dough in my purse."

Before I even had time to catch my own pun, David gleefully pointed out the irony (no one loves puns the way this man loves puns), and made me promise I would blog about this when I got home. And so I am.

The poignancy of this particular wordplay comes from the fact that I did not have money in my purse, but actual bread dough. Of course, why wouldn't I have a purse full of bread dough? Dough that had been painstakingly kneaded and, subsequently was in the process of proofing, which required me to periodically remove the plastic bag-0-dough, punch it down, and return it to the safety of my purse. It seems like the most logical and, frankly, one of the smarter things to be stocking if some catastrophe should strike -- at least we'll be fed.

In actuality, I had spent the morning one of the best ways I could imagine: learning how to make bread at a local culinary school (thanks mom!!!). They let each of us in the class make-and-bake a loaf during class time and also knead up another batch of dough to take-and-bake at home. I had some things to do before making it that far, hence the mobile dough situation.

Pretty soon I'll be working out some of these recipes on the blog, but until then, I'll let you drool over the sampler of breads I brought home from class, all freshly baked by a kitchen full of eager novices. Between cinnamon swirl, beer-molasses, sun-dried tomato, herb-batter, braided challah, and freshly puffed pitas, I don't think I'll ever buy a loaf again...

Our Daily Bread

Ok, religious punning aside, this is our go-to everyday bread. We recently became an all-homemade, all-the-time bread family once we realized how delicious the house smells for, like, the whole day after you make a loaf. And I'm not kidding when I say there is NOTHING in the world like that first slice. This recipe is a modification of the multigrain loaf from Cook's Illustrated, which uses some all purpose flour (ours is all whole wheat). It relies on a multigrain hot cereal mix for its nutritional base. I happen to like Bob's Red Mill (either 7- or 10-grain) mix, but maybe you can find something you like just as much.

The trick to eluding brick-quality whole wheat bread is vital wheat gluten. It's a powder that I buy in bulk at my local health food store, but you may find it on the flour/baking aisle. Do NOT confuse it with seitan, a gummy mass of jaw-cramping meat substitute. If you can't find it locally, order some online and keep it in your freezer.

If you keep all these ingredients on hand, it is no effort at all to throw it together. But it does involve a good bit of waiting, so make it a weekend project, then eat the bread all week long

Multigrain Bread (adapted from Cook's Illustrated)

Makes one 9x 5 inch loaf pan

1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp multi grain hot cereal mix

10 oz boiling water

2 Tbsp melted butter

2 Tbsp honey

1 1/4 tsp instant or bread machine yeast (they're the same thing)

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 Tbsp vital wheat gluten

1 1/2 tsp table salt

(optional)

1/4 cup sunflower seeds, pepitas, or other nuts of your choice

(I know there are seven grains in the cereal, but I can't resist adding extra stuff sometimes. For example, I threw in flax seeds and millet this last time for a nice crunch. Add caraway or fennel seeds for little zaps of flavor. Better yet, toast them first!)

1. Place the cereal mix in a large bowl and pour in boiling water. Stir and let sit (stirring occasionally) until the water is absorbed and mixture has cooled to lukewarm temp, about 30 minutes.

2. Stir in yeast, butter, and honey until well mixed. Stir wheat gluten into flour and add to grain mixture 1/2 cup at a time until dough comes together. Cover with plastic and let sit 20 minutes.

3. Add salt and knead until incorporated. With either your bread hook on the mixer or your own brute strength and inhuman patience, knead dough for about 8 minutes. Add seeds and knead until evenly distributed. Let the dough hang out for about 10 minutes.

4. Now, time to form a loaf. On a lightly floured surface (sprinkled with oats if you like that look on the outside of your bread), press the dough into a 10 x 6 inch rectangle. Rolling from the short end, make a cylinder of the bread, pinch bottom seam, and place in a greased 9 x 5 -in loaf pan. Cover in plastic and let rise about 40 minutes. (Two tricks to rising your dough: either microwave a cup of water for about a minute, then remove and immediately place your dough in and shut the door, leaving a warm, moist place for the yeast to work its magic. OR, turn your oven to warm while you are forming the loaf, then turn it off and place loaf in the now-warm oven. Just remember to take it out when you preheat to bake).

5. When ready, heat oven to 375º and bake for 35 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 200º. If you don't have a thermometer, just thump the outside. It should be stiff. Cool it on a wire rack (NOT IN THE PAN, or you'll have soggy bread). Be sure to cut and eat a slice while it's still warm.

King Cake!

Full disclosure: nothing about the following recipe is divided, downsized, or in any way related to something you might consider "small." But oh my word, the cake! Or, to be more accurate, the French sweet bread stuffed with cream cheese goo and covered in colored sugar! It takes patience and plenty of Mardi Gras spirit, and if you have a tiny plastic baby, it takes that too. But if you want to make brioche, here's what Peter Reinhart of the James Beard Award winning book, 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice' has to say. If I were to do this all over again, I would most definitely half this recipe:

---

Middle Class Brioche

('Middle class' as opposed to 'Rich Man's Brioche', also in the book, which calls for twice as much butter)

SPONGE:

1/2 cup bread flour

2 tsp instant yeast

1/2 cup whole milk, lukewarm (90º–100º)

DOUGH:

5 large eggs, beaten slightly

3 cups bread flour

2 Tbsp sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature butter

My additions to make it King-Cakey:

FILLING:

2 8-oz packages cream cheese, room temp

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

ICING:

2 oz cream cheese, soft

3-4 Tbsp milk

1 1/2 c powdered sugar

Colored sugars of yellow, green, and purple

1. First, make the sponge. Stir together flour and yeast, then add the milk, mixing till all is hydrated. Cover with plastic and let sit for about 20 minutes, till it looks bubbly and risen a little.

2. Once sponged, add the eggs and mix on medium speed (you'll need electric mixing of some kind for this beast) until smooth. Add flour, sugar, and salt, and mix on low speed until combined. What you now have is a giant lump of unmanageable muck. It gets worse, but then it gets better. Let it rest for 5 minutes to let the gluten develop. Then, cut the butter into 5 or 6 pieces, and add the pieces one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stop and scrape the sides down periodically. The dough will act like it is magnetically attracted to the paddle refuse to stay in the bowl at all (see right). Persevere. Keep mixing 5-6 minutes until the dough is well mixed and eerily soft. Seriously, touch it. It's weird.

3. Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper and spray it down with oil. Turn the dough out and pat into an 8x6in rectangle. Cover in plastic and let it hang out in the refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight.

4. Remove from fridge and, working while it's cold, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll dough into a super long and skinny rectangle, let's say 6 inches wide and about 30 inches long (yes, that's almost three feet). Mix the ingredients of the filling together and spread evenly along the rectangle. Roll one long 30-inch side over to meet the other 30-inch side and pinch it tight, so you have a long, skinny cylinder. Pull the two ends around to meet each other and pinch those shut. Place the ring on a greased baking sheet, seam side down. Cover it in lightly oiled plastic.

5. Now, in your oven where it is quiet and dark, put this baking sheet for 1-2 hours, and leave it alone to rise until at least doubled in size. Then, take it out, preheat the oven to 350º and stick that sucker back in. Bake it for about 25 minutes.

6 Remove from oven and cool on a rack AT LEAST one hour (if you can restrain yourself). Now comes the fun part. Mix up the icing to a pourable consistency and drizzle all over the cake. Cover with so much sprinkles you can barely see the cake underneath. Then eat it by golly, EAT IT!