It's our favorite time of the year at JJ: Mardi Gras. 15 years ago you couldn't buy a King Cake in this town at any price. There are now a plethora of them for sale in the Jackson area. A couple of friends and I decided to conduct a taste test of four of them.
All King Cakes were purchased as walk-in customers. No special orders. No advanced notice. No grocery stores as they don't make King Cakes fit to eat. Just walk into the bakery, buy one, take home, eat. No notice to the bakery of what the game plan was. Only those from local restaurants or bakeries were tested. The ideal King Cake should taste similar to Randazzo's or Ambrosia in South Louisiana. Bread texture should be fluffy or spongy like a cimmamon roll. Icing, sugar, all that good stuff should be on the cake. No flavor should overwhelm the rest of the ingredients. I like them all. Plain, flavored, cream cheese. Especially strawberry or cherry. Enough rambling, time to rate them.
Broad Street Bakery. I walked in this morning. Despite the advertisements of the various flavors for sale, only chocolate strawberry was available. It is the day after Valentine's Day so it's understandable their inventory was low. Samples for regular and cream cheese King Cakes were available to eat but no actual cakes of such flavors were available. The King Cakes was the most expensive: $4 more than the other King Cakes. The texture of the bread was very heavy. Not soggy but very heavy. Bread needed some work. The density (is that the right term?) is the opposite of what it should be. Was closer to dough than it was to bread. The flavor was fine. Chocolate and strawberry flavors tasted pretty good, didn't overwhelm the rest of the cake although it did seem as if BSB was trying to do too much with the cake. For Jackson, the cake was a B. For Louisiana, it was a C. It should be noted that Broad Street had the only one we tasted that was locally produced. Thus the bread texture was inexplicable. Price: $25.
Primos. Primos sells King Cakes from the well-known Gambino's Bakery in Louisiana. The cakes are delivered frozen and and are of the "do it yourself" variety. You place the icing and different colored sugars on the cake according to your taste. Primos only sells one flavor: plain. Although the cake was thawed, the texture of the bread was still pretty light and fluffy, close to ideal for a King Cake. It had that familiar cimmamon flavor that blended well with the sugar and icing. Primos/Gambinos got an A for Mississippi and a B+ for Louisiana. Primos should sell other flavors as well as plain. $21.
Fat Cake Guy. Fat Cake Guy sells King Cakes from Jody's in Hattiesburg. Proprietor said they were better than any other and he had tried them all. ;-) I purchased one that had the "strawberry" box checked. Found out when I tasted it the King Cake had a thick layer of cream cheese that was at least half an inch thick. The cream cheese literally overwhelmed the taste of the other ingredients. Couldn't taste the sugars, the icing, the strawberry, nothing. Just cream cheese. Might as well have gone to Kroger and bought a bar of cream cheese to munch on during the day. The King Cake is made in a style that is very similar to those produced by the famous Paul's Pastries in Picayune. The texture of the bread was fine. It could have been a good King Cake but for the cream cheese. C for Mississippi, D for Louisiana. My friends agreed this was the worst of the three.
Sugar Magnolia Bakery. They make their own. Available for order or walk-in customers in a variety of flavors. The Kingfish purchased Strawberry Cream Cheese and prayed it would not resemble the one mentioned above. This cake was a delight to sample. Cake itself seemed flatter than the others but the texture of the bread was fine. It had that nice cimmamon taste. Easy on the palate but tasty. It was heavier on the sugar sprinkling than were the others but it didn't make much difference in the taste of the King Cake. The strawberry flavor was a nice compliment to the sugar, icing, cimmamon, and bread. Nice flavor, didn't overpower, and tasty. The cream cheese was also treated as a supplement, not the main ingredient This was probably the best King Cake we tasted in the area. I cut my usual sample slice and then found myself cutting more small slices albeit small ones for myself. It was an A for Jackson, B for Louisiana. This cake mixed all the ingredients properly. No flavors were hidden. Each one appeared as a nice surprise when it hit the taste buds. The cake was not "busy" nor was the baker trying to do too much. King Cake was $25.
So the final standings are:
1. Sugar Magnolia Bakery
2. Primos/Gambino's
3. Broad Street Bakery
4. Fat Cake Guy
Thursday, February 20, 2014
King Cake smack (Updated with a new leader)
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30 comments:
You should do more of these. A- Pics would've been nice.
I saw king cakes at Beagle Bagel this week. Wonder how those are...
Thank God I'm in Louisiana on a regular basis and can bring Randazzo's home and not be relegated to the local selection. I adore Mississippi but this is not an area if strength for us...not yet anyway.
The Promos cake, I have to ice it myself? They give me icing and a cake separately, and send me on my way? Really?
Can I get Primos to ice it?
Kingfish, the Rameys at the Rez, has King cakes from Paul's in Picayune !! They are only $7!
I have had both Primos and Broad St cakes....im sorry but Broad Street Cakes are far better. I even had the pleasure to walk the bakery and witness the fresh baking....maybe inventory was low because everyone is buying...thats seems more like a good thing.
Beagle Bagel Madison...you have to order in advance but they very good
One of the previous writers has it right... best king cakes outside of Louisiana come from Paul's Pastry in Picayune... one of the top benefits I had when I worked in Picayune...
