When did King Cakes become glorified cinnamon rolls? (1 Viewer)

[The Mongoose]

I really want to try to pinpoint exactly when this happened.

Every stock King Cake you get from the major sellers is slathered with all that cheap, disgusting, crappy white icing that you find on a cinnamon roll.

This wasn't always the case. Traditional King Cakes used to be a brioche-style cake, right? It was basically bread, with colored icing sprinkled over top of it. Like the Mackenzie style ones you can currently still get at Tastee Donuts.

That was the default King Cake. For as many years as I can remember.

Suddenly, 95% of King Cakes are basically just cinnamon rolls, and this transition totally snuck up on me. How/when did this cultural metamorphosis occur?

I mean, you could always get specialty King Cakes. But these weren't uniform in their cinnamon roll-edness like the ones of today.

If we trace this back far enough, I think we'll find Manny Randazzo is to blame.

 

[Cam71090]

I just hate when the store bought ones have giant cavernous interiors, with almost no filling.

 

[buzd]

I just hate when the store bought ones have giant cavernous interiors, with almost no filling.

King cakes shouldn't have filling.


To address the Mongoose's post, if we were to be really technical, the "classic" king cake is a french pastry (with Marzipan, maybe? It's closer to a croissant cake) that only marginally resemble McKenzie's brioche concoction, which will always be the king cake standard to me as well.

During the brioche days, the main competitor was Tastee's king cake, which was basically a giant donut. It was glazed with the crystalline sprinkles that could hurt your mouth, and OMG!! they didn't put the baby in the cake (I hated that). It was OK, especially if you heated it.

I think things started going downhill around the time McKenzie's started offering a frosted alternative (mid 80s, if I had to guess). I don't know if they were the poineers or they were responding to competition (from Gambino's, most likely, another white icing cake), but that's about when the spiral started.

Some of the new ones are better than others, but that glut of icing will send you into diabetic shock. I still like Haydel's - it's definitely a cinnaomon roll, but they go easier on the icing. And now with all these fillings

I do like the praline version which is a cake covered in a brown sugar/caramel sauce and pecans. Still no filling though.

 

[BoatsNBeer]

I grew up on MacKenzie style king cakes. I can't say I miss them. My wifes cousin recently had one from Tastees and I was very underwhelmed. Having not had one for over 10 years I was expecting some feeling of nostalgia and a reawakening of a long lost love. Instead all I was left with feeling is the need for a slice of Randazzos.

Things evolve. King cakes did as well. I believe it has been for the better.

 

[blackadder]

I really want to try to pinpoint exactly when this happened.

Every stock King Cake you get from the major sellers is slathered with all that cheap, disgusting, crappy white icing that you find on a cinnamon roll.

This wasn't always the case. Traditional King Cakes used to be a brioche-style cake, right? It was basically bread, with colored icing sprinkled over top of it. Like the Mackenzie style ones you can currently still get at Tastee Donuts.

That was the default King Cake. For as many years as I can remember.

Suddenly, 95% of King Cakes are basically just cinnamon rolls, and this transition totally snuck up on me. How/when did this cultural metamorphosis occur?

I mean, you could always get specialty King Cakes. But these weren't uniform in their cinnamon roll-edness like the ones of today.

If we trace this back far enough, I think we'll find Manny Randazzo is to blame.

I don't know how tastes have changed because I haven't paid attention. I never liked King Cake -- too sweet.

But as far back as kindergarten I remember the two types. There was McKenzies that was more like bread with colored and dyed sugar sprinkled over. It was like an oval shaped baguette.

Then there was the thicker, braided oval with more of a sticky cinnamon coating and some icing. I think those came from places like Lawrences or Gambino's.

But the division was always there. Maybe they have gone more overboard with the icing these days.

 

[The Mongoose]

King cakes shouldn't have filling.


To address the Mongoose's post, if we were to be really technical, the "classic" king cake is a french pastry (with Marzipan, maybe? It's closer to a croissant cake) that only marginally resemble McKenzie's brioche concoction, which will always be the king cake standard to me as well.

During the brioche days, the main competitor was Tastee's king cake, which was basically a giant donut. It was glazed with the crystalline sprinkles that could hurt your mouth, and OMG!! they didn't put the baby in the cake (I hated that). It was OK, especially if you heated it.

I think things started going downhill around the time McKenzie's started offering a frosted alternative (mid 80s, if I had to guess). I don't know if they were the poineers or they were responding to competition (from Gambino's, most likely, another white icing cake), but that's about when the spiral started.

Some of the new ones are better than others, but that glut of icing will send you into diabetic shock. I still like Haydel's - it's definitely a cinnaomon roll, but they go easier on the icing. And now with all these fillings

I do like the praline version which is a cake covered in a brown sugar/caramel sauce and pecans. Still no filling though.

I knew you'd have some good input (twWDFs).

Maybe the spiral started when you say, but I don't think the problem was as widespread until recently. I mean now you have to actively search for King Cake without all that spluge all over it. You can't just stop somewhere on your way to a party and pick up what was a formerly normal King Cake.

