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 Mexico, 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, on the southeast Texas island of Galveston, 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.
Read more about King Cake: History, Gulf Coast King Cake, King Cake in Spanish-speaking Countries, French King Cake, Trinket
Famous quotes containing the words king and/or cake:
“Our king went forth to Normandy,
With grace and might of chivalry,
The God for him wrought marvellously,
Wherefore England may call and cry
Deo gratias, Deo gratias Anglia
Redde pro victoria.”
—Unknown. The Agincourt Carol (l. 1–6)
““It is such a beautiful day I had to write you a letter
From the tower, and to show I’m not mad:
I only slipped on the cake of soap of the air
And drowned in the bathtub of the world....””
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)