Lift the lid on a Gambino's king cake for the first time and you may wonder whether something got left out. The braided ring is there, golden and plain. Beside it sit the white topping and three sugars: purple, green and gold. Nothing is on the cake yet.
Nothing got left out. That is how it is meant to arrive.
What is in the box
Every Traditional King Cake is made like a Danish pastry, soft and moist, with cinnamon running all the way through it. It is braided by hand at our New Orleans bakery, the way we have made king cakes since 1949, and a golden baby is baked inside each one before it leaves us. One cake serves 12 to 15, enough for an office, a classroom or a long table of cousins.
If you are new to king cake, the baby is the point. It is a tiny figure hidden in the cake, and whoever finds it in their slice is the one who brings the next king cake. Because ours is baked in, nobody has to hide it before the party. It is already in there somewhere. Where, exactly, is the whole game.
Packed alongside the cake are its topping and the decorating sugar, so you can finish it yourself. Put plainly, it arrives ready to finish: the cake, its topping, and the three sugars.
If you would rather have a filled cake, the same braid comes with cream cheese, Bavarian cream, strawberry, apple, pecan praline, almond wedding cake and more inside. Every one of them arrives ready to finish, too.
Why the last step is the good part
In New Orleans, a king cake is rarely a quiet thing. It turns up at the office on a Friday, on a kitchen table in the weeks after Twelfth Night, and at a party where somebody is already arguing about who found the baby last year. Finishing the cake yourself pulls it into all of that. Spreading the topping on is half the fun, and the kids will fight you for the job.
There is no wrong way to go about it, and a butter knife and a clear spot on the counter are all it takes. Spread the topping over the ring, then shake the sugars over it in whatever pattern suits you: tidy bands of purple, green and gold, or a little of everything everywhere. (A king cake is not a cake anyone expects to be neat.)
Then slice it and pass it around, and watch for the baby. There is more to that rule than bringing the next cake, and we wrote it all down in the rule of the king cake baby.
Sending one as a gift
A king cake is one of the best things to send someone who misses home, and we ship them nationwide from our bakery. If yours is going to somebody else, tell them it comes ready to finish. A short note that says the topping and sugars are in the box, and the fun part is theirs, turns a surprise into a plan.
If something goes wrong
Arrives damaged? Send a photo within 3 days and we'll make it right. You can reach us at customer.service@gambinos.com or 1-800-426-2466, and the full terms are on our policy page.
A tradition you finish at home
We bake king cakes from early November, ahead of a season that opens on Twelfth Night, January 6. We have baked king cakes in New Orleans since 1949, and every one is braided by hand. The last step belongs to whoever opens the box.