Tonight our family celebrated Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday" which is "the last hurrah before the Catholic season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday."

Eating a king cake is a traditional treat just before the Lenten season begins and today I was determined to make my first king cake from scratch.  Between sleepness nights with a sick baby, wiping my baby's runny nose from her bad cold/cough and my older children "tempting" me by telling me that we could just buy a king cake at the grocery store down the road, I was able to ignore all the reasons why making one was a crazy idea :) Where there's a will, there's a way!

Chris over at Campfires and Cleats on her post HERE mentioned this king cake recipe so I printed it out and gave it a try.  Bonnie's king cake recipe called for a cream cheese filling, but I just made my filling by spreading melted butter and cinnamon and sugar on the dough. 

We all enjoyed the delicious treat before fasting tomorrow on Ash Wednesday and every Friday in Lent.

Here is a Baby Jesus that I placed in our king cake before baking that we had from previous king cake's that we had with friends in year's past.  The cake often has a small plastic baby (said to represent Baby Jesus) inside (or sometimes placed underneath), and the person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket has various privileges and obligations.