King Cake Inspires Creative Twists

King cake rules over New Orleans in the weeks before Mardi Gras, a beloved, edible symbol of the anything-goes vibe of Carnival in the Crescent City.

Ring-shaped, gaudily decorated with golds, greens and purples, and always containing a hidden trinket of some sort, often a tiny plastic baby, the king cake is a tradition as firmly rooted in French culture as New Orleans itself. That said, the iconic treat is increasingly open to interpretation and embellishment, as the city's home cooks, pastry chefs and bakeries put their own spin on it.

"King cake identifies us as a culture and a people," says John Besh, a New Orleans restaurateur and cookbook author who grew up across Lake Pontchartrain in Slidell, La. "Every culture identifies with something. We're drawn to food; richer or poor, it draws us together."

King cake has to be one of the few foods left in the world that has a definite season. In New Orleans, king cake is served only during Carnival season, which began Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany or Twelfth Night, and ends famously on Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. (Mardi Gras falls on Feb. 12 this year.)

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