More Bakers Reinterpreting Classic King Cake

NEW ORLEANS – Pastry chef Jean-Luc Albin certainly can turn out a delicious traditional king cake – one with a premium brioche dough, rich with butter and eggs. But these days it's his inspired variations on that classic that he's most passionate about.

His Bourbon Street king cake, for example, with chocolate custard, bourbon and toasted pecans. Or there is his General Foster king cake with a banana's Foster-type filling; the Woodlawn Plantation, with praline cream and Southern Comfort; or even the Pontchartrain, filled with Bavarian cream custard, sliced strawberries, almonds and whipped cream.

"Every year I do something a little different, something new," Albin says. "It makes things interesting."

Interesting, and perhaps unrecognizable to those first French settlers who brought the annual Mardi Gras celebration – as well as its king cake – to Louisiana 300 years ago.

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