对于新奥尔良的面包店，今年的前几个月是最繁忙的

随着该国其他地区盯着一月的桶，被新年的决议震撼，这座城市正驶入狂欢节

The first few months of the year are among the busiest for bakeries in New Orleans. As the rest of the country stares down the barrel of January, sobered by New Year’s resolutions, the city is just easing into Carnival, the season of revelry and indulgence that lasts from Three Kings Day (also known as Epiphany) to Fat Tuesday, which immediately precedes the start of Lent. The weeks are marked by parties, by parades, and by pastry, most specifically king cake: a wreath-shaped confection made with a yeasted dough—the kind you’d use for brioche or sticky buns—and finished with white icing and a shower of crystallized sugar that’s dyed purple, green, and gold.

一年中的前几个月是新奥尔良面包店最繁忙的。随着该国其他地区盯着一月的桶，被新年的决议震撼，这座城市刚刚陷入狂欢节，这是狂欢和放纵的季节，持续了从三个国王日（也称为epiphany）到星期二的胖子，直接在星期二之前，这立即开始了借出。这几周由聚会，游行和糕点，尤其是国王蛋糕的标志：一种用酵母面团制成的花环形糖果，这是您用于奶油蛋卷或粘性面包的那种，并搭配白色糖粉和结晶的糖淋浴，染成紫色的紫色，绿色和金色。

King cake is rooted in religious tradition—it’s a Catholic custom that’s believed to have been adapted from an ancient Roman one—but in New Orleans it’s also a “huge economic boon,” Bronwen Wyatt, a baker and a recipe developer, told me recently. “Typically, Thanksgiving through Christmas is a busy time—and then, in other parts of the country, it dies.” It’s considered sacrilege, even among the secular, to make or eat a king cake before or after Carnival. In the past decade or so, the season has become a frenzied pageant of baking innovation.

国王蛋糕植根于宗教传统，这是一种天主教的习俗，被认为是从古罗马人改编的 - 但在新奥尔良，这也是“巨大的经济恩惠”，面包师和食谱开发商Bronwen Wyatt最近告诉我。 “通常，到圣诞节期的感恩节是一个繁忙的时光，然后，在该国其他地区，它就死了。”在狂欢节之前或之后，即使是世俗的祭品，甚至在世俗中也被认为是牺牲品。在过去的十年左右的时间里，本赛季已成为烘焙创新的疯狂选美大赛。

“Even the larger king-cake bakeries are pushing the boundaries now,” Wyatt said as she stood in the kitchen of her shotgun-style Treme house. She poked at a mass of dough that had been proofing in a pan, deeming it more than ready to go into the oven. For several years, Wyatt sold king cakes through a small business called Bayou Saint Cake. Now she offers a king-cake-making class online, adding a new flavor—Funfetti, honey-wheat pretzel, sweet potato with cardamom meringue—to her repertoire each season.

怀亚特（Wyatt）站在shot弹枪式的Treme House的厨房中时说：“即使是更大的国王面包店也正在推动界限。”她戳了一块在锅中证明的面团，认为它不仅是准备进入烤箱。几年来，怀亚特通过一家名为Bayou Saint Cake的小型企业出售了国王蛋糕。现在，她每个季节都在网上提供一门国王制作课程，增加了一种新的味道 - Funfetti，蜂蜜麦椒盐脆饼，带有豆蔻蛋糕的红薯的红薯 - 每个季节。

Half an hour later, we cut into slices so hot that I burned the roof of my mouth, and so luscious with sour cream, butter, and cinnamon that I didn’t mind. Among Wyatt’s mise en place was a quart container full of tiny gold plastic babies. In ancient Rome, the antecedent to the king cake was baked with a dried bean inside it; whoever found it in their slice would be crowned king or queen for the day. In France, the bean in a gâteau or a galette des rois (the latter made with puff pastry) is known as a fève, meaning “fava.” The word has become a catchall for any tiny trinket hidden in a cake. In New Orleans, the most common féve is a pink plastic baby, popularized by a bygone chain called McKenzie’s Pastry Shoppes and often assumed to represent the infant Jesus—though, in 1990, the company’s former president claimed otherwise. “Why we picked this, I don’t know, it was cute,” he told the Times-Picayune.

