Fat Tuesday Breakfast Rolls

At the risk of sounding like I’m bragging, I have to tell you all–for something made by a girl who’s never set foot in Louisiana, these are pretty darned good.

Tomorrow’s Fat Tuesday, which is the day that those of us who commemorate Lent with voluntary acts of self-denial generally stuff ourselves full of anything we can cram between our jaws. A last 24-hour culinary hurrah, of sorts, before 40 days of deprivation.

King Cake is a traditional New Orleans dessert on the days leading up to Ash Wednesday. The reason is simple–it is the single most decadent dessert I can think of that’ll stand up to Louisiana humidity (and yes, I know there are more traditional reasons, but that’s why I think it’s the king cake that earned the crown for Fat Tuesday.).

I was all sorts of tempted to make a real King Cake, but the truth is that one of those will feed about four families, and we don’t need that many calories around. Instead, I decided to mess with the recipe for the cake and turn it into breakfast rolls. Portion control, my friends. It’s all about portion control.

I’ve played with this enough that I’m going to lay claim to it as My Recipe. I added stuff and omitted stuff and cut stuff up, and I think it’s a brand-new recipe as a result. It’s delicious for breakfast and makes a nice dessert too–not too sweet, but definitely high on the yummy after-dinner scale. They keep well overnight covered in plastic, which is also nice.

Editor’s Note: Before we get to the recipe…don’t forget you can win an autographed copy of Modern Spice! Go here and leave a comment to enter. And my little blog is still in the running over at Babble’s list of 100 best food mom blogs! You can vote for it here–and thank you!!

My family enjoyed these for breakfast, albeit a day early (don’t ever say I’ve never done anything for you guys–the sacrifice!!). I hope you will too. You’ll need:

1 package or 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

1/4 cup granulated sugar

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup warm milk (warmer than body temperature)

1 1/4 cups cake flour (you can ditch this and use all AP flour if you don’t have any around)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

The zest of one lemon

4 oz low-fat cream cheese at room temperature

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 more cup powdered sugar

The juice of the lemon

1 tsp milk

Stir the granulated sugar into the warm milk, and then sprinkle the yeast on top. Let the yeast proof (get foamy) while you add the other ingredients into your mixer bowl or bread machine.

Into your bread maker or mixer bowl, pour the flours, butter, egg yolks, nutmeg, salt, and lemon zest. Pour in the milk/yeast mixture. Either let the bread machine go through a dough cycle, or use your mixer’s bread hook to mix it together and knead it for a few minutes, and then leave it to rise for an hour.

Once the dough has risen, punch it down and cut it into 12 chunks. In your mixer with a fresh bowl, mix together the cream cheese, 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, and vanilla until it looks like icing.

Cover a baking sheet with foil and spray that with cooking spray. Use your fingers to flatten one of the dough hunks into a flat square. Spread about a teaspoon or two of the cream cheese mixture into the center of the dough, and fold it up like a wonton, pinching to close. Lay it on the foil pinched-side-down. Repeat 11 more times. Cover with a dish towel and let them rest for 45 minutes. Then bake them for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, or until they’re brown on top.

Once the rolls are cool, mix together the rest of the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and milk until a thick icing forms (add more sugar or liquid as necessary). Drizzle over the rolls. Let set, and enjoy.