Pull-Apart Biscuit King Cake

Hello sweet friends! 

This week marks the meat of Mardi Gras – the real good stuff. Parades every night. Long lunches that somehow turn into dinner. Parking strategies. Late night snack strategies.  Comfy sparkle shoes to walk from one side of town to the other. Friends that leave their houses open for long parade nights. Jambalaya in a crock pot. King cake truly everywhere we go.  

Mardi Gras is a game of strategy to maximize the absolute best time. Strategy and a week long trust fall into the arms of New Orleans herself. 

We’re living in excess.  We’ll gather our senses come next Wednesday exactly.

Until then – one more King Cake recipe to cement this fine season, shall we? 

This cake is part pull-apart bread, part biscuit- all baked in a loaf pan and peeled apart to eat.  

Here’s what you’ll need for this biscuit-cake magic-meld: 

•  flour, sugar, salt and leavening whisked together to fluffy.  

•  plenty of cold and unsalted butter for inside the biscuits. 

•  an egg and buttermilk to bind the biscuit dough.

•  cinnamon and sugar for inside the cake, plus melted butter of course. 

•  powdered sugar and cream to make a quick glaze and sprinkles + a feve to make this cake a king.  

Start by making biscuits. 

We’ve certainly gone down this biscuit path before. 

Work cold butter into the dry ingredients, quickly breaking the butter into small bits the size of small peas and oat flakes. 

Whisk an egg into the buttermilk and add the wet ingredients to the buttered flour all at once. 

Toss the dry ingredients into the wet. We’ll create a shaggy dough. 

Turn the dough out on the bowl onto a lightly floured counter and work the dough into a rough disk. 

It’s a big boy of dough.  

I find it easiest to wrap the dough in waxed paper and refrigerate it for at least an hour before rolling thin to slice into little sheets. 

Roll the chilled biscuit dough into a rectangle about 13×14-inches.  The edges may be a bit shaggy, that’s alright – it will all bake well together.  

The thickness of the dough will be just under 1/2-inch.  

Slice the dough into rectangles about 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 -inches in shape.  I cut the dough 5×4, 20 pieces total. 

Brush generously with melted butter.  

Toss together an ample amount of cinnamon sugar and dust the buttered dough such that the sugar is thick enough to sit on the dough without being absorbed into the butter. Lots is plenty. 

Stack the dough pieces into 4 piles of 5.  

Carefully add each packet into the heavily parchmented pan.

You won’t have to shove the dough in, there will be plenty of room. Place the dough slices so they all touch one another, but fold and slouch a bit to fill the pan edge to edge.  

Chill the dough while the oven heats. 

I think this cake is best served just warm so I bake this cake shortly before I serve it. The cake can hang in the fridge for an hour before baking.  

Bake to golden and bubbling. 

The dough will bake to fill the space of the pan.  

Feels good! 

Allow the cake to cool for 20 minutes then lift out of the pan and drizzle with a thick powdered sugar glaze.  

Sprinkle with color and top with a baby or feve of some sort.  

Peel, slice by slice and enjoy! It makes sense to serve with coffee before hitting these carnival streets. 

Photos with my dear Jon Melendez. 

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