KING CAKE QUEST
Where to find the quintessential Mardi Gras pastry for Carnival season
It’s Carnival season in New Orleans, a place where I lived for more than 10 years. The season started Jan. 6, the day of Epiphany, and ends on Mardi Gras — Fat Tuesday, Feb. 21 — which is the day before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.
The celebration includes parades, coronation balls and parties, all with a whole lot of drinking and eating.
The holiday isn’t complete without at least one New Orleans king cake or a three kings cake, which represents the three wise men in the Bible who brought gifts to the baby Jesus.
I tell people a king cake is the child of a marriage between a coffee cake and a cinnamon roll — festive, colorful and delicious. It’s a sweet oval pastry drizzled with white icing and sprinkled with purple, green and gold sugar crystals.
The royal colors symbolize justice, faith and power, respectively, and the shape illustrates the unity of all faiths. The cake comes with cinnamon (traditional) or filled with fruit or cream. A plastic baby is baked inside; whoever gets that slice buys the next cake or hosts the next party.
It’s a little different in France, where king cakes date to the 14th century. There, the “galette des rois” is made with puff pastry and filled with the creamy almond custard called frangipane. The person who gets the fève (trinket) or bean becomes king or queen for the day. I like that idea.
During my first few years living here, my friend used to mail me king cakes from New Orleans. I even tried making one with Mam Papaul’s Mardi Gras King Cake mix from World Market — it was all right. Then I took a leap of faith and tried area bakeries and
grocery stores over the years.
Some came close to that New Orleans je ne sais quoi — that pleasing quality that’s so hard to nail down — but one really stood out. It’s Wegmans’ king cake, made by La Louisiane Bakery, which is about 10 minutes from New Orleans. It has everything I love — a moist cake with velvety cream cheese and a hint of cinnamon. On my first bite a few years ago, I danced around my kitchen and sang “Before I Let Go” by Frankie Beverly and Maze.
Before I found that one, I enjoyed traditional king cakes from two Virginia Beach bakeries: Sugar Plum Bakery, which requires 48 hours’ notice for orders, and Staz-a-Licious Bakery and Cafe, which has them in stock until Fat Tuesday or takes custom orders for them year-round, four days in advance. Both offered a fresh and tasty treat, but they didn’t take me to a Mardi Gras party in my head.
I tried two other bakeries this year, both in Norfolk.
Naas Bakery sells king cakes year-round with two days’ notice. Customers can get them plain or filled with cream cheese, raspberry, lemon or blueberry. I purchased the cream cheese version. It was fresh and fluffy but it needed more cream cheese for my taste. I’m eyeballing the lemon for next time.
The Bonbonnier is taking orders through Fat Tuesday, but it needs a week’s notice. The cakes come in traditional cream cheese, apple, or chocolate cream cheese. My greedy voice said, “Get the chocolate one!” I did and I’m on the fence with this one. It had a firm exterior that I wasn’t expecting. The interior was soft, though.