King Cake: A royal cake for a crazy winter's day

Mardi Gras King Cake

Happy Mardi Gras y'all. Today's a day to live it up before you give it up on Ash Wednesday.

We recently were treated to some fun Carnival activities in Shreveport, including visiting one of the city's most popular businesses this time of year — Lilah's. This family-owned business creates delicious king cakes, an essential element of Carnival and one of the Louisiana food groups (well, we think so).

These sugar-topped creations date back to France and the celebrations surrounding Twelfth Night, or Jan. 6, which is the beginning of the Carnival season. The king cake signifies the coming of the three wise men to the baby Jesus 12 days after his birth. Jan. 6 is also known as the Feast of the Epiphany or King's Day.

In Louisiana, we start enjoying king cakes on Jan. 6 at the start of Carnival and continue eating these decadent pastries through Mardi Gras, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. They come in various flavors and styles, some plain with only sugar toppings, some filled with goodness like fruit fillings or cream cheese. Some really adventurous, such as the boudin king cake and the peanut butter and chocolate. And some people have loads of fun with the tradition, such as Alky Therapy Daiquiris, which makes an 18-ounce King Cake Daiquiri complete with king cake slice, king cake cupcake, fleur de lis candy and king cake vodka. 

King cakes traditionally included a small plastic baby (in earlier times it was a bean or a porcelain king) and whoever gets the baby in their slice of king cake must buy the next cake. Nowadays, because a few people were surprised to bite into a small plastic baby and some broke teeth, bakeries place the baby in the cake box and let you insert it yourself.

Want to see how it's done? We got an inside peek into how Lilah's makes their cakes. This small bakery produces 400-600 king cakes a day during Carnival, producing about 12,000 for the entire Carnival season! The family does so well during Carnival that it's now their only business.

Let us show you what we saw.

The round dough is put through a machine to flatten it out.

Mark places the dough on a table.

Julie adds two scoops of cream cheese filling.

The filling is flattened out and praline crumbles added.

The dough is rolled...

...and made into a circle.

Then brushed and placed into the ovens 

to become pralines 'n' cream king cakes.

Lilah's can bake 100 king cakes in an hour.

Here's what they look like baked.

Buttercream icing goes on top.

Then sugar sprinkles 

in Mardi Gras colors.

Babies are included. Beads too.

The final product. 

Flavors run the gamut, 

like this tiramisu.

Talk about good!!

Gluten-free king cakes are also available.

They taste more like a king cake scone.

Lilah's is run by Lisa and Sopan Tike

 with help from their daughter Lila.

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen, an avid lover of all things Carnival and yes, she drank all 18 ounces of that king cake daiquiri. 

She wishes you all a very Happy Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras beads grow on trees

Drive through most South Louisiana towns and look up and you’ll see a plethora of Mardi Gras beads hanging from tree boughs. These unusual growths are especially prominent during the Carnival season, which happens from Jan. 6 until Mardi Gras, which is today (Feb. 13, 2018), the Tuesday before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.

These plastic creations grow on trees down here, which is where we get the beads to throw off Mardi Gras floats during the long Carnival season.

You didn’t think we bought them from China, did you? 
      

Mardi Gras beads are particularly fond of our massive live oak trees that spread out over the parade routes. We find all kinds, too, and not just those little cheapy beads we want to throw back at float riders.

Those grow on shrubbery.

What? You’re saying the beads get caught in the trees after being thrown off Mardi Gras floats and stay there all year long?

I don’t think so.

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by award-winning Louisiana food and travel writer Chere Dastugue Coen, who absolutely adores Mardi Gras.

This is how we roll in South Louisiana

Carnival in South Louisiana and outlying regions such as the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Mobile is made up of many “krewes” that host Carnival balls and parades, all leading up to the big day of Mardi Gras, which this year (2018) is Tuesday, Feb. 13. For those watching this revelry on TV it might appear as decadent chaos but underneath the fun it’s highly organized and doesn't change too much from year to year.

