BATON ROUGE, La. (THE LOUISIANA WEEKEND) - The beginning of carnival season is usually marked by indulging in king cakes. Many eat king cakes throughout the season. We decided to explore the city looking for traditional and non-traditional king cakes.
A king cake represents the Epiphany when the Magi or three kings visit the newborn baby Jesus. The actual king cake can be traced back to 1870 when they were simply a ring of dough with small decorations. Now, king cakes are larger and have very ornate decorations.
Each king cake has a plastic baby inside. Whomever gets the piece of cake containing the baby gets to bring a king cake to the next gathering. The dough is filled, braided, baked, then topped. The topping includes a glaze or frosting and sanding sugar in the three colors of Mardi Gras, purple, green, and gold.
We visited Ambrosia Bakery to see how they make king cakes. While we watched them create the traditional king cake, Ambrosia offers many different flavors including the popular Zulu King Cake which is made with coconut, cream cheese, chocolate and it topped with chocolate icing and Cinnamon Sugar. Ambrosia also ships their king cakes nationwide. Don’t worry about the icing getting damaged in shipping. Ambrosia puts the icing, and sanding sugars in individual packaging so that you can decorate the king cake as you wish once you receive it in the mail. To learn more about Ambrosia Bakery, visit HERE
King Cakes are so popular that many restaurants and bakeries serve king cake inspired desserts. We visited Rotolos Pizzeria to see the King Cake Calzone. This is a calzone stuffed with cream cheese, cinnamons, and apples. It is served with a frosting dipping sauce. Rotolos Pizzeria is offering the King Cake Calzone at all thirty-one locations in the USA. To learn more about Rotolos Pizzeria visit HERE
Our last stop on this king cake tour is Les Amis Bake Shoppe. Here, we found Mardi Gras Macrons and King Cake Cheesecake. The macrons are made with one green shell and one yellow shell. The filling is purple to bring all the three Mardi Gras colors together. The filling is brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
The King Cake Cheesecake is a cinnamon cheesecake with a king cake crust. It is topped with Cinnamon whipped cream and sanding sugar in Mardi Gras colors. To learn more about Les Amis Bakeshoppe visit HERE
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