let them eat king cake

This weekend Nola Eats had their 3rd annual king cake contest. All of best bakeries bring their king cakes to be tasted and the crowd votes on their favorite. $5 gets you all the king cake and coffee you could ever want in one night. It's a lot overwhelming. Obviously, I attempted to try every single one. By the end of the night I was filled to the brim with caffeine and sugar.

My three favorites were Domenica's bananas foster king cake. It had a creamy caramel sauce, bananas, and the actual cake was chewy with nuts in it. Ben wouldn't even try it because of the creamy sauce oozing everywhere. Silly boy. His favorite was Domenica's plain one that had chopped nuts on top.
I also liked Cake Cafe's goat cheese and apple cake. The top was drizzled with bright purple, green, and yellow lines. The inside had thin apple slices and a goat cheese that that perfectly complemented the sweetness
And I finally got to try Sucre's beautiful glittering king cake. It was in the non-traditional category because of the shimmery top but really it is a traditional plain king cake.
Ooh I also should note that I had La Divina Gelateria's nutella king cake. We had had the tiny version a few weeks ago and I was not impressed. But, this normal sized version was a lot better!

This was the first year that there was a homemade category. I decided to enter it pretty last minute. Instead of trying to make a king cake and going up against people who had been making it for their whole lives, I made mini king cakes.

I made a cinnamon roll bottom with chopped pecans.

Then i made a vanilla sugar glaze and sprinkled on purple, green, and gold sugar.

 I thought they came out pretty well! We didn't actually try them before I submitted them so at the party I took two and put them in the kitchen for us to have later (OH NO! I just realized I left them there!!). They looked so pretty!

a little king cake army

In the end the one savory king cake won. It was filled with meat and topped with the three colors in onion and other meaty savory items. Pooh. 

meat king cake

homemade category

Now that i've made mini king cake "cupcakes" I am going to have to move on to making my first ever real king cake for Mardi Gras.