64 Parishes

King Cake

King cakes are a sweet bread or pastry usually decorated in purple, green, and gold.

by Rien Fertel

This entry is 1st Grade level   View Full Entry

King Cake

Wikimedia Commons

King Cake, 2008.

King cake is a round, braided, sweet cinnamon pastry or bread that is eaten during Carnival season across Louisiana, especially in New Orleans. King cakes are usually decorated with icing or sprinkles in purple, green, and gold, the three colors of Mardi Gras. The king cake tradition probably came to New Orleans from Europe. Catholic settlers ate their own version of king cakes to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. The celebration, which is also called Twelfth Night, remembers the evening that three kings visited the baby Jesus twelve nights after Christmas.

Historically each Catholic culture that participated in the king cake tradition usually filled their cakes with a tiny prize: a bean, a piece of candy, a coin or charm, or a little porcelain doll representing the baby Jesus. Now most modern king cakes come with a plastic baby as the prize.

 

 

 

Author

Rien Fertel

Additional Data

Entry Published June 27, 2023
Entry Last Updated June 28, 2023
Coverage 1871–present
Category
Topics
Regions Central Louisiana, Greater New Orleans, Orleans, Northeast Louisiana, Northwest Louisiana, Southeast Louisiana (Florida Parishes), Southwest Louisiana (Acadiana)
Time Periods Bourbon Era, Contemporary Period, Late-20th Century, Long Era, Reconstruction Period
Index letter K
Louisiana K­–12
Student Standard(s) for Social Studies 		1.8 e.

1.8 Identify examples of Louisiana culture, including: 

e. Traditions: lagniappe, second line parades, king cake, red beans and rice on Mondays 
Adapted From The text of "King Cake" is adapted from the following 64 Parishes encyclopedia entry or entries:
"King Cake" by Rien Fertel
Credit This material was created through a partnership between the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the Louisiana Department of Education with funding provided by the Louisiana Department of Education and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license (CC BY-NC-SA).