Jim Bradshaw: Christmas is over; it's King Cake time

Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany, is the official end of the Christmas season, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up our festivities.
It is also the beginning of Carnival, the season leading up to Mardi Gras.
But perhaps even more significant to those of us who are not overly worried about girth or diet, it is the official start of the King Cake season, when it is downright rude to refuse a slice ─ not that anyone I know would want to. If there is any hesitation, we can tell ourselves that we have to eat it or people will call us cheapskates who are afraid of having to buy the next one.
It’s all part of a long tradition.
The first King Cakes were baked in France centuries ago as part of the celebration of the three wise men finding the infant Jesus twelve days after Christmas.
At some point, bakers began hiding a bean or pea inside the cake, and the person who got it was declared royalty for the day.
The tradition came to Louisiana with its first French settlers, who also brought the celebration of Mardi Gras.
Nobody knows for sure just when Epiphany and Carnival came together to be manifested in a cake. Most of us are just happy that they did.
Our King Cakes are decorated in the traditional Mardi Gras colors ─ gold (for power), green (for faith) and purple (for justice). Traditionally, a small plastic baby, symbolizing the baby Jesus, is hidden in the cake.
It’s supposed to bring luck to the person who finds it, but also the obligation to provide the next cake.
Some sources credit Donald Entringer Sr., a Metairie baker, with substituting the baby for a bean.
In the 1940s. according to those accounts, he was asked by a Carnival krewe to hide prizes in some King Cakes.
He got approval from the health department to add the tiny babies to his batter, and a tradition was born.
Other sources say the tradition began earlier than that, but it couldn’t have been much earlier. When did toymakers start turning out little plastic people?
Another New Orleans baker made history by thinking big, really big.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Haydel’s Bakery in New Orleans created the world’s largest King Cake in 2010. It took 28 full-time employees to make two cakes huge enough to go around the Superdome.
Both rings of the cakes were record-breaking: One weighed 4,073 pounds, breaking the old record held by a Houston bakery; the other ring weighed 4,068 pounds.
The bakers used 4,000 pounds of flour, 286 pounds of yeast, 428 dozen eggs, 1,178 pounds of water, 8.925 gallons of flavoring, 2,087 pounds of icing, 331 pounds of sprinkles, 299 pounds of cinnamon sugar, and 70 pounds of vegetable oil.
Guinness didn’t say whether there was baby in the cake, but I know a few folks who might have kept eating until they found out.
There probably wasn’t one. Where are you going to find a 2-ton plastic baby?
Besides, a lot of bakers nowadays just send a baby along with the cake. You can put it in the cake or under a slice if you want to. OSHA or somebody worried that somebody might choke on one that is hidden.
That’s fine with me, for the same reason some people favor martinis without olives
Why would you want to take up room with a plastic bauble when it could be filled with the good stuff?
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.