This from a bunch of central Mississippi people who call a big parade the "Mal's" St. Paddy's something or other, or how about the "Rodeo" parades through downtown Jackistan featuring a bunch of fake rednecks and fake cowboys like Feel Bryant with several stunned and curious black hipsters looking-on. Wanna know EXACTLY what is wrong with Mississippi, look no further than the central Mississippi Jackistan, along with it's freakish white-flight outliers such as Madison and Rankin Counties and their little puny cities that lack downtowns. How sad that area of the state truly is...
A true King Cake is a baked item that actually tastes terrible. There's no sugar or icing. I bought one for $25.00 at La Boulangerie on Magazine expecting to be wowed. Not so good to me.
And 10:58? What in the hell is your problem? JJ compares cakes and you burn down a three county area? Do the world a favor and after you screw yourself shoot yourself.
My suggestion would be to remove the above comment (as well as my comment) so as to start keeping commenters on subject.
Some threads run their course and good things come out of the digression, some funny, some informing. But the attack posts early on will always allow others to pile on in mob mentality, then others to defend, and meaningful conversation is lost. It's not censorship, it's not heavy moderation, it's removing a human trait that is in it's infancy since this internet thing has only been around for a blink of an eye in time.
Otherwise, people take nothing seriously and only come to read the trainwrecks and the advertising dollars are worthless.
Go away Tom.
Seems that the editorial model Kingfish has used for JJ has been highly successful.
Not sure that there is single online venture in the area, and maybe the state, that has more local advertisers that Jackson Jambalaya. So let leave it to Kingfish's customers to determine whether or not advertising here makes sense.
Maybe you or Alma or Karen or Ronni should stick to asking Donna why the JFP keeps running ads for '5000+ Thai Women Seeking Love'.
Here we go again with the control freaks who want a heavy hand on the comments of others. Must be a slow day in progressiveland.
I'm not Tom and I'm not a control freak. I've actually owned and moderated forums with hundreds of thousands of members.
It's not heavy-handed and it's not, in any way, more progressive than having lanes on an interstate highway.
Guides for idiots help keep things flowing smoothly in the right direction. Different people have different filters and some simply don't know when to try to be funny and when not. It's simply economics. Negativity will make you money in the short run. When you have to remain negative to remain viable, then you run out of adverts.... just a numbers game.
Aside from that, it's just for the sake of organized conversation. I guess trials, classrooms, news interviews, seminars, etc are all just progressivism as they attempt to retain order for the benefit of the subject matter.
And you'll note, that I made a suggestion. My "suggestion" would not have hit such a quick nerve had it not been on target.
BTW, Dr. Cannon, perhaps you need your ears cleaned out so you can see better. I made a suggestion.... I never intimated a want to control the comments of others. Hence the comment about removing my comment as well.
Circular logic baffles you, eh?
Everyone chill. This is just a post about King Cake for crying out loud.
8:46 posts 14 lines about what a great blog moderator he is, and not one word about King Cake.
This is a forum for jackassery, not douchbaggery - learn the difference.
Sugar Magnolia Bakery off Lakeland is really good. Their plain is so good you don't even need the cream cheese version. I am not crazy about their fruit fillings but that's just a personal dislike.
10:58 and 8:46....So? Up in here we know how to fix catfish six ways, can make superb bar b q and steaks are unequaled. We don't excel at King Cakes but enjoy finding a good version, locally, when the season rolls in. Don't spoil it for us by jacking your version of bullshit on the page.
I told you they were good! Glad you got one.
"I cut my usual sample slice and then found myself cutting more small slices albeit small ones for myself".....made me giggle, KF. thanks.
As an outsider (in MS 15 years) I had never known about King Cakes until I arrived here. Yes I am a southerner but you don't have to go far east to understand this is truly a regional delight.
Broad Street. Custard center. End of discussion.
hey 12:33, catfish - absolutely. "superb bar b q"?
hum, as Kramer would say, 'not bloody likely!'
Not end of discussion. You said 'custard'. That is just the beginning of what sounds like a wonderful discussion. Tell us more please.
Where and what is 'Ramey's on the Rez'.
Who gives a shit what Kramer says? If you follow contests and look around the countryside, you'll see thousands of Mississippi BBQ rigs on wheels and large gentlemen surrounded by trophies.
I don't trust anybody who uses the word 'albeit', especially in a sentence.
Oh KingFish, this is awesome! I have been dreaming of King Cakes since college. I dont want the calories so I wont buy one unless its worth it. I went out to Ramey's on the Rez and found the "Glory Hole.." Paul's Blue Berry Cream Cheese King Cake...small in size and only $6.99. I too started with a sliver and managed to sliver half of the cake in my mouth..
There it is, its all out in the open now and none of you can judge me...Except maybe that Douche who is hating on Jackson..
'thousands of MS bbq rigs...'? not bloody likely. not even hundreds. maybe tens. how many people drive to MS to eat bbq? try Texas, TN, or Alabama. where is there one bbq place worth talking about in MS. Stick to your catfish, boy.
It'd blow your mind to know how many "smokers" are really into competition cooking right here in Mississippi. My cousin is a competition smoker. He lives in Pearl. He knows that there are at least 450 that are doing it in central Mississippi. And those are the ones he KNOWS of. Thousands is a distinct possibility.
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