It’s already time for the first holiday season of 2017 here at the bakery – Mardi Gras season! It kicks off every year on January 6, but the length of the season varies on the date of Fat Tuesday. This year, we are lucky to have a long Mardi Gras season since Fat Tuesday does not fall until February 28.
We used to make our king cakes based on our coffee rings, but we knew that was not really right. Our recipe also used a granulated sugar rather than the more traditional sanding sugar that most people associated with King Cake.
But one year, we decided that it needed to be as good as everything else we sold – so we made the trip to New Orleans with our retail bakeries group during Mardi Gras season to try out nine different bakeries. We ate a LOT of King Cake! Then, we brought them home to have a taste test at the bakery and vote on which style we liked the best. After some tweaking based on the results, Three Brothers Bakery now offers what is widely considered to be one of the best King Cakes in town.
Now that we have the taste down, we are enjoying the chance to play around with the color, shape and style! A few years ago, we rolled out the King Cake Cheesecake, which replaces our traditional graham cracker crust with a delicious King Cake.
This year, with a big game coming up here in town, we could not resist the chance to craft a King Cake in the shape of a football.
An added benefit of the lengthy wait to Fat Tuesday is the fact that Valentine’s Day falls in Mardi Gras season. If you’re looking for something more original than the usual chocolate and roses, might I recommend our heart-shaped King Cake with red and pink sprinkles as a more out of the box alternative?
Maybe you could even swap out the baby for a ring if you’re planning to pop the question. But that’s a topic for my next blog post in February, when I’ll be telling some fun stories about proposals I’ve been present to witness in honor of Valentine’s Day.
