Sweet potato take on classic Mardi Gras king cake
A king cake (sometimes rendered as kingcake, kings’ cake, king’s cake, or three kings cake) is a type of cake associated with the festival of Epiphany in the Christmas season in a number of countries, and in other places with the pre-Lenten celebrations of Mardi Gras / Carnival. It is a popular food item during the Christmas season (Christmas Eve to Epiphany) in France, Belgium, Quebec and Switzerland (galette or gâteau des Rois), Portugal (bolo rei), Spain and Spanish America (roscón or rosca de reyes and tortell in Catalonia), Greece and Cyprus (vasilopita) and Bulgaria (banitsa).
In the United States, Carnival is traditionally observed in the Southeastern region of the country, particularly in Mobile, Alabama, the towns and cities of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, southern Louisiana and New Orleans. In this region, the king cake is closely associated with Mardi Gras traditions and is served throughout the Carnival season, which lasts from Epiphany Eve to Fat Tuesday.
The cake has a small trinket (often a small plastic baby, said to represent Baby Jesus) inside (or sometimes placed underneath), and the person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket has various privileges and obligations.
When I moved to New Orleans, I discovered that this was a city that — at least in terms of food — was a world to itself.
Many of its foods had little in common with those of the South I grew up in. Nearly everything was new and exciting and exotic. Some things, like the sherry-rich turtle soup and the spillway crayfish, I loved. Others, like the alligator sausage, I could never quite get used to.
But the thing I loved best was the Mardi Gras king cake. The original puff pastry version of “la galette des rois” was made by the occasional “French” bakery and was a simple, yet sophisticated affair with a beautiful flaky dough powdered with sugar. And, of course, a ceramic “baby” baked into it.
But the modern day king cake is a sweet Louisiana extravaganza and comes in more than 60 different “coffee-cake” like flavors, including king Creole pecan, apple, strawberry cream cheese, Bavarian cream and pina colada.
It is shaped like a great big baked donut and has a plastic baby stuck into the cake before it is decorated in purple (representing justice), green (representing faith) and gold (representing power) icing or sugar. The king cake party tradition dictates that the person who gets the baby in his or her slice must host the next king cake party during Mardi Gras season.
During Mardi Gras, I would have a king cake party almost every day, and over the course of a few years I tried almost every flavor made.
My favorite bakery boasted a “queen cake” made with Louisiana sweet potatoes. It was my favorite. And every year since moving away, I crave it.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I could take all the rich flavors of my favorite “queen cake” and make a sweet potato bread pudding (also very popular in New Orleans). I use stale raisin bread to achieve the cinnamon coffee-cake like flavor and texture of king cake, and baked garnet sweet potato puree to make the bread pudding custard rich and moist.
I also honor the revelry of Mardi Gras by topping it with whiskey hard sauce while it is still warm.
Whiskey hard sauce is one of my favorite secrets to dressing up almost any warm cake, pie or pudding. Contrary to what it sounds like, it’s not actually a sauce. It’s more like a spread, until you put it on a hot dessert and the butter and sugar and whiskey melt and become a heady “sauce” that is truly the icing on the cake.
Hide a “baby” in the bread pudding once it comes out of the oven and before you ice it with the hard sauce, then carry on the Mardi Gras tradition.
SWEET POTATO BREAD PUDDING WITH WHISKEY HARD SAUCE
Want to prep ahead? The bread pudding can be made the day before it is baked and stored, tightly covered, in the refrigerator.
Start to finish: 1 hour 15 minutes (20 minutes active)
baking with Bill & Sheila
_____________________________________________________________________
If you require a high quality printout of this article, just click on the printer symbol next to ’Share and enjoy’, and we will do the rest. This site is hosted by (click on the graphic for more information)
Return from king cake to Home Page
If you want to increase your site popularity and gain thousands of visitors – check out these sites THEY ARE FREE. Spanishchef more than doubled its ‘New Visitors’ last month simply by signing up to these sites:
Follow spanishchef.net on TWITTER
