NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – King’s Day marks the beginning of Carnival season and is also the official time to begin scarfing down those dense pastries loaded with icing and sugar known as king cakes.
While New Orleans’ version of King Cake dates back to as early as the 1870s, those early cakes probably had little in common with the current flavored and stuffed versions you see today. While the current King Cake – both traditional and filled – can be found nearly anywhere, my favorite spots to get my king cake fix are our local bakeries throughout the city. One bakery that is doing great king cakes of all sizes and flavors is Chez Rurene in Harahan.
We stopped by Chez Rurene on King’s Day with a special guest. My son, Seth, was born on King’s Day (January 6) in 2016. He is our own little king cake baby. So who better to share Devour Power’s first king cake of the Carnival season with than Seth?
The king cake at Chez Rurene is a dense golden cake with an admirable amount of cinnamon swirled throughout.
It is covered with that thick, sweet white icing that covers many a king cakes and a decent (but not overwhelming) amount of purple, green and gold sugar.
The fine folks at Chez Rurene tell us that they spend the season churning out traditional king cakes along with many, many filled variations of the King Cake. Flavors include cream cheese, strawberry, lemon, apple and the rest of the usual suspects.
The day we stopped by they offered us a king cake filled with a Kahlua and cream filling. They also told us that if a customer requests a flavor or flavor combination that they will do their very best to honor the request provided they can actually pull it off.
King cakes come in a variety of sizes, from personal king cakes (the size of a doughnut) to small, medium, large and extra-large.
So there is certainly a size to fit one’s serving needs. The bakery has cakes out and ready for folks that might just drop in, and they also will fill orders that are phoned in.