Northshore King Cake Royalty

Story and photography by Kathleen DesHotel

No Mardi Gras gathering is considered complete without a king cake. Our delicious tradition began when French settlers around 1870 continued a custom that dates back to the twelfth century in France. At that time, a similar cake, known as a galette, was baked twelve days after Christmas on King’s Day, the Feast of the Epiphany, to celebrate the coming of the magi with gifts for the holy child.

In Louisiana today, the king cake is usually sweetened yeast bread or brioche, sprinkled with Mardi Gras-colored sugars of purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power. The colorful topping is representative of a crown in honor of the three wise men’s visit on Twelfth Night, January 6. This is the official beginning date of our carnival season.

Cakes are usually round or oval to indicate the route taken by the magi to avoid King Herod’s soldiers. The baby inside the cake symbolizes baby Jesus. In times past, coins, beans, pecans or porcelain dolls were baked in the cake. Now, in most cases, the babies are offered with the cake for the buyer to insert into the cake from underneath.

Originally, the selection of some of the queens of Mardi Gras was decided by drawing the baby from the cake. Modern Louisiana tradition dictates that getting the baby in a slice of king cake indicates who will be the next to purchase a cake to share with friends. Fortunately, those of us on the northshore have a number of excellent bakers, such as those featured here, who provide a wide variety of king cakes for our enjoyment.

Michael Pastoret

Michael Pastoret is the lone chef at Slidell’s F.O.M. Bakery, the establishment where pastry in the showcase greets patrons like original works of art. Lacy chocolate woven pieces stuck here and there give the impression of a culinary art gallery.

F.O.M. bakery is always filled with delectable pastries and cakes, but during the Mardi Gras season, brightly decorated king cakes also adorn the shelves. “These are like no others,” Michael promises. “Danish king cakes are more like puff pastry, the classic type that royal courts ate. Making them is a labor of love, which is more than making and braiding dough; rather, their creation takes more time to attain the flaky-yet-chewy layers.”

Michael thinks his career is a legacy. His great-great-grandfather owned Slidell’s first bakery, Gorney’s, on Cousin Street in Old Towne. It was run by his great-uncle Charles in the ’40s and ’50s. Following the legacy, Michael’s budding-chef son, Nicholas, 4, makes messes at home tossing flour around. Daughter Bethany, 3, is neater in her efforts.

Michael earned a bachelor’s in culinary arts at Nicholls State in Thibodaux. He explains, “I didn’t go to college to end up rich or famous, but to have my own place.” After college, an impressive résumé grew with jobs at Commander’s Palace, Artesia, Zoë’s Bakery, Bacco’s and Carmello’s. He said, “Working and learning technique turned out to be the best education.”

The name of his new business came to him in church. He thought, “I will call it F.O.M. for Fishers of Men, which is what Jesus called his disciples. It felt right, and I thought that I could use the Lord’s help to get the business going.”

Michael considers his business to be art, but adds that it is first a calling that requires study and experience before becoming an expressive art form. With stamina and desire, it is ultimately a business where a person can love what he does every day.

Béatrice Germaine and Brigitte Gomane

Those who are desirous of sharing the original form of the French king cake can visit the owners of Speak Easy in Mandeville or Speak Easy Too in Madisonville. Theirs is a round cake with a filling of butter, sugar, ground almonds and eggs. Owners Béatrice Germaine and Brigitte Gomane met while Brigitte, originally from Tarbes, France, was the director of the Alliance Française in New Orleans. Béatrice, from Paris, was hired to coordinate the events for a Bastille Day celebration. For this event, the two had to cook the food in order to assure its cultural accuracy for the gala experience. This sparked a new endeavor.

While Brigitte loved her job, she found commuting to New Orleans every day and teaching French on the northshore to be so time consuming that she didn’t have time to spend with her family. Ultimately, these two very savvy ladies came up with the idea of a bakery and coffee shop where they could teach languages and create a cultural culinary experience with the pastries they sold. “Our goal,” explains Brigitte, “is to do everything the right way.”

They serve real French café au lait and authentic French pastries that they prepare themselves. Brigitte’s husband even makes the ice cream. At first, their bakery was for the enjoyment of their foreign language students, but eventually the community came to sit and talk and to purchase their delicacies.

For the Mardi Gras season, patrons can enjoy the French king cake, the galette, which is different in shape and taste from the usual New Orleans variety. It requires less sugar, has flaky pastry dough and an egg wash rather than icing on top and comes with a different tradition. In France, Une Galette des Rois is only served on King’s Day, January 6. When it is cut, a youngster sits under the table. After the first piece is sliced, the child chooses to whom the slice will go. That person chooses the next slice, and so on. Then, everyone eats the cake hoping to get the porcelain prize inside. Whoever gets the prize is king or queen for the day.

