Yesterday Evening, we kicked off Carnival Season as oh so many around here do, with the old French tradition of eating King Cake. The tradition of eating a cake in celebration of the epiphany dates back before the founding of New Orleans. Many different cultures now engage in this practice, but each has its own unique style of cake, and New Orleans is no different. The cake in New Orleans is a ring shaped cake made out of dough somewhere between brioche and that of a cinnamon roll. Most are roughly the size of a pizza, but with a large hole in the center. They are then frosted in purple, green, and gold sugars, and sometimes (untraditionally) iced. They may eve be (very untraditionally) filled.

Hidden inside the cake is a surprise; in France and some more traditional circles here that surprise was a bean, but here it is much more commonly a plastic baby (said to represent the Christ Child, but also said to originate from a surplus of plastic babies made by a Chinese company. Who knows?)

In France the person finding the bean was crowned as King of the Party. At the Ball of the Twelfth Night Revelers the maid receiving the golden bean (all other maids receive a silver bean) is crowned as Queen of the ball. Mostly in the Crescent city the baby (bean) finder isn’t quite as lucky though; it is now his responsibility to throw the next King Cake party (or at least to bring cake to the next gather/to the office or to school the next day).

Some recent contention has recently arisen over the placement of the baby in the cake. Most bakeries are now afraid to put the baby inside the cake prior to sale. Reasons I’ve heard for this are fear of lawsuits and modern industrial convection ovens having the full capability of melting the baby. Nevertheless, it removes much of the fun for at least one person some of the time. If you are searching for a pre-babied cake though, I suggest Randazzo’s King Cake and McKenzie’s King Cake (sold at Tastee). Now go enjoy some sugar and dough.