But occasionally, Carnival fun arises organically, groups that come together to fill an open spot for a parade, for instance, or to create an event in a non-utilized part of town. Take the Krewe de Canailles, for instance, in Lafayette, Louisiana, a town that has a regular parade schedule on streets bounded by barricades for safety reasons. People in Lafayette hate these barricades because they screw up traffic the rest of the time. The Krewe de Canailles formed as a non-profit group made up of “sub-krewes” to parade along streets without barricades and to fill an empty spot on the Friday before Mardi Gras.

 

Lost Bayou Ramblers

The word in Cajun French means “mischievous, tricky, shrewd,” a perfect description for a group of about 200 people in mocking costumes walking through town, throwing beads and other craziness to onlookers. The krewe parades for the first time this year on Friday, Feb. 9, beginning at 7 p.m. at the downtown Lafayette archway. New Natives Brass Band leads the parade as it travels the length of downtown’s Jefferson Street, through the historic Freetown-Port Rico neighborhood and ends with a party — of course — at an event space called Warehouse 535 where the Lost Bayou Ramblers will perform, a band that just won a Grammy for “Best Regional Roots Album.”

Costumes are expected to be unique with tongue-in-cheek nods to local celebrities and the like with unusual but sustainable and handmade throws and wooden doubloons. Spectators are encouraged to bring flashlights, costumes and noisemakers to the parade route.

Want to learn more? Check out this local newscast featuring the krewe's organizers. 

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen who loves a wild and unusual Mardi Gras parade.

File under 'Only in New Orleans:' receiving French feves with Bombay Club Ojen Carnival cocktails

Mardi Gras is only one week away and here’s a new cocktail to enjoy during Carnival festivities, thanks to The Bombay Club. The Ojen Cocktail features Legendre Ojen, a liqueur flavored with anise, and is now the unofficial krewe cocktail for the Rex Organization, and the drink used to toast the King of Carnival on Mardi Gras Day.

But if you’re wondering what the Rex business is all about, here’s a quick explanation. Krewes are organizations that host Carnival balls and parades in New Orleans. The Krewe of Rex is one of the city’s oldest and most prominent (the Mardi Gras colors, doubloons and other traditions date back to Rex) and on Mardi Gras Day, the Rex king toasts the Queen of Carnival at the reviewing stand at the Hotel Intercontinental of New Orleans.

Back to that cocktail – Ojen was first produced in the mid-1800s by a distiller in Spain, but the production of the liqueur ended when the distillery closed in the late 1980’s. The Sazerac Company revived the classic cocktail with a new production here in the United States in early 2016. (Read more here.)

“Ojen had gained popularity in New Orleans at the beginning of the last century, and over time had become the standby cocktail, especially during Carnival season,” said Bombay Club Bar Manager Blake Kaiser in a recent press release. “In fact, some believed that New Orleans’ consumption of Ojen surpassed that of all of Spain, and considering that New Orleanians like a good drink every now and then, I’d believe it.”

Kaiser serves the Ojen Cocktail up with a traditional French feve. Similar to tiny babies found in New Orleans king cakes during Carnival, the fève is a porcelain trinket. Like king cakes, in which the person who nabs the baby must buy the next king cake, the person who finds the feve becomes “king (or queen) for the day” and must provide the next Ojen Cocktail. The Bombay Club feves are musically themed figurines, and a full collection makes up a 10-piece jazz band.

“We just thought this was a fun way to celebrate our favorite holiday in New Orleans,” said Kaiser. “If you get all ten, it’s a great collection, and it’s a unique souvenir by which to remember carnival 2017.”

THE BOMBAY CLUB OJEN COCKTAIL RECIPE
2 ounces Legendre Ojen
7 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
1/2 ounce Orgeat or Simple Syrup

Method: Fill a rocks glass with crushed ice. Pour Ojen over the ice and add four dashes of Peychaud's bitters, then swizzle. Fill with more crushed ice and top with three more dashes of Peychaud's. Swizzle until the glass frosts.

Cheré Dastugue Coen is a food and travel writer living in South Louisiana who is the author of several Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire and the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.