Carnival season shimmies into New Orleans each year on Twelfth Night (January 6), bathing the city in purple, green, and gold; icing the trees with errant Mardi Gras beads; and dotting the days with sparkly, sugar-crusted king cakes.
In fact, the Crescent City is awash in all kinds of king cakes, traditional and not. The most common king cake in New Orleans is made with a brioche dough shot through with cinnamon, shaped into a circle (like a king’s crown), and blanketed by white icing and purple, green, and gold sugar. Sometimes it’s filled with treats like cream cheese and pecans or chantilly cream. The French king cake (galette du rois), also popular, layers rich frangipane with delicate puff pastry. Beyond that, creative bakers are turning out everything from savory, boudin-filled king cakes to the poppyseed king cake from Slavic pop-up Dom Zakuski. For an excellent vegan king cake, try out Breads on Oak, available for pick-up or shipping.
This year’s Carnival season is short, leaving no time to waste on anything but outstanding king cakes. Interested in trying a few with little effort? Try out King Cake Hub, which stocks king cakes from a variety of bakeries. Here’s Eater’s list of the very best king cakes.
This latest update by Stephanie Carter includes new additions, including Mr. Bubbles and NOCCA. The bakeries are listed in geographical order from east to west.
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