Fit for a King: Local eateries serve up Mardi Gras specials this Fat Tuesday
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Traditionally, a baby is baked into the Mardi Gras King Cake. The person who finds a baby in their sweet slice of dessert is, legend has it, responsible for providing cake at the next gathering.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Giant Eagle is one of several local bakeries where you’ll find the traditional Mardi Gras King Cake – but not for long. The fluffy, colorful cakes fly off bakery shelves on Fat Tuesday.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
King Cakes are a Fat Tuesday tradition, predating the United States independence from England. The traditional Danish pastry is decorated in sweet icing and green, purple and yellow sprinkles – the colors of Mardi Gras.
Courtesy of Tiffanie Rawlins
For the first time, Chef Tiffanie Rawlins is offering a Mardi Gras special at her bakery, Shortbread City, in Monessen. Today only, customers may preorder King Cake Coffee Cakes, available for curbside pickup at noon.
Don your purples, your yellows and greens and make room on your menu for tasty Mardi Gras treats.
Today is Fat Tuesday, that glorious day before Ash Wednesday, a last hoorah of indulgence in guilty pleasures before Lent begins – and with it, 40 days abstaining from one’s favorite foods or beverages.
Traditionally, the day before Lent began was called Shrove Tuesday. In preparation for the Lenten season, European Catholics attended confession and cleared the home of forbidden foods – meaning they indulged in all the meat, dairy and eggs they had to give up during the Lenten season.
It’s believed that to entice the great Roman empire into the Catholic fold, the Church agreed to blend Shrove Tuesday with the pagan festival Saturnalia – and thus was born the religiously raucous Mardi Gras celebration.
New Orleans is famous for large crowds lining Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras, for colorful beads coloring the sky and cafes serving beignets and shrimp po’ boys.
There’s no parade in Southwestern Pennsylvania, but there are plenty of delicious ways to celebrate Fat Tuesday in the region.
For more than a decade, Giant Eagle has offered Mardi Gras King Cakes – the twisted, doughy cakes colored in festive icing and a plastic baby hiding in every sugary delight.
“Each King Cake is hand-twisted, baked, iced and sugared by our bakery Team Members,” Dick Roberts, a Giant Eagle spokesman, wrote in an email. “Customer interest in King Cakes continues to grow each year with customers throughout the Giant Eagle footprint, including Washington, Greene and Fayette counties.”
Chef Tiffanie Rawlins, founder of Shortbread City in Monessen, is jumping aboard the Fat Tuesday bandwagon and will, for the first time, offer a sweet spin on the traditional Mardi Gras treat.
“My latest endeavor is Chef Tiff’s Coffee Cakes,” said the Monessen native, who has spent the last 30 years in the culinary world. “A King Cake version of coffee cake – that’ll be featured (today).”
Caramelized cinnamon swirls through Rawlins’ bourbon-infused vanilla bean cake, which is topped with streusel and white chocolate ganache. Purple, yellow and green hand-colored sugars and the traditional plastic baby add a classic touch to the updated dessert.
Rawlins’ King Cake Coffee Cakes are available to purchase online on their Facebook page and can be picked up at the bakery after noon.
Traditional King Cakes are among those culinary confections available today only at 5Kidz Kandy along High Street in Waynesburg.
“We have certain days that we do every year,” said Kristy Vliet, who owns the shop along High Street. “We do Mardi Gras. It’s just fun. The customers come in; they’re into it. We get to throw them beads. It’s a fun day.”
Since 4 a.m. Monday, King Cake dough has been rising, and Vliet said homemade puff pastries, fluffy beignets and bacon bourbon brownies are also on the Mardi Gras menu.
Pastries are served from 9 a.m. until they’re sold out. Lunch begins at 11 a.m. on a first-come, first-served basis, and folks will want to line up for the shrimp po’ boys – Vliet said that’s a best seller every year – and Cajun sausage puffs drizzled in bourbon mustard.
Jambalaya is also cooking in the kitchen, but the feast doesn’t end when lunch sells out.
Beginning at 4 p.m., fiery desserts are order up!
“We have to do the Bananas Foster, of course, because it’s Mardi Gras,” Vliet laughed. “We do our own variation on that. We do flaming peaches and flaming apples and put them over ice cream.”
Nothing’s on fire at Bethel Bakery, but Mardi Gras beads shimmer atop King Cakes inside the Canonsburg shop.
Lore has it that whoever finds a baby in their slice of cake is responsible for providing dessert at the next gathering.
Bethel Bakery puts a little spin on that tradition.
“They come with a baby, beads. And there’s a gold coin in the dough,” said marketing coordinator Rachel Wanovich. “That’s how you’ll see if you’re the lucky person.”
Wanovich said the bakery, which serves up mini cinnamon King Cakes and regular-sized unfilled, cinnamon and nut cakes, ran out of the Fat Tuesday treat Monday.
Bethel Bakery will be stocked today, Mardi Gras, but King Cakes are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
“People should hurry,” Wanovich laughed. “It’s nice to see people are getting out and celebrating. It’s not really a holiday; it’s nice for people to get there.”