How King Cake Became A Mardi Gras Icon

The city of New Orleans is famed throughout the world for its unique history and local culture, renowned culinary scene, and iconically raucous celebrations — most notably Mardi Gras, which is celebrated throughout Carnival season and gets especially intense in the weeks leading up to Shrove Tuesday (the day before the start of Christian Lent). New Orleans offers plenty of culinary traditions to participate in year-round, from enjoying beignets and chicory coffee in the French Quarter to dining at the city's legendary haunted restaurants, but if you visit during Mardi Gras, there's one colorful dessert you won't be able to escape: king cake.

King cake can take different shapes and contain decadent surprises, but it's best known in its traditional form: a sweet bread baked in a circular crown shape and dressed in the traditional Mardi Gras colors of gold, purple, and green. King cake also usually comes with a small baby figurine hidden inside, though this tradition only began in the 1940s, decades after people in New Orleans started celebrating the holiday with king cakes. Finding the baby makes you the king or queen of the day and also means you are expected to throw the next king cake party (ah, the pressures of royalty!).

Unlike other traditional holiday foods, king cakes are usually outsourced rather than made at home, and many New Orleanians are loyal to their longtime bakery of choice. Their origin can be traced back to European Christian traditions, but in the Mardi Gras capital, king cakes have taken on a life and significance of their own.

Though most of us probably associate Mardi Gras with grand spectacle, colorful parades, and wild parties, it is celebrated by Christians around the world in various forms to mark the final days before the start of Lent, a period of fasting and repentance. In many Christian societies, Carnival season begins with Epiphany, the 12th day after Christmas on January 6, when the wise men (or three kings) were said to have come to Bethlehem bearing gifts. Some European cultures, such as the French, have been commemorating this day with their own version of king cake since at least the 12th century. Those European king cakes often included a bean, coin, or other trinket hidden inside, which was later replaced with a baby figurine to represent the Baby Jesus.

It's clear that the Louisiana-style king cakes that have become a Mardi Gras staple are a successor to this established tradition, but the iconic version we know today wasn't solidified until the mid-20th century. By then, king cakes had already become an important part of Mardi Gras celebrations and a specialty of commercial bakeries in New Orleans. One such establishment, McKenzie's, was owned by Donald Entringer, a baker who happened upon a supply of tiny porcelain dolls and decided to bake them into his cakes at the behest of a Carnival krewe. When he ran out of porcelain, he eventually switched to plastic babies, and the king cake as we know it was established. In the years since, bakeries have added fillings, colorful designs, and even revolutionized their form factor in an effort to up the ante in the grandiose Mardi Gras spirit.