The History of King Cake

Lola MagazineCommunity, Don Tubbs

Do you know the history of king cakes?

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season. It falls on a different day each year because Mardi Gras Day is calculated by counting forty days and seven Sundays back on the calendar from Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday always falls on the first Sunday that follows the first full moon of the spring. The Carnival season begins January 6 (12 days after Christmas) on “Twelfth Night” and concludes on Mardi Gras Day. In Northwest Louisiana, we commemorate the official kickoff of the Carnival season with a community-wide party sponsored by the local krewes. 

On almost every night that follows January 6 until Mardi Gras Day, there is some sort of Carnival-related activity. In Northwest Louisiana, a Mardi Gras event would not be complete without a Tubbs X-Treme King Cake.

In many Christian countries, the coming of the Wise Men bearing gifts is celebrated 12 days after Christmas. The celebration, called “Epiphany” (The Enlightenment), is a time of exchanging gifts and feasting. All over the world people gather for festive Twelfth Night celebrations. One of the most popular customs is still the baking of a special cake in honor of the three kings… “A King’s Cake.” 

Tradition has now evolved through time to obligate the person who receives the baby, which represents the Christ child, (and is inside every king cake), to continue the festivities by hosting another king cake party. Originally, king cakes were a simple ring of dough with little decoration.

Tubbs King Cakes are much more. They are made with moist pastry dough that is baked and covered with an extreme amount of filling and cream cheese icing decorated in the traditional Mardi Gras sugars: purple representing justice, green representing faith, and gold representing power. Hundreds of thousands of king cakes are consumed at parties every year, making the king cake one of the finest Louisiana traditions.

Tubbs King Cakes are delivered in a beautifully decorated box with the history of the king cake printed on the side.

Tubbs X-Treme King Cake
Tubbs X-Treme King Cake feeds 14-16 people or 10-12 Cajuns.

King Cakes are typically very dry, but our X-treme King Cakes turn the traditional recipe upside down. We use a moist pastry dough and an extreme amount of quality fillings.

Tubbs 2018 King Cake Flavors:
• Traditional Cinnamon
• Extreme Cream Cheese
• Strawberry Cream Cheese
• Blueberry Cream Cheese

Tubbs X-Treme King Cakes are by far the best! They are available online and ship nationwide. For questions, call our Bossier City location at (318) 746-0311 between 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. CST.