NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The official start of the carnival season, Twelfth Night, is days away, and an early Mardi Gras means local bakeries have less time to bake the king cakes.
WGNO’s Kenny Lopez went to Haydel’s Bakery to see how it is preparing for a hectic Mardi Gras season.
It’s dough time at Haydel’s Bakery, where the staff is mixing the frosting and braiding the bread!
“It is just getting wound up. We braid it the old-fashioned way,” said the co-owner of Haydel’s Bakery in Jefferson, David Haydel.
All this work is to create carnival’s sweet treat, king cakes!
“So, the cinnamon gets mixed all the way through. It adds the flavor to the dough,” he said.
It is a full-speed operation here at Haydel’s, where the staff starts baking the king cakes around midnight every day during carnival.
“We will be slaughtered from now to the end of Mardi Gras,” he said.
Haydel started making and baking king cakes with his dad when he was 11 years old, back in 1959, when Haydel’s Bakery first opened. He hasn’t stopped since.
“We still do it the old-fashioned way. The dough gets the fermentation it needs. We don’t rush it,” Haydel said.
Yet, the rush is on with it being a shorter carnival season because Mardi Gras is earlier this year, but he says the bakery is prepared.
“We start preparing in the middle of summer. We order the supplies,” he said.
Haydel says at the beginning of carnival, the staff will make about 3,000 king cakes a day, but by the weekend before Mardi Gras, they’ll be making around 8,000 king cakes a day.
“King cake season, they buy king cake. It is the main one item, constantly,” he said.
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