king cake for four

so after a small hunt through this little florida town (which has gotten muct bigger than i last was here).....i finally found a bakery that carried the elusive king cake

i have never been one to really seriously celebrate mardi gras- no huge drunken moments of shirt lifting, no piles of plastic glimmering beads stashed away in a closet some where, no day dreams of making my way to the french quarter to watch parades with thousands of other drunks...but this year i thought it would be fun to introduce my nieces and nephew a long standing mardi gras tradition of the king cake....i mean what kid would not enjoy a tradition where you are encourage to bite into a cake that purposely has a plastic (naked) baby jesus baked inside, right?

so i made an attempt at a vaguely new orleans style meal, printed out a brief description of what the tradition was all about (i mean if they are going to eat cake, they might as well know why they are doing it!) and tada- a new family tradition is born.....

needless to say with this small family of four and 1/2 people and one pretty good size king cake- none of us found the baby (YET!) and tomorrow we will start a new family tradition of breaking the rules of the king cake tradition(no consumption after fat tuesday, as i have been told) so that one of us can find the plastic treasure.