Friday, January 16, 2009

Arrival of the King Cake

Traditionally the Parker family enjoys our first king cake on January 6th, the first day of the Carnival season. Even though we no longer live in the land of Mardi Gras, we still need the king cake.

I did not plan ahead appropriately, so this year we received our king cake one week late. It arrived in the box with a packet of icing and three little cups of sugar, purple, green, and gold. It was a decorate-it-yourself king cake, which stunned the grownups in our house and delighted the children. We must have done okay with the decorating, because it tasted just as wonderful as usual.

If you’re not familiar with the king cake, here are a few fun facts:

*The king cake is named after the Wise Men who brought gifts to baby Jesus.

*The colors on the cake are the colors of Mardi Gras.
Purple stands for justice
Green stands for faith.
Gold stands for power.

*There is a plastic baby inside each cake. The person who finds the baby in his/her piece of cake should buy the next king cake.

*King cakes are plain dough with icing and colored sugar on top, but they can also be filled with cream cheese, praline or fruit filling.

*The Parker family prefers praline and cream cheese.

Have you ever enjoyed king cake? What is your favorite flavor?

4 comments:

Tom said...

Hi Rae,
I have enjoyed King Cake, but it has been a while. We usually had some when we'd go and visit my brother in the Covington area (pre-Katrina)Myself, I prefer plain old cake. Interesting about the colors. I thought that purple and green were the colors you were the next morning and gold was what you were missing from your pockets. Tom

Rae Ann Parker said...

TOM: To each his own, I always wondered who bought those plain king cakes! :)

Shauna Roberts said...

This sounds like a wonderful tradition. My husband doesn't usually care for king cake, so I haven't ordered any since we've been gone. What bakery do you order from?

Rae Ann Parker said...

SHAUNA: I ordered this year's king cake from Gambino's. Last year, a friend sent us a king cake from Randazzo's and it was equally delicious.