Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/01/06/rejoice-its-officially-king-cake-season.html
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I’d love to try one of these some day, but they’re hard to come by in Colorado. I’ve seen a few for sale in supermarkets, but I want to get a good one, not a dry overly-sugary mass-produced knock-off.
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I’ve had king cake and it’s pretty much just a sweet bread. It’s not that interesting from what i’ve experienced.
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… New Orleans is like the world’s greatest marketing campaign for Catholicism
I truly feel like I am missing out 
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I’ve been disappointed by the ones I’ve had so far. Like @Grey_Devil said, just a sweetbread. But those were ones in Texas. Maybe one made in New Orleans would be really good.
Not sure I’d ever take a king cake over a beignet though.
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That’s a shame. From the description, it sounded more like some kind of heavenly fruit/cheese/cinnamon danish.
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Sometimes I get to-go orders from a local restaurant run by a guy who moved here from Louisiana: usually gumbo, shrimp, sometimes oysters. And always beignets. They always apologize for waiting until I’m in the restaurant and have paid before they put the beignets in to cook. I’m just as emphatic that I appreciate that they do that. The fresher the better.
Also someone brought a King Cake to where I work one year. The woman who found the doll in it said, “Shit, does this mean I’m gonna have a baby? Quick, somebody else take it!” We all laughed which was the best part of the cake.
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I’ve never had a king cake in New Orleans, only in France (well, and once in Atlanta, but it was made by a friend visiting from France), where the entire country has the same tradition. This description of the New Orleans-style cake, and photo too, is quite different from what you find across the Atlantic. The French ones are not bready or cakey at all (nor are they called cakes in French), but an unsweetened puff pastry shell containing a filling. The filling is most commonly almond paste, but can be just about anything – there are even savory fillings, like zucchini, though those don’t seem terribly popular.
Not saying that one is necessarily better than the other, but I have a feeling that anybody visiting France from New Orleans (and vice-versa) right now is going to be disappointed, or at least surprised, if they buy a king cake during their visit.
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“Eat me.” -Religion
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One of my siblings is not in the least religious—of any stripe—but she says “We celebrate all the holidays that involve food”
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OOoooo - I need to get another one.
We got one last year, and god damn, it was good.
I did find there is a local bakery that sells them too, but I may still just order from New Orleans again.
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I have never had a Dong Phuong cake and I probably never will, seventy bucks is way too much unless maybe you’re getting a ginormous cake to feed a huge party. I just went down to King Cake Hub and bought my first cake of the year for like twenty bucks.
Also for anyone comparing the cakes depicted in this post to French king cakes, note that the Dong Phuong is very not a traditional New Orleans king cake. It’s a Vietnamese hybrid. The ur-King Cake here is an oval loop of cinnamon brioche; it may be dry and acerbic, or it may be covered in gooey frosting and stuffed with anything that sounds good. King Cake Hub has a small freezer with cakes filled with ice cream, boudin, and crawfish. If you wanna be dogmatic then nothing but a fairly simple cinnamon loop is truly a king cake but personally I figure as long as it’s a loop with a baby in it, it’s a king cake; it should probably be decorated in purple, green, and gold, but this is not an absolute requirement - Brennan’s makes an all-pink cake with gold accents and it’s delightful.
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On the Spanish side of things, we have Three Wizards/Three Wise Men day and we have Rosca de Reyes. In Mexican society, we all take turns slicing a piece and the person (or people, as most cakes have multiple) who gets a baby (which represents baby Jesus) has to host/cater the big party held on/around February 2nd, which is the Dia de la Virgen. We’ve tended to move the Virgen party out a week for the past decade to allow for a birthday party.
The rosca thing is a pretty big blast. Have a large family and everyone takes turns slicing in. Finding a baby is considered good luck. As even our kids are adults now, there’s a lot of slices to go around. The Mexican version seems to be about half King cake, half fruitcake in its makeup.
Oh, and Dia de los Reyes Magos is also a mini second Christmas. Kids put shoes outside their doors and get presents.
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Germany has a similar tradition, with the Krapfen being the pastry of choice for Carnival. But Germans being Germans, the tradition is that one of the jelly donuts will have mustard instead of custard or jelly in the middle. The only prize you win is that your colleagues get to laugh at your misfortune.
Oh, and I still owe my sister a king’s cake from my visit to Lafayette, but she doesn’t live there any more.
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