Three Men and a Baby: A Brief History of King Cakes

Andrea Mantegna’s Adoration of the Magi

(This article was originally published on Scientific American)

People report finding Jesus in the strangest ways; today, one of those ways might be in a cake. That’s because it’s Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, the last day to eat King’s Cake before Lent begins.

The King’s Cake accompanies festivities to commemorate the Epiphany, the day the Magi (interpreted by some to mean “kings”) arrived in Bethlehem and presented gifts to baby Jesus the twelfth night after his birth. The cake is a reenactment of Epiphany, with a bean or baby figurine baked into the cake to symbolize Christ and is eaten throughout Carnival festivities.

It would seem to be a safe assumption that the King’s Cake has its roots in Christianity; however, some trace it back further to an ancient pagan Roman festival. Held throughout the Roman empire, Saturnalia was a winter solstice celebration honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture. In ancient times, fava beans were believed to be magical and also used for voting. Cakes were made to celebrate the harvest and, according to Larousse Gastronomique, “During the Saturnalia the “king of the day” was chosen by lot, using a bean concealed in a galette. It was only in the Middle Ages that this cake ceremony began to be associated with the festival of Epiphany.”

The Bean Feast by Jan Steen, 1688

Since it only occurs once every 70,000 years, Thanksgivukkah will have to be left to the imagination, but if the Saturnalia/Epiphany mashup is any indication, bizarre and contradictory things can happen when holidays coincide, especially when it involves a pagan-religious combination. The fusion resulted in a raucous and hedonistic time filled with boozing, dancing, masquerading and gambling. All mixed together with a dose of religion. The tradition of baking a bean into a cake carried over. It now signified the visit of the Magi but still stayed true to its pagan roots by retaining the tradition of electing a mock king. He became known as the King of the Bean because of how he was chosen and also as the Lord of Misrule due to the mayhem that occurred while he presided over Carnival.

During Carnival, hierarchical structures were turned upside down, roles were reversed and usual social order was suspended. Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin believed the crowning and decrowning of the mock-king was central to all of this--a playful way to manipulate the everyday world. According to Bakhtin, the "primary carnivalistic act is the mock crowning and subsequent decrowning of the carnival king." This ceremony "is a dualistic ambivalent ritual, expressing the inevitability and at the same time the creative power of shift and renewal, the joyful relativity of all structure and order, of all authority and all (hierarchical) position. Crowning already contains the idea of imminent decrowning: it is ambivalent from the very start. And he who is crowned is the antipode of a real king, a slave or a jester; this act, as it were, opens and sanctifies the inside-out world of carnival."

All of this led to a sense of being liberated from official or hierarchical social and behavioral norms. Needless to say, these acts were something the Church frowned upon but they eventually came to be condoned to an extent and were seen as a necessary period of fun and games before the fasting and abstinence of Lent.

Galette des Rois. Photo by Merle ja Joonas

Epiphany cakes and traditions were found throughout Europe--in England, it was known as a Twelfth Night cake, the Portuguese had the Bola-Rei, and the Rosca de Reyes could be found in Spain. In France, the King’s Cake is known as the Gâteau De Rois. First mentioned in the 1300’s, the cake was popular throughout the country. In an effort to remove the cake’s pagan connotations, the fava bean was replaced with a porcelain figurine of a crowned head, honoring the three biblical kings. Although this placated the priests, things got political for the pastry during the French Revolution, when any sort of association with kings was controversial. A ban was considered for the confection and, in 1794, the mayor of Paris urged the people to end the holiday and “discover and arrest the criminal patissiers and their filthy orgies which dare to honor the shades of the tyrants!” For the most part, his demands were ignored and he had to settle for renaming the cake Le Gâteau Des Sans-Culottes, which translates to “the Cake of the Men-Without-Pants” to honor the lower class revolutionaries who were nicknamed for their fashion.

The cake survived the scandal and made its way across the ocean to the colonies of the New World. It’s believed the festivities of Carnival were brought to Louisiana by French-Canadian explorer Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville. He led an expedition on behalf of the French crown and on March 2, 1699, he set up camp along the Mississippi River, 60 miles south of the present location of New Orleans. It just so happened the next day was Mardi Gras, and so began its celebration around the Big Easy.

When it was introduced to New Orleans, the type of cake varied depending on the region in France the settlers were from. In northern France, the confection is usually a flaky puff pastry filled with almond cream; the cake served today is more typical of southern France--a sweet yeast bread shaped to form a crown. The New Orleans version has its own touches. The official colors of Mardi Gras--created in 1872 by the Krewe of Rex--purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power are usually added onto the cake as decoration.

Want to make one last King’s Cake before Lent? Here’s how:

John Clancy's King's Cake

(From the New York Times)

INGREDIENTS

Yield: 6 - 8 servings

1package active dry yeast

½cup granulated sugar

¼cup lukewarm water

4 to 4½cups all-purpose flour

2teaspoons salt

½teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

2teaspoons finely grated lemon peel

¾cup milk

5 large egg yolks

8tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

⅔cup finely chopped citron

1pecan half

1egg yolk, beaten

PREPARATION

Step 1

Stir the yeast and one-half teaspoon of the sugar into the lukewarm water. Let the mixture stand until it foams about four to six minutes.

Step 2

In a large bowl, combine the remaining sugar, four cups of the flour, salt, nutmeg, lemon peel, milk, egg yolks, butter and the yeast mixture. Stir all the ingredients together until the liquid is absorbed by the flour. Remove the dough from the bowl and place it on a lightly floured work surface.

Step 3

Knead the dough by pushing it forward and folding it back in half on top of itself. Continue to knead the dough for 15 to 20 minutes, or until it is smooth and elastic. Where necessary, sprinkle the dough with enough flour to keep it from sticking to your hands or the work surface.

Step 4

Place the dough in a large buttered bowl and turn it to coat it with the butter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel and let the dough rise for about one hour or until it doubles in size.

Step 5

Transfer the dough from the bowl to the work surface and very gently knead the citron into it, just until the citron is well incorporated. Return the dough to a clean, well-buttered bowl and coat it with butter as before. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 45 minutes to one hour, or until it doubles in size.

Step 6

Punch the dough down in the bowl, then transfer it to the work surface, and shape it into a 14- to 16-inch-long cylinder. Press the pecan half into the dough so that it is completely encased. Place the cylinder on a buttered and floured cookie sheet and shape it into a ring by twisting and then overlapping the end securely. Brush the entire surface of the cake with beaten egg yolk and let it rise again for about one hour, or until it doubles in size. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Step 7

Bake the cake on a rack in the middle of the oven for 35 to 45 minutes, or until it is golden brown. Transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool.