[Sca-cooks] King Cakes/Twelfth Night Cakes

[david friedman]

Up to last Tuesday I have been making king cakes. For those
unfamiliar with them, these are a modern New Orleans custom--a sweet
bread with cinnamon sugar rolled into it, formed into a ring, and
slathered after baking with icing and colored sugar (yellow, green,
and purple). You can buy them in any bakery there during Epiphany
season (Twelfth Night to Mardi Gras); baked into each is a small
plastic baby. Someone brings one into the office or whatever to
share; whoever gets the piece with the baby in it has to bring the
king cake next week.

I've heard of traditional Twelfth Night cakes, where there is a bean
or something baked into it and whoever gets the bean is king for the
day, and I have been told that of course this goes way back
in history, by the usual undocumented hearsay-type sources. Does
anyone know of any actual period references to this custom?

Elizabeth/Betty Cook