My first recipe of 2025 is a favorite in my dear city of New Orleans. King cake should only be made and served between January 6th and Mardi Gras, so assemble your ingredients and kick off the season on the 6th.
These days almost anything round and edible can be called a king cake, but I’d always been a traditionalist - no filling, classic cinnamon flavor. I didn’t offer king cake the first few years I had the bakery, but when I decided to create one, I wanted to take those traditional flavors and put my spin on them. So, the king cake pound cake was born. I love that it is more cake than bread, but is still close to the classic king cakes I grew up with.
Locally, I buy my purple, green, and gold sugar and king cake babies at Szabo's on the West Bank, but Country Kitchen is a great source for online ordering the sugars and other cake and cookie decorating items. I like to add fancy gold sprinkles or edible glitter to the top of the cake. Mardi Gras is definitely not a minimalist holiday.
I have instructions for using both a classic metal bundt cake pan and the disposable paper bundt pans, which we used in the bakery and are great for making several king cakes at once. The metal bundt pans hold more batter and bake for a shorter amount of time. The paper are a bit smaller and therefore quite full-make sure you have a pan underneath to catch any over flow.
I’m publishing some of my favorite recipes over the next few weeks, so make sure you’ve subscribed to receive the emails. I will be traveling and have intermittent wifi so make not be able to answer baking question immediately. Happy Mardi Gras season!
