Easy Peasy Pillsbury King Cake
Happy Almost Mardi Gras! Every January 6th kicks off the official king cake season and Carnival. I wrote a guest post about the history of king cakes on Jama’s Alphabet Soup blog for all you food history and culture buffs.
Today I want to share another easy king cake recipe. The recipe in my book, THE KING CAKE BABY, uses frozen bread dough with a cinnamon-sugar filling and includes a recipe for making a Cream Cheese icing. In this recipe, I use three Pillsbury Crescent Dough Sheets, the cinnamon-sugar mix, colored sugar sprinkles, and a can of Pillsbury Cream Cheese icing. Easy peasy! The only thing easier than making this king cake is picking one up at your favorite grocery or bakery.
Pillsbury Crescent Dough Sheet King Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
- 3 Pillsbury Crescent Dough Sheets
- cinnamon sugar mix: ½ c. granulated sugar + 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 plastic king cake baby (to hide inside, of course!)
- purple, green, & gold sugar sprinkles
- 1 can Pillsbury Cream Cheese Icing or make your own
Directions:
Heat oven to 375 °F (190 °C).
Cover a baking pan with parchment paper or use a nonstick cookie sheet. Unroll dough sheets and sprinkle each with about a tablespoon of the cinnamon-sugar mix.
Roll each dough sheet from the shortest side of the rectangle.
Arrange into an oval shape. Press seams together to connect. Bake 20-25 minutes.
Decorate the King Cake
Soften ½ can of Pillsbury Cream Cheese icing. Have purple, green, gold sprinkles handy.
While the cake is still warm, pour icing on top. Alternate with purple, green and gold colored Mardi Gras sprinkles.
If you prefer to make your own icing:
Cream-Cheese Icing
3 cups powdered sugar
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons melted butter
¼ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
3 tablespoons milk
Mix all five ingredients in a bowl. The icing should be thick enough to slowly drip from a whisk or spoon. Drizzle over the warm cake.
Hide a plastic King Cake Baby in the underside of the cake. Before eating, check to see if you got the baby!
Click Mardi Gras King Cake from Pillsbury Dough Sheets to download the recipe.
And if any of you need a gluten-free recipe, see this Red Mill cinnamon roll recipe.
You really didnt explain about how you do the filling. I would like to try this recipe with a sweet cream cheese filling. Can you explain how I would do that?
Hello Carol,
The cinnamon-sugar is the filling I used in this example, “Unroll dough sheets and sprinkle each with about a tablespoon of the cinnamon-sugar mix.” However, you could make a sweet cream cheese filling and use that instead. Combines 3 cups powdered sugar, 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature, 3 tablespoons butter, melted, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract or almond extract and 3 tablespoons milk. This makes a tasty cream cheese icing or use as a filling.
Happy Mardi Gra!
Keila
IT LOOKS SO DANG AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! Tell me the recipe PLEASE!
Read above!
I didn’t use the cinnamon roll that you roll out! I didn’t know they had that! The one I used was already cinnamon rolls in the can, and you just had to bake them, then frost them. This might be a fun project for the kids to make. I will get this next time I go to the market.
That would work too! The crescent dough sheets won’t rise as much because they don’t have yeast. But the dough make a yunny king cake! And it’s so easy for the kids to make too since all they have to do is gently roll out the sheet, add the filling, and gently roll.
Made this as a king cake alternative as I live in Florida, and the king cakes available to me are…gross. It is good, but I found that the inside was not cooked all the way through.
Oh no! Sorry that happened. Guess it needed an extra 5 minutes? The recipe in my book calls for frozen dough, that’s yummy too. I bake to package directions, but if you leave it in longer, definitely top with foil so the top won’t brown too much. Happy Mardi Gras!
Great idea and easy recipe. I’ll try it this year. Thank you!
Welcome. It’s so easy and yummy too!
I may try your recipe. Looks easy and yummy.
It is! I’ve seen the recipe with the regular crescent rolls, but using the sheets makes rolling way easier. Hope you enjoy!