celebrated in the early 1700s. Nobody knows for sure just when Epiphany and Carnival and King Cakes all came together. Most of us are just happy that they did.
Our King Cakes are decorated in the traditional Mardi Gras colors ─ gold (for power), green (for faith), and purple (for justice). Traditionally, a small plastic baby symbolizing the infant Jesus is hidden in the cake. It’s supposed to bring luck to the person who finds it, but also the obligation to provide the next cake.
Donald Entringer Sr., a Metairie baker, is usually credited with substituting a baby for the traditional bean. In the 1940s. according to most accounts, he was asked by a Carnival krewe to hide prizes in some King Cakes. He added the tiny babies to his batter and a tradition was born.
Some sources say the tradition began earlier than that, but it couldn’t have been much earlier because tiny plastic babies weren’t widely available until after World War II. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Haydel’s Bakery in New Orleans created the world’s largest King Cake in 2010. It took 28 full-time employees to make two cakes huge enough to go around the Superdome.
Both rings of the cakes were recordbreaking: One weighed 4,073 pounds, shattering the old record held by a Houston bakery; the other ring weighed 4,068 pounds. Guinness didn’t say how the cakes were weighed or who did it, but it surely was an unwieldy (if not imprecise) process. Guiness is also silent on whether there was baby in the cake, but I know a few folks who might have kept eating until they found out.
There probably wasn’t one. Where are you going to find a plastic baby big enough for a two-ton cake? Besides, a lot of bakers nowadays just send a baby alongside the cake, not baked into it. Their lawyers or OSHA or some authority worried that somebody might choke on one that is hidden.
That’s fine with me, for the same reason some people favor Martinis without olives. Why would you want to take up room with a plastic bauble when it could be filled with the good stuff?
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at [email protected] or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.