Felix and Joel
Randazzo Forjet

An article on king cakes would be incomplete without mentioning the famous Randazzo family of bakers. Brothers Lawrence, Tony and Manuel Randazzo opened Randazzo’s HiLan Bakery in Chalmette in 1965, and were responsible for developing the mouth-watering king cakes that locals find synonymous with Mardi Gras. Their legacy continues as family members open their own bakeries offering king cakes delightfully similar, if not exactly the same as those the brothers baked years ago. One of those bakeries, Nonna’s Italian Bakery and Caffè in Covington, is operated by Lawrence’s daughter, Joel, and son-in-law, Felix Forjet, who worked for years as a baker in Randazzo’s Chalmette bakery. After Katrina destroyed the Chalmette business, they relocated and opened Nonna’s, named to celebrate Joel’s new role as an Italian grandmother. Continuing the family emphasis, Nonna’s staff includes Joel and Felix’s daughter and their son and his fiancée, as well as friends from Chalmette. Nonna’s is a full-service, old-world traditional Italian bakery that adheres to old-style baking methods using only the finest ingredients. The caffè’s delectable cuisine, home-like atmosphere and friendly service make it a great place for friends and colleagues to share lunch or just coffee and pastries. The Forjets also offer a wide variety of catering choices.

Two other Randazzo family bakeries are in the area. One, Randazzo’s Camellia City Bakery, is in Slidell, and the other is in Metairie. If you want a taste of tradition passed down from the masters themselves, visit one of these fine bakeries.

Anthony Delpidio

In Hammond, the Cocoa Bean’s Anthony Delpidio, another baker who makes his king cakes from scratch, has been in the kitchen as long as he can remember. He explains, “I come from a large Italian family where everything revolves around food and family gatherings. Consequently, I have always been a nut for the science of food.”

Family is first in all matters. Now married to his high school sweetheart, Christie, and father of two daughters, Maiya, 7, and Isabella, 1, his career decisions are driven by them. He attended Delgado and graduated from their culinary apprenticeship program.

It was at Delgado that he met Chef Christina Nicosia. Although he was never in one of her pastry classes, she always joked with him, saying that when she was ready to have more free time for herself, she would sell him the Cocoa Bean. “It was just that,” he says, “a little joke between us.”

Anthony went on to work at various prestigious restaurants, including Paul Prudhomme’s and The Sazerac in the Fairmont Hotel, where he soon became the executive pastry chef. Then he worked at Harrah’s for three years to help build its pastry division. During Katrina, he and his family evacuated to Hammond from their Metairie home, which endured much damage.

By coincidence, he was heading to a laundromat when he noticed the sign for the Cocoa Bean and said to his wife, “Let’s stop here. I know the owners.” That started the ball rolling. Chef Nicosia and her husband, Vernon McKinnon, offered to sell him the business.

“It was never my goal to own a business, but this was an opportunity that I could not pass by,” he says. Chef Nicosia now works for him, offering invaluable advice.

Beautiful cakes line the shelves, and customers come and go, buying muffins, cookies, entire cakes or even just a slice of a cake. It is a busy place, and Anthony is gradually adding his own special creations, such as sculptured cakes. For the carnival season, his traditional king cakes will contain a filling made of almond, sugar, cinnamon, and crumbled cake bits that form a delicious paste.

For October 28, he created a massive cake constructed of layers of king cakes with twelve different fillings, all covered with a fondant icing. It was featured at the Queen’s Royal Brunch at SLU, a huge event held in honor of queens of all the Mardi Gras krewes in surrounding areas.

Philosophically, Anthony explains that his business sense tells him, “It doesn’t cost anything to be nice.”

Marguerite
Barraco Riehm

Slidell’s Marguerite Barraco Riehm, the owner-operator of Marguerite’s Cakes: A Taste of Heaven, began her career in her kitchen in Kenner 30 years ago. She baked as a hobby and gave cakes to friends, who all told her that she should be in the business. She still remembers that she got $12 for her first transaction.

During Marguerite’s days working at home, her father installed built-in ovens that others discarded when remodeling their kitchens. Her dad would hook them up in her garage so she could keep up with her orders—once, she worked twenty hours straight to fill an order for 200 king cakes. Initially, learning exactly how the yeast rises and finding the exact texture and flavor came from experimentation and experience.

Actually, her interest began at the age of eleven when her mother felt she was old enough to work independently in the kitchen. Marguerite credits her mother for her artistic inclinations, because her mother was a floral designer who used to tell Marguerite that she would someday be one, too. She comments, “My mother would be amazed to see my beautiful wedding cakes now, because many of them are decorated with real flowers just as she arranged in bouquets.”

King cakes have always been pivotal to her business. In fact, Marguerite says that she was the first person to create the king cake with fruit in the cake. She began with apple and took orders from customers in the area and businesses in the Central Business District of New Orleans. They all referred to her as “the lady who puts apple in the king cake.”

When she opened her first store in Kenner, she extended to other fillings. She bakes the cakes with the filling inside to get the full-bodied essence—they are not injected after the baking. Her king cakes come in small, medium, large and super-king-size, with every imaginable filling, including specialty flavors praline and chocolate.

Marguerite’s niece, Michelle Fethke, encouraged her to move to Slidell, and, in October 2002, she followed that advice. Today, her business includes wedding cakes and party cakes of every possible theme.

She sums up her chosen path, “I raised my sons, Jay and Jeff, with this business. I consider this an art form, an ability God put in me. Everybody has a talent; they just have to find it.” The excellence of Margureite’s cakes certainly proves this the right path for her.

Who makes the best king cake? That’s like arguing with friends to prove whose mama makes the best gumbo. It’s a rhetorical question about opinion or taste. Nonetheless, be it known that, on the northshore, there’s a wonderful style, flavor, or appearance to satisfy the palate of everyone during the carnival season.