Mardi Gras - King Cake Cupcakes

Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday," is a annual celebration held on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Mardi Gras is the last day of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season.

Mardi Gras is all about music, parades, picnics, floats and excitement. Everyone wears purple, green, and gold, long beads caught from the beautiful floats that pass by during the parade. Beads, costumes, and King Cakes are all staples of Mardi Gras.

King Cakes are traditionally served for the first time on Jan. 6, or Kings Day, and are enjoyed throughout the Carnival season. A traditional king cake is a braided cinnamon-laced brioche-like cake topped with icing and colored sugars. Purple, green and gold, symbolize justice, faith and power.

Many Bakeries now offer King cakes with a variety of fillings, fruit, cream cheese, and even chocolate. A small plastic baby is placed inside the cake to symbolize the baby Jesus; the person who gets the piece of cake with the baby is responsible for buying the next king cake, usually within the next week.

King Cakes are a traditional Fat Tuesday dessert and I make one every year to celebrate Mardi Gras with my family. My kids love my king cake and look forward to that beautiful colored cake every year. This year I wanted to do something a little different, but still stick to tradition. That's where these cute King Cake Cupcakes come into the picture. I found the idea on Paula Deen's website and I couldn't wait to make them.

King Cakes are definitely my favorite part of Mardi Gras and these cupcakes are so simple to make. The original recipe calls for a cinnamon-pecan filling, but I stuck with our traditional lemon-cream cheese filling that we love so much. All you need to make these yummy King Cake Cupcakes is refrigerated crescent roll dough and a few other ingredients.

Ingredients list: 12 cupcake liners (not pictured), crescent roll dough, softened cream cheese, lemon extract, powdered sugar, milk and yellow, green and purple sprinkles. I ran out of lemon extract and substituted with lemon juice, but I highly recommend using the lemon extract.

To start preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners. In small bowl, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon extract; mix until blended. On lightly floured surface or baking pan, unroll each can of crescent rolls and separate into 4 rectangles. Press perforations to seal.

Spread about 1 1/2 tablespoons cream cheese filling down the center of each rectangle leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edges. Working with 1 rectangle at a time fold the top of the dough towards the center, then fold the bottom of the dough toward the center and overlap.

Fold the left side of the dough in to the middle. Fold the right side on top of the left side.

Place dough spiral side up into prepared muffin pan. Repeat procedure with remaining rectangles. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown. Drizzle icing over warm cakes while in pan and quickly add green, purple & yellow sprinkles on top before the glaze dries.

Does your family celebrate Mardi Gras? Well, if they do make Walmart your one stop shop for everything Mardi Gras. If you don't have time to make a traditional King Cake their bakery department has a great selection of king cakes for around $7 each. I picked up a few of the colored beads pictured above for my kids in the party section for .97 each. Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

Mardi Gras King Cake Cupcakes

• 3 - (8 oz) containers refrigerated crescent rolls
• 1 - (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 - cup confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
• 1 - teaspoon lemon extract
• Icing:
• 1 - 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 3 - 4 tablespoons milk (more if needed)
• 1/2 - tsp clear vanilla extract, optional
• green, purple & gold sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners. In small bowl, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon extract; mix until blended.

On lightly floured surface, unroll each can of crescent rolls and separate each into 4 rectangles. Press perforations to seal.

Spread about 2 tablespoons cream cheese filling down the center of each rectangle. leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edges.

Working with 1 rectangle at a time fold the top of the dough towards the center, then fold the bottom of the dough toward the center and overlap.

Fold the left side of the dough in to the middle. Fold the right side on top of the left side.

Place dough spiral side up into prepared muffin pan. Repeat procedure with remaining rectangles.

Bake for 18-22 minutes or until brown. In a small bowl, whisk confectioners' sugar, and milk until smooth. Drizzle over warm cakes while in pan. Quickly add green, purple & yellow sprinkles.

Cook's Note: If you prefer a cinnamon-pecan filling like in Paula's recipe, combine 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup raisins, 1/4 cup chopped pecans and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Add two tablespoons filling down the center of each crescent square and proceed with recipe.

Recipe yields: 12 cupcakes

Inspired by: Cooking with Paula Deen

This post is linked to The Country Cooks Weekend Potluck.