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Mar 1, 2011
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King of Mardi Gras: King Cakes

New Orleanians are passionate about their king cakes. Variations on the Mardi Gras-season treat are made all over town.
By Ben Mims
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king cake Credit: Todd Coleman
I first tasted king cake at a Mardi Gras party in my fifth-grade classroom in Mississippi. Striated with cinnamon-sugar and cream cheese, and glazed with a sticky icing, my slice included a surprise: a small plastic baby. King cakes, which commemorate the Epiphany—the wise men's discovery of the baby Jesus—are eaten the world over in various forms, but they're nowhere more beloved than in New Orleans, where the cake is associated with the festivities of Mardi Gras. Introduced by French settlers in the 1600s, New Orleans's traditional cake is sweetened, yeasted bread stuffed with a filling (cinnamon and cream cheese, say, or praline), shaped into an oval ring, topped with white icing, and garnished with purple, green, and gold sanding sugars. A figurine, which some say symbolizes the infant Jesus, is hidden inside; whoever gets the trinket is named king. The title comes with strings attached: it obligates its bearer to buy the cake for the next party.

See five variations of King Cake in our gallery »



king cake

This article was first published in Saveur in Issue #136

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Comments (2)

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Ummm, you need to check your facts: "where the cake is associated with the festivities of Mardi Gras, which run from mid-February through March 8 this year" is so wrong. Mardi Gras season begins on Twelfth Night which is January 6th each year and concludes on Fat Tuesday. The following day is Ash Wednesday which is the beginning of Lent.
Ummm, you need to realize this was written in 2011 when Ash Wednesday was on March 9th, I believe... Way to link to old articles, Yahoo!

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