It’s Mardi Gras season here in Louisiana! It’s a festive time of the year that goes from the twelfth night after Christmas, January 6th or Epiphany, to Fat Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent. Mardi Gras has many traditions and one of the popular ones is bringing a King Cake to share at a party or event.

If you live in Louisiana, it’s easy to pick one up at the market or pastry store. Yum! However, homemade pastries are the best and a person can be really creative with fillings and types of cakes.

Traditional king cakes are a yeast sweet bread, similar to a Danish coffee cake, a rich brioche-style cake. Homemade yeast bread/sweet rolls takes some time make and technique to perfect. So, I came up with a version using refrigerated dinner rolls. Even a person who doesn’t bake very much can easily make this king cake.

This very easy and simple king cake recipe is made with refrigerated, convenience Pillsbury Crescent Dinner Rolls and shaped them into the traditional oval cake shape. These are actually baking powder-type rolls rather than a yeast bread. In any means, the result is delicious.

I used Nutella Hazelnut and Cocoa Spread for the filling, so you must be a chocolate lover to like this cake. I also had some Fig Spread (one could use Fig Preserves) in my refrigerator and added that too. It gave the filling a little sweetness and crunch. This of course, is entirely optional.

For the icing, I made a powdered sugar glaze and decorated with purchased purple, green and gold sprinkles. However, a person could also use a purchased vanilla icing.

Don’t forget to hide a tiny plastic doll or a dried bean somewhere in the cake. King cakes are brought to any sort of party or office event. It is customary that the person who gets the piece with the plastic doll brings or hosts the next party.

My taste panel (i.e.my family) gave this king cake a thumbs up. It’s kind of a nice deviation from some of the very sweet cakes often found in stores and quite different to find one with a chocolate filling.

The a printable recipe is found at mayleeskitchen.com

Perhaps I’ll make my home-make sweet bread king cake next.