Tuesday was Mardi Gras. There are not a lot of places to celebrate in our area that don’t involve over-21 activities, expensive restaurants, or events that already occurred the previous weekend. But I have a daughter who likes to celebrate EVERYTHING with celebratory food so I looked online and found many lovely King Cake recipes requiring yeast.
Well. That’s not gonna happen. My bread-baking days are over. Maybe. I think. (At my age, I’ve learned to never say never.)
A web search for “easy king cake” netted a delightful recipe using canned cinnamon rolls. Ding! Ding! Ding! Folks, we have a winner! We made a quick trip to our local grocery store and came home with the required items, plus fruit (because something healthy seemed to be called for), breakfast sausage (Deal of the Week: Buy the sausage, get the cinnamon rolls free – what’s not to like?) and, of course, Mardi Gras ice cream. I kid you not. The carton says “Limited Edition, Mardi Gras” and is decorated with people who appear to be playing jazz. I have been quite successful on my diet lately, but I knew right then that Fat Tuesday would not be Dieter’s Paradise.
I usually go light on sugar, but my darling daughter is dieting with me and had strong, profound, and fairly articulate feelings that if we were already messing around with gluten-infested cinnamon-roll based King Cake, we might as well go all the way. She made a reasonable argument and she has high functioning autism, so we take all the good, clear communication we can get. I bought the ice cream because sometimes I’m just a squishy bunny like that.
It all went down much as expected. My hubster came home from work and we had King Cake for snack. I made a celebratory tamale chile bake for dinner, and we had a little more King Cake after dinner with our Mardi Gras ice cream. I consumed the ice cream in extreme moderation because dairy is not my friend, but I definitely consumed enough to form an opinion.
So, what – you are asking – does Mardi Gras ice cream taste like? WELL, if you took a cinnamon King Cake with cream cheese frosting, added something green, something purple, and sprinkles, AND you whipped it with frozen whipped cream, AND mixed in approximately 40 lbs. of undiluted, refined sugar, THEN you would have ONE (and only ONE) gallon of Mardi Gras ice cream. To say it is just a bit sweet is like saying Niagara Falls is just a bit wet. A spoonful would probably be enough to keep your average 3 year old up all night.
My children stay up later than I do; I’m not saying there’s a correlation, but the rest of the King Cake was inexplicably gone by the next morning. I don’t ask questions. The Mardi Gras ice cream languished in the freezer for a day or two before finally succumbing to whatever mysterious force made the King Cake disappear.
I have decided to give up Mardi Gras ice cream for Lent along with any other foods that are in any way reminiscent of cotton candy on steroids.
May God bless you during this season of Lent!
ImaginAgeless 