半小时后，我们切成了如此热，以至于我烧了嘴的屋顶，我不介意的酸奶油，黄油和肉桂粉如此甜美。怀亚特（Wyatt）的Mise En Place中有一个夸脱的容器，里面装满了微小的金塑料婴儿。在古罗马，国王蛋糕的先例被烤在里面，里面有一个干豆。谁在他们的切片中发现它的人将被加冕为国王或王后。在法国，gâteau或Galette des Rois中的豆（后者用泡芙制成）被称为fève，意为“ fava”。这个词已成为隐藏在蛋糕中的任何小饰品的杂物。在新奥尔良，最常见的féve是一个粉红色的塑料婴儿，由一条名为McKenzie的糕点店的临时连锁店普及，通常假定代表婴儿耶稣 - 尽管在1990年，该公司的前总统在1990年宣称。 “为什么我们选择这个，我不知道，这很可爱，”他告诉《泰晤士报》。

Per local tradition, the person who gets the fève is responsible for bringing a king cake to the next party, or to the office, or to school, where it’s served as a weekly Carnival treat. “Everyone hoped they didn’t get the baby, because it meant you had to get the next king cake, and we were always broke,” a New Orleans native named Bryan Wilson told me. “When I share a king cake outside of NOLA, everyone wants the baby—and nobody ever gets the next cake.”

按照当地的传统，获得fève的人负责将国王蛋糕带到下一个聚会，办公室或学校，并在学校用作每周一次的狂欢节。 “每个人都希望他们没有生孩子，因为这意味着您必须得到下一个国王蛋糕，我们总是被摔倒，”新奥尔良本地人布莱恩·威尔逊（Bryan Wilson）告诉我。 “当我在诺拉（Nola）外共享一个国王蛋糕时，每个人都想要婴儿 - 没有人得到下一个蛋糕。”

The February days I spent in the city were mostly muggy and gray, punctuated by downpours, but my spirit couldn’t be dampened as I zigzagged all over town. King cake found me even when I wasn’t looking: at a kiosk at the airport, which sold individually wrapped slices and nips of king-cake-flavored rum; at dinner at Brigtsen’s, a Creole restaurant uptown, where king-cake bread pudding was a dessert special. Upon waking at Hotel Peter and Paul, on the grounds of a refurbished Catholic church in the Marigny, I stumbled over to the Elysian Bar, a restaurant in the old rectory. As the young resident baker, Curtis Litwiller, plaited ropes of dough, he explained that his king-cake recipe was inspired by coffee cake but also by East Asian milk breads, which use a water roux to insure an extra-fluffy crumb.

我在这座城市度过的二月份大部分是崎and的灰色和灰色，被倾盆大雨打断了，但是当我在整个城镇上锯齿状时，我的精神无法受到潮湿。国王蛋糕即使在我不看的时候也找到了我：在机场的一个售货亭，该机场出售了单独包裹的饼干和国王蛋糕朗姆酒的nips；在Brigtsen's的晚餐时，一家克里奥尔餐厅（Creole Restaurant）上城的餐厅，国王烤面包布丁是甜点特别的。在马里尼（Marigny）的一座翻新天主教会的理由下，彼得和保罗酒店醒来后，我偶然发现了旧教区的一家餐厅的Elysian Bar。正如年轻的居民面包师柯蒂斯·莱特维勒（Curtis Litwiller）的辫子面团绳一样，他解释说，他的国王蛋糕食谱的灵感来自咖啡蛋糕，也受到东亚牛奶面包的启发，这些奶油奶油面包使用水roux来确保额外的饱满的面包屑。

At Ayu Bakehouse, I enjoyed a king-cake latte, topped with colored sugar, and a wedge of “Croissant City” king cake, made from a laminated dough. I sampled a savory variety at Bywater Bakery, made by stuffing a garlic-bread dough with a creamy mixture of shrimp and crawfish. (The Parmesan cheese on top was dyed in the Mardi Gras colors.) At King Cake Hub, a pop-up in a Mid-City brewery which carries cakes from dozens of bakeries, old and new, accessories for sale included copies of The Big Book of King

在Ayu Bakehouse，我享受了一杯咖啡拿铁，上面放着有色糖，还有一个用层压面团制成的“羊角面城”王蛋糕。我在Bywater Bakery品尝了一种咸味的品种，该品种是通过塞满虾和小龙虾的奶油混合物来制成的。 （顶部的帕尔马干酪奶酪染成狂欢节颜色。）在国王蛋糕中心，这是一个中城市啤酒厂的弹出式弹出式弹出式弹出式，该啤酒厂携带了数十个面包店的蛋糕，新旧的配件出售，包括国王大书的副本