Gold, Green and Purple..It’s King Cake, Y’all!

We’re slap dab in the middle of New Orlean’s Carnival celebrations and King Cake Season  culminating today, Fat Tuesday..Mardi Gras, y’all!  Everyone in Louisiana has King Cake, in their office, school, home, they are everywhere!  And King Cake parties abound.  Gold, green and purple seem to be everywhere.  Why?  Because gold represents power, green represents religion and purple signifies justice.  It’s also a really great color combination. Anyway, King Cake is more like a coffee cake or sweet yeast bread than a true cake.  King Cakes truly epitomizes New Orleans.  I’ve been in New Orleans only four times.  The first time I went was with my parents for a family reunion, specifically Daddy’s French side of the family.  We were joined by Dad’s sister, Aunt Sunny and her husband.  I was named after my paternal grandmother Alice as was Aunt Sunny.  The family plantation, Magnolia Mound Plantation, is situated on the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge.  It was in my paternal grandmother’s family through the mid-1800’s.  It passed through many hands after it was lost.  During the time of our reunion Magnolia Mound had been rescued by the Junior League of Baton Rouge who gave great tours and gave visitors an authentic feel for life in the deep south of the 1800’s.  At the reunion we had crab boils with locals playing some really jumping Zydeco.  Other nights we could be found laughing and dancing on the house lawn under the stars drinks in hand…with enormous cauldrons of gumbo bubbling close by.  At linen draped tables nearby were silver salt cellars filled with file gumbo, (pronounced fee-lay), baskets overflowing with hot French bread and little crystal tubs full of spicy, cold homemade Tabasco butter.  It was jollification at it’s best.  But when we hit New Orleans a few days later…well!  That was when I thought the fun really started.  Brunch at Brennan’s with many, many Bloodys. And the shopping after. Oh, my goodness.  Mom and I had fun on Royal Street antiquing and then made our way over to Magazine Street for more shopping delight.  And delight there was.  Mama had made plans earlier to meet up with Daddy, probably to give him all our shopping bags, and that was the exact moment I found it.  The most  exquisite little lingerie boutique you could ever imagine.  Everything inside, EVERYTHING, had been hand-made in France with the finest silks and laces.  With no one to stop me –  I went craaazy.  Beautiful ensembles in peach, pink and cream.  Handmade silk and satin garter belts, pure silk stockings, handmade Irish cotton night-slips, teeny lace panties…as a size four I went crazy.  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Mama and Daddy strolling towards the shop.  The shop girls quickly rang up my sale, packaged it in tissue and ribbon and I scuttled out before Mama and Daddy could see what I was buying.  They never said a word and they didn’t exactly know what I was doing but they knew I was up to no good when I wouldn’t meet their eyes.  No worries.  We were off to Antoine’s for champagne and another family party.  Laissez les bons temps rouler!  Let the good times roll!

This is a wonderful cake, y’all.  It’s somewhere between cake and the best coffee cake on the planet.  There are all kinds of acceptable fillings and some cakes aren’t filled at all.  It’s all a matter of taste.  This particular cake has a cream cheese filling which is one of my favorites but the cake part is just out of this world.  It’s so unbelievably tender.  I know the directions look long  and involved but it’s a really direct cake to make.  You do need time for the dough to rise so make sure you factor that in your plans.  I made a second cake to take to our Boston friends.  It’s that easy.