Houston has a strong connection to New Orleans, both due to their proximity and also due to the large number of former residents of New Orleans who resettled in Houston after Hurricane Katrina. But although I have heard for years about Mardi Gras, it is only recently that I learned about King Cakes. This year at the grocery story, in the papers, and especially the teacher's lounge, there were King Cakes everywhere. People would ask each other, "Did someone already get the baby?" This is a rather unusual question to ask in the teacher's lounge, so I was forced to investigate.
I asked our principal secretary, and she sent me this story:
The main thread to the story is that the cake represents the 3 kings who traveled to meet baby Jesus. The baby in the cake represents Jesus. The cake is shaped into an oval and the dough in entwined to represent the circuitous route taken by the 3 kings to see the baby and it also represents unity of all Christians. The tradition used to be that the person finding the baby was crowned king of the 12th night celebration. In more modern times, the person getting the baby is supposed to host the next party.
The colors: green – represents faith, purple - represents justice and gold is power or royalty.
Pretty cool? King cakes are a sort of sweet bread covered in glaze. I decided the girls and I should make our own low-fat version of the King Cake to prepare for Lent, and just to kill some time one evening while Brady and Bill were at baseball practice.
I found a recipe online for a King Cake that was more like an Angel Food cake than a sweet bread (and was low fat), so we decided to go with that one. KC mixed the ingredients:
Abby grated some lemon zest for us:
And . . . side note, quickly. I don't know if you can see the plastic bag next to Abby. Her hands get very chapped in the winter, and squeezing lemons with chapped hands is very painful. She used the baggie as a glove, but insisted on taking it off while I took her picture. Either brave or crazy - I'll let you decide.
We decided against actually cooking a plastic baby in the cake, so we used giant gumballs instead. In the stories I hear, whoever gets the baby has to bring the next King Cake. We decided that whoever found the gumball would be the "King" of our celebration. Then I hid 3 gumballs in the cake, because I didn't want them to fight over them.
Anyway, we baked the cake and prepared the glaze.
Once it had baked and cooled a bit, the girls drizzled the glaze over it:
Then added purple, yellow, and green sprinkles:
And we were ready to go. Bill's brother and his wife lived in New Orleans for many years (she still does, Joe passed away in 2003), so they used to bring the kids authentic Mardi Gras beads, which we still have tons of. So I dragged out the beads and threw them at the kids, the kids threw them at each other, really, any excuse to throw things in our house is met with much joy. When Bill and Brady got home, we threw beads at him (you have to catch Brady off guard, and then run, because he throws very hard). The girls both found gumballs, so we had two queens of our celebration!
Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez! Let the good times roll!
BTW - Cookie the bunny only wore the beads for a few seconds for the picture and only under direct supervision. He was never in any danger of choking.
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