Friends