When I rolled into District on my way to the office, I was intending to buy a king cake donut. I’ve had the king cake donut before and it was magnificent the last time I had it. But since I gave y’all a purple and gold croissant yesterday, I decided it would be supremely uncool to do two non-king cake king cake items in a row. Worry not, there will be plenty of opportunities for me to get (and review) the king cake donut, mostly because the original District is quite literally five blocks from my house.

District is the kind of place that makes ridiculously oversized donuts with equally ridiculous flavors and fillings (and I think y’all know how I feel about fillings by now). My personal favorite donut, other than the king cake donut, is their chocolate pudding-filled raspberry glazed donut. When they first opened back in 2013, they had a donut called “the bartender’s handshake” which had a fernet branca glaze. I haven’t seen that donut since 2013, but I think about it often. Hey, remember the bartender’s handshake? District also has excellent coffee and some very tasty savory items, like biscuits, burgers, and the occasional breakfast taco. They now have multiple locations, but I think the OG is the best. It’s quite good.

District usually changes up their king cake annually and I try whatever they have every year because it’s always good. This year, they brought back the Almond King Cake. This king cake is made with a Danish-style dough and filled with a marzipan-esque almond filling, and topped with sugar (no frosting) and sliced almonds. Let’s start with the good news. The cake is gorgeous. It has a beautiful shape and is just a gorgeous pastry. And the flavors were outstanding. Like, truly. Back to my prior comment about almond/“wedding cake” flavor—it’s generally just not my favorite because I find it almost sickly sweet, but this filling nailed it. It was still quite sweet but was balanced by the buttery pastry (and the lack of frosting, which would have been total overkill here).

Now, onto the not-so-good news. I bought the king cake to our communal work kitchen, cut a slice for myself, and then had to send the following email to the entire office (112 recipients):

All, I put a king cake in the [kitchen] that you are welcome to enjoy. Unfortunately, in the disappointed voice of Paul Hollywood, it’s underbaked and a bit raw in the bottom, which is a shame because the flavors really came through. Eat at your own risk. I will be reusing this language in my king cake review.

I think this cake has a lot of potential and the flavor was truly delicious. But thank goodness I have a resource like GBBO in my life because otherwise I don’t think I would have known that underbaking is a thing to look out for. I initially thought it was just the almond filling (which, again, was great) soaking the bottom layer of the cake. But alas, the very bottom of the cake was nearly raw. I first realized this when I cut the first piece and the bottom layer stuck to the box and didn’t move with the piece upon removal from the box. The second sign was the fact that the piece wouldn’t sit up straight to be photographed. I confirmed the underbake by eating the whole piece and also asking one of my colleagues to confirm my suspicions. (Y’all, he has never seen GBBO and had to Google Paul Hollywood to find out who that was, but STILL called it undercooked and said it “needed ten more minutes in the oven.” It was like the spirit of Paul Hollywood spoke through him.)

Honestly, I was wondering whether I should have eaten the whole slice (based solely on how Paul Hollywood typically throws himself in front of an underbaked pastry to keep it from Mary Berry/Prue on GBBO). Thankfully, another colleague with full and complete knowledge of the potential risk of consuming the undercooked king cake, shared her opinion that, although the cake was definitely underbaked, the almond filling make it seem more underbaked because the almond filling was a similar color and texture to underbaked dough. A third colleague told me that she loved it but that she liked king cake a little softer than most. I mean, I eat steak rare so I get it. Everyone agreed that this cake was delicious, but I just can’t give a stellar review to a cake that wasn’t all the way baked, which really is unfortunately because I really did like it. Also, the cake was completely gone when I checked the kitchen after lunchtime, notwithstanding my warning email. So people did, indeed, enjoy it at their own risk.

I do not intend to be unnecessarily harsh here and, of course, this was just one cake. It’s entirely possible that I just got an off cake on an off day. Everyone has off days—I certainly do! I would like to try this cake again on a different day to see how it compares. District, I love you! 2.5 stars to this cake with lots of potential for greatness.