ROUSES.COM
41
I
had the opposite experience from Rouses Bakery Director
Chaya Conrad, whose first job in New Orleans, in the kitchen
at Arnaud’s Restaurant, afforded her zero king cake exposure.
My own first job in New Orleans was in the production bakery
of a catering company, where from Twelfth Night to Fat Tuesday
(the official span of king cake season) I assisted the head baker in
turning out small batches of yeast-risen, butter-laden, icing-glazed
king cakes. They weighed so heavily with cream cheese filling and
purple, green, and gold sugars — in the name of justice, faith, and
power, respectively — that it cost faraway customers almost as
much to ship them as it did to purchase them.
I had never encountered a king cake prior to this job. Nor had I
ever eaten anything with such a garish color scheme. After a day in
the bakery my forearms were as sticky as a sno-ball-eating toddler’s,
and the thick, rich scent of butter could not be scrubbed from my
fingers. Honestly, at first, king cakes seemed a little much. But
the more I baked, the more I ate. And ate. And ate. Ultimately, I
couldn’t recall how my sweet tooth had ever found true satisfaction
without a king cake season. The king cake is a conundrum: morally
suspect and totally irresistible. In many ways, it’s spiritually aligned
with Carnival itself.
I once tried to make my own king cake at home using the catering
bakery’s recipe, but the dense dough caused the motor on my
standing mixer to smoke.These days I leave it to the pros. I’m a king
cake-ivore, eating and loving most of them. There are the guava
king cakes I’ve stumbled upon in Central American supermarkets;
the king cake filled with cream cheese and fresh raspberries that
always shows up at a friend’s Thoth party; the semi-savory goat
cheese and apple king cakes at Cake Café; the flaky, French galettes
des rois paved with almond paste at La Boulangerie; the braided
king cakes at Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café, where the local
owner is also a movie star; the fried king cakes at Honey Whip
Donuts; the avant-garde king cakes imagined by restaurant pastry
by
Sara Roahen
Describe Rouses king cake for us.
It’s a layered ring of dough. The dough
is sheeted out into a thin layer. Then we
spread on cinnamon in a schmear, roll it up,
and twist it by hand.
Do they all come with a baby?
Yes. The baby is in the box. If something
happens and there’s no baby in the box, oh,
we hear about it. Sometimes I think the
baby is more important than the king cake.
How many king cakes do Rouses
bakers produce in a Carnival season?
Somewhere around 300,000.
Was Rouses king cake recipe already
established when you took the
Bakery Director position?
Yes, but every year we try to make it a little
bit better — I start that on Ash Wednesday.
This year we worked on the formula so that
it would stay moister longer.
What are the most popular king cake
fillings?
Cream cheese, Bavarian, praline, and
strawberry with cream cheese. About 60%
of the king cakes we sell are filled.
How much colored sugar do Rouses
bakeries go through in a Carnival
season?
Many truckloads.
Do you eat king cake?
I eat an incredible amount of king cake.
Both because I want to and because I have
to. How can you resist a king cake fresh out
of the oven?
chefs, like the bananas Foster-inspired one that’s gilded with gold
leaf at Domenica; and the stunt king cake named “Elvis” at Cochon
Butcher, which marries peanut butter, banana, marshmallow, and
house-cured bacon (a pig figurine in mid-squeal replaces the more
customary plastic baby).
I am lucky to live in skipping distance of a Rouses Supermarket,
where, for the record, I prefer the cream-cheese-filled king cakes
but won’t complain about an apple or praline-filled one.
I have curbed my king cake consumption slightly since becoming a
mother. My son inherited the everything-is-better-with-icing gene,
and responsible parenting is, thankfully, a reflex. Even so, last year,
when after a parade party we found little piles of king cake sugar
in his toddler bed, I struggled to suppress a swell of pride. The
same swell surged when his
preschool
class participated in the local
custom of charging the person who finds the baby in her slice with
purchasing the next one to share. Let me repeat:
preschool
.
Not just a pastry, king cake has become a genre. King cake is a
sleeper sno-ball flavor, Blue Bell makes a king cake ice cream, and
Sucre (a New Orleans “sweet boutique”) sells brilliantly colored
king cake macarons. Two years ago at our parade party, I set out a
bottle of chilled king cake vodka. I had bought it as something of
a joke. How to up the inherent excess of a king cake? Make it 80
proof! Then, at a certain point I noticed one of my guests passing
around Dixie cup shots of the vodka. I grabbed one. Tasting like
the very quintessence of king cake — less cloying than the actual
thing, smoother, more refined — it was more liqueur than liquor.
Surprising ourselves, we sipped.
All of which is to say, I guess, that king cake and I have a history of
challenging assumptions and defying expectations (not to mention
massive sugar rushes). Fat Tuesday isn’t until March 4 this year.
That’s a deliciously long time for more of the same.
Chef Chaya, Krewe du Vieux 2013
by
Chaya, Rouses Bakery Director
Q&A with The King Cake Queen
