KING CAKE

OMG ! King Cake is so good! They are in season from January 6th to Mardi Gras.


 Wikipedia says: The "king cake" takes its name from the biblical three kings. Catholic tradition states that their journey to Bethlehem took twelve days (the Twelve Days of Christmas), and that they arrived to honor the Christ Child on Epiphany. The season for king cake extends from the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas (Twelfth Night and Epiphany Day), through to Mardi Gras day. Some organizations or groups of friends may have "king cake parties" every week through the Carnival season.

Being in New Orleans we felt that it was our obligation to honor tradition and have a king cake in our kitchen (and tummies) at all times and we lived up to our obligation. Thus, many babies were accumulated. A king cake has a little plastic baby (Jesus) hidden inside. (I’m sure it used to be a bean.) Whoever gets the baby is queen or king of the party. Nowadays, the baby-getter is supposed to buy the cake for the next party. (Those bakery people ain’t no fools!) Cakes come plain or filled and can be found in all grocery stores or bakeries. I like the filled cream cheese or maybe praline. Yum!

When we were visiting my 94 year old mother-in-law, king cake came up. We mentioned the babies. She said "You want babies - I got babies" and proceeded to reach into her kitchen drawer and pull out a handful of babies. One can't just put babies in the trash so they end up "giving evidence".  Now we know what goes on in those senior residential facilities - sugar diabetes - pshaw!

Later, we heard from Julie, "Good Grief, how many king cakes did you eat? I'm even finding babies in the car!"

There are more babies around here-I just can't find them.

These colorful beauties played a large part in the five plus pounds I gained while in the Big (and I mean Big) Easy.