Mardi Gras is destined to be a bittersweet event, this year, so in a show of sugarcoated solidarity with New Orleans, I'm providing a recipe for the traditional Mardi Gras king cake.

King cake is a cinnamon scented, brioche-like cake topped with green, gold, and purple-colored sugars and icing. A tiny object, usually a baby doll, is traditionally tucked inside; whoever finds it is dubbed “the king,” and is awarded the distinction of having to supply the next year's king cake (sounds like more of a trick than a treat, to me).

The cake dates back to pre-Medieval Europe, where it commemorated the Eve of the Epiphany, when the three Kings bestowed their gifts on the baby Jesus. French settlers brought the king cake to Louisiana and variations of it have been baked ever since. King cakes have grown especially popular in the past thirty years, becoming an obligatory Mardi Gras ritual for many.

Bakeries and supermarkets in New Orleans offer king cakes throughout the Carnival season. Fat Tuesday, the last day to use up all the fat in your pantry before Ash Wednesday, is the final day to enjoy a king cake, whose current purple, green, and gold-sugared incarnation dates back to 1872, when those were declared the official colors of Mardi Gras by the Rex Krewe.

Nowadays, the first color that comes to mind when you think of New Orleans is blue, as in blue tarps. But I just couldn't see icing my king cake in blue. The Mardi Gras colors stand for justice (purple), faith (green), and power (gold.) New Orleans, and its neighbors, could use a massive infusion of all of the above right now.

And, though I often modify the fat content of recipes in the name of healthy cooking, I can't think of a better time to use a whole stick of butter than Fat Tuesday eve. If not now, when?

The king cake recipes I found on the internet ran the gamut from labor intensive (a lot of sifting and kneading) to lazy (relying on Pillsbury cinnamon roll dough), but I found a recipe that was fairly easy to make, although the ratios for the icing were wildly off (I think they meant 3-6 tablespoons of water, not 36. Any confectioner's sugar-based icing will do.)

Some king cakes have a cream cheese or almond paste filling, but in the interests of time and simplicity, I made a more basic cake. It turned out beautifully, like a gaudy, glittering giant cinnamon bun. “Unbelievably delicious,” said Matt.

The long-standing tradition of hiding a tiny baby inside the cake has now been abandoned by bakers fearful of litigation over the potential choking hazard this custom posed. Now, they place the baby in the center of the cake, and hiding the doll becomes the responsibility of whoever serves the cake. So, to be really authentic, I stuck my little king cake baby on top, where he seems quite happy embedded in gold icing.

Our friend Karen, a Medieval scholar who's teaching a course on the history of Louisiana this semester, reminded me that there's a scene in the classic French film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, in which Catherine Deneuve's character finds the tiny token in a king cake and is crowned “king,” whereupon she looks utterly dejected. Karen, on the other hand, seems eager to have the honor, because she insists we have to save the piece of cake with the baby for her. It's all yours, Karen; you have a whole year to learn how to bake, now!

Photo: Kat’s king cake with baby