I think there are a lot more people selling King Cakes now, and they must get them from some common supplier who only offers cinnamon roll style cakes. You never used to be able to go into a gas station and pick up a king cake, IIRC.

And Rouse's is a culprit in this nasty King Cake debacle as well. Did you used to be able to get King Cakes at every grocery? I remember having to go to specific bakeries to score them.

 

[p0sted]

You can get a frostingless king cake from haydels of Jeff hwy... You may have to order it. still a glorified cinnamon roll as you say, but beter than anything else i have tasted

 

[buzd]

And Rouse's is a culprit in this nasty King Cake debacle as well. Did you used to be able to get King Cakes at every grocery? I remember having to go to specific bakeries to score them.

The only thing Rouse's did was be the first grocery to produce a decent king cake. Grocery king cakes were always bad, bad, bad, staying out for days at a time. You knew you were in trouble if you showed up at school on king cake Friday with a grocery store king cake. That meant your parents didn't love you (I brought a few ).

But they were always there.

 

[p0sted]

I remember as a kid... The cakes from Gambinos bakery. They were huge... Thick crystals of colored sugar held on by a slathering of diluted honey. I don't know where this frosting craze came from but jeeze...

 

[Jonesy77]

This is all very "get off my lawn". King cakes have improved, and the only reason to disagree is this is nostalgia. "It ain't the way old Marty 'Three Finger' Bienvenue used to make 'em, so it's not as good." Evolve already. TV wasn't better in the 50s. Movies weren't better in the 50s. And King cakes weren't better when they were made of just bread with some sugar sprinkled on top.

Get with the times. Turn on that newfangled Rock n Roll music and have a cinnamon bread king cake with raspberry cream cheese filling and frosting on top.

 

[The Mongoose]

The problem is the ones with cinnamon roll style icing used to be infrequent. I used to love them.

But now, it seems they aren't made with the same quality ingredients, namely the icing. It's like that cheap goo that comes on honey buns that sit in the 7-11 forever.

Ultimately what I'm saying is that 95% of modern King Cakes are nasty, and they have pushed good King Cake almost completely out of the gene pool.

Good King Cake is going extinct, and nobody is sounding the alarm. Save the king cakes, for chrissakes.

Save them.

The cake is a lie.

 

[coldseat]

I remember when McKenzie's was in it's heyday. That placed used to get pack around carnival. I remember having to wait a while in line while my dad got a King Cake many a Mondays before Fat Tuesday.

 

[Saintsfan2121]

Interesting, I never noticed this until you made this thread. I too remember the days of all king cakes being the sprinkled sugar on top kind.

I remember McKenzie's used to sell a then-alternative version of king cakes, with nothing but icing back in the 90s.

Now, it's all I know. All we get are the Randazzo's kind with the icing and it is 10 times better than the sprinkled sugar kind from yester-year (which was sometimes way too "crunchy").

 

[The Mongoose]

This is all very "get off my lawn". King cakes have improved, and the only reason to disagree is this is nostalgia. "It ain't the way old Marty 'Three Finger' Bienvenue used to make 'em, so it's not as good." Evolve already. TV wasn't better in the 50s. Movies weren't better in the 50s. And King cakes weren't better when they were made of just bread with some sugar sprinkled on top.

Get with the times. Turn on that newfangled Rock n Roll music and have a cinnamon bread king cake with raspberry cream cheese filling and frosting on top.

Wrong, foreigner.

You can't go to anyone's house this time of year without a king cake being served, and the smell of all this white goo is wafting all over the joint. It's almost as pungent as pancake syrup, but not quite.

You know that feeling of sitting next to someone after lunch but you can still smell pancake syrup all over them because they had pancakes for breakfast? And you get sorta disgusted because, even though you love pancakes, they aren't appropriate in an after-lunch, midafternoon milieu?

That's what this is like.

Plus, you're awful quick to judge, given your geography. It's not like king cakes are ubiquitous in the dust bowl. I mean, if you start complaining about large belt buckles, bolo ties, and boots I'm not going to feel qualified to point fingers at you.

 

[Claw]

I knew you'd have some good input (twWDFs).

Maybe the spiral started when you say, but I don't think the problem was as widespread until recently. I mean now you have to actively search for King Cake without all that spluge all over it. You can't just stop somewhere on your way to a party and pick up what was a formerly normal King Cake.

I think there are a lot more people selling King Cakes now, and they must get them from some common supplier who only offers cinnamon roll style cakes. You never used to be able to go into a gas station and pick up a king cake, IIRC.

And Rouse's is a culprit in this nasty King Cake debacle as well. Did you used to be able to get King Cakes at every grocery? I remember having to go to specific bakeries to score them.

I'm with you on noticing the change, but Rouses always had king cakes, at least since I was a kid. I grew up by a Rouses (in Houma) and we always picked them up from there. Their recipe has changed as well over the years though.