in the Southern Living Test Kitchen Carnival season is like our second Christmas and that's because of our Test Kitchen professional Pam Lally and her King cake some King cakes are too dry others are way too heavy on the cinnamon but Pam's is like a cloud of Mardi Gras magic and we're gonna teach you how to make it so Pam what are we gonna do first we're gonna take 16 ounces of sour cream and put it in a small pot along with a quarter cup of butter and a half a cup of sugar and a teaspoon of salt and we're gonna stir that together just until our butter melts once that has melted we're gonna let that cool down to 110 degrees I'm gonna need 1/2 a cup of very warm water and then we're gonna add our yeast to it just sprinkle it over the top and then sprinkle your sugar on top of there and now we're gonna mix that together and it's gonna stand for about 5 minutes until it gets nice and foamy we're gonna test this make sure that it's not hotter than 110 degrees we're gonna take this mixture and you put that in the mixing bowl now then take your knees and scrape that in there with it all right crack your two eggs as you do and then turn it on low and let it set together well and then we're gonna slowly add two cups of our flour we're gonna get this mixed in really well and then we're gonna put in four to four and a half more cups until we've got a nice soft dough it seems like a lot so we want a big king cake right yes this is gonna make two king cakes your friends are gonna be so happy I'm so happy when this gets mixed in really well then we're gonna need our flour heavily flour a work surface because now we're going to need our dough until it gets soft and elastic and toward the end it'll be very very soft so Pam normally you put a baby inside the king cake but the little plastic base a little plastic baby and tradition has it that whoever finds the baby and their piece of king cake has to have the party next year and they have to make the okay and you don't put a baby inside yours I've done why is that because I'm always afraid of dental work afterwards I think that's legit okay we've gotten our dough nice and soft and we're gonna put it in our lightly greased Bowl all right we're gonna put it down and then flip it where it's grazed on top we're gonna cover with plastic wrap put it in a warm spot where there's no drafts and let that rise until it's double our dough has risen so now we're ready to put our cakes together first we're gonna take our 1/2 cup of sugar and then one and a half teaspoons of cinnamon and stir that together really well all right we need to lightly flour our surface there you go bread that around good because we're gonna lay our dough on that you can see how it's risen and it's doubled in bulk from where we started it sure has so now then flour your hands good okay now give it a punch now we're gonna turn it out on our lightly floured surface and we're gonna cut the dough in half because we're gonna make two cakes now then we're gonna take this one mm-hmm we're gonna roll it out into a rectangle it's gonna be 12 inches wide by 22 inches long what makes this dough different than other types of dough this dough is not a real dense dough it's very light very flaky now then we're gonna take our softened butter and we're gonna use half of that and spread within an inch all the way around and it's important that that butter be good and soft or you'll tear your dough sprinkle half of our cinnamon mixture and this is a traditional king cake with the cinnamon sugar now that we've got our cinnamon sugar on here we're gonna start at the long side and I find that it's easiest to roll it toward we're gonna roll that just as tightly as we can and your dough is going to stretch a little as you go and that's okay and then when you get to the end try and kind of pinch those in okay edges together why do we do this Pam so that it will stay together when it BAE and then you'll put that seam on the bottom and then it won't show now then we're going to form a ring and what we do is we just form the circle like this and then we're going to pinch these edges together now then we're going to transfer it to our lightly greased pan what we'll do is now we cover this with plastic wrap and it'll rise again for about 30 minutes okay our cake is baked to a beautiful golden brown it's gorgeous and now I'm gonna put the icing on it what's in this icing pan this is powdered sugar and a little melted butter lemon juice and milk I'm just working back and forth and your cake is still a little bit warm so this icing is gonna melt into it a little bit and become a little bit glazy let's dress it up and I have found that the sugar crystals work better than the sanding sugar you want to alternate your patterns and then just work it all the way around the cake there we have our king cake ready for a party let's go all right for more recipes and tips visit Southern Living Calm you