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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb. Here, we humans mark our

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Speaker 1: holidays with glee, cheer, and often mouth watering desserts. Enter

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Speaker 1: the New Orleans kincake, the frosted coffee cake like sweet

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Speaker 1: roll typically eaten between January six and Fat Tuesday, which

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Speaker 1: is the day before Lent begins. It's a staple of

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Speaker 1: the Mardi Grass season. For those unfamiliar with this festive dessert,

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Speaker 1: the New Orleans version is often made of rich Danish

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Speaker 1: style dough, braided and shaped into a large ring, and

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Speaker 1: often with one or a variety of fillings I think cinnamon, sugar, chocolate,

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Speaker 1: raspberry preserves, chopped sugar cons or sweetened cream cheese. It's

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Speaker 1: usually covered in a sweet glaze or frosting and decorated

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Speaker 1: with gold, green, and purple sugar or icing, and of course,

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Speaker 1: hidden somewhere within the tender layers of this frosted treat

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Speaker 1: is a small plastic baby which sounds real beard if

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Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar. So let's back up a little, because the

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Speaker 1: origins of kincake go way back, and yes, there are

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Speaker 1: kings involved. Kincake derives from the holiday three Kings Day,

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Speaker 1: also called Epiphany, which is a Christian feast day celebrated

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Speaker 1: on January six, which is the day after the twelfth

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Speaker 1: Day of Christmas. This holiday celebrates the biblical tale of

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Speaker 1: the Three Kings a k a. The Three Wise Men

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Speaker 1: or magi visiting the baby Jesus. It kicks off the

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Speaker 1: mardy Gras or carnival season, which lasts until the first

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Speaker 1: day of Lent, which is a moving holiday that falls

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Speaker 1: forty days before Easter. Anyway, the Three Kings are why

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Speaker 1: kincakes are a seasonal treat in the shape of a

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Speaker 1: crown or a more or less circular band anyway, those

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Speaker 1: three colors they're decorated with are symbolic purple for justice,

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Speaker 1: green for faith, and gold for power, and tradition holds

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Speaker 1: that the plastic baby in the cake represents Jesus. Just

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Speaker 1: as Jesus showed himself to the Three Wise Men, he

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Speaker 1: will show himself to those enjoying kincake. Whoever finds the

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Speaker 1: baby in their slices crowned king or queen for a day,

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Speaker 1: or hosts the next Mardy Grass celebration, or at least

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Speaker 1: buys the cake next year. It's a lucky token other tokens, coins,

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Speaker 1: peas pecans, beans were what was up in the past

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Speaker 1: and may still show up. Hundreds of thousands of kincakes

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Speaker 1: are sold out of New Orleans every Mardy Grass season.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't track down a firm total, but the big

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Speaker 1: commercial bakeries ramp up to producing three thousand, five hundred

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Speaker 1: kincakes per day at their busiest. The Danish style dough

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Speaker 1: is the most popular, but it's not the only kind.

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Speaker 1: Either flakier or fluffier dough can sometimes be found, and

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Speaker 1: New Orleans isn't the only place to serve kincakes by far.

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Speaker 1: In northern France you can find gallette de roy, a

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Speaker 1: flaky puff pastry with sweet almond filling. Bulgaria and Greece

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Speaker 1: have similar dishes traditionally served around the New Year, but

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Speaker 1: the doing No Orleans kincake is closer to the ghetau

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Speaker 1: de roi from southern France made with brioche, and the

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Speaker 1: rosca de rays from Spain, a ing of sweetbread topped

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Speaker 1: with icing and candied fruit, which makes sense given the

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Speaker 1: Spanish and Southern French settlers and colonists who got the

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Speaker 1: city started in the seventeen hundreds. But Mardi Gras and

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Speaker 1: other carnival celebrations have roots that go way back. People

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Speaker 1: have been celebrating the end of winter and the return

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Speaker 1: of longer, warmer days uh forever since the first brave

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Speaker 1: human who dared to celebrate Ancient Babylonia may have held

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Speaker 1: the first carnival circa two thousand, six hundred BC. This

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Speaker 1: was a festival that celebrated in mirth and change through

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Speaker 1: satire by making a show of role reversals. There would

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Speaker 1: be a parade through the streets, a pair of peasants

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Speaker 1: would be royalty for the day, and royalty would act

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Speaker 1: like fools. Pranks were played, Folks would wear costumes depicting

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Speaker 1: social classes other than their own, and everyone partied. Sounded

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Speaker 1: little familiar. These traditions were incorporated into and or disseminated

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Speaker 1: through Grecian and Roman cultural traditions. The first kingcakes may

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Speaker 1: go all the way back to ancient Rome. As part

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Speaker 1: of the Libration of Saturnalia, a winter solstice and harvest festival,

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Speaker 1: a pastry would be baked with a fava bean hidden inside,

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Speaker 1: and the finder would be named King for the day.

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Speaker 1: The tradition became a part of Epiphany celebrations in the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages, the fava bean was sometimes replaced by a

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Speaker 1: porcelain token of a crowned head to take some of

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Speaker 1: the pagan out of it. When Spain France spread their

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Speaker 1: outposts to the America's, the king cake tradition came with

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Speaker 1: them and took on a life of its own, particularly

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Speaker 1: in New Orleans. The baby trinket didn't come along until

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Speaker 1: a bakery called Mackenzie's came up with the idea in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. At first, these figures were made out

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Speaker 1: of porcelain and baked inside the cake, but were eventually

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Speaker 1: replaced with plastic, which comes alongside the cake, due to

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Speaker 1: you know, concerns about baking plastic. These early cakes were

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Speaker 1: more brioche like or pendus like and didn't have filling.

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Speaker 1: That didn't come around until the nineteen eighties, as bakers

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Speaker 1: began adding more eggs and sugar to their recipes or

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Speaker 1: straight up switching to Danish pastry recipes, and anecdotal tail

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Speaker 1: puts the first commercial filled kincakes in New Orleans to

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Speaker 1: nine eight three. According to baker Joan Seaman. That year

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Speaker 1: her bakery baked four filled cakes. Her husband took one

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Speaker 1: to work, and they got twenty five calls about filled

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Speaker 1: cakes within thirty minutes. Through the nineteen eighties and nineties,

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Speaker 1: Cajun and Creole food became national trends, and shipping technology

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Speaker 1: improved as well, allowing for more or less affordable overnight shipping. Then,

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Speaker 1: in two thousand four, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina honed

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Speaker 1: New Orleans sense of community history and pride, and both

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Speaker 1: local and national hunger for these traditional dishes, which means

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Speaker 1: that celebrants have a veritable glut of kincake options today,

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Speaker 1: miniature kingcakes, kincake doughnuts, kincake vodka, kincake bourbon milk punch,

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Speaker 1: kincake smoothies, and, of course, in a city that loves

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Speaker 1: a party, a whole Kincake Festival held in late January.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by myself and Annie Reese, with

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Speaker 1: a hat tip to House to Work writer Jeremy Glass.

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Speaker 1: It was produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: lots of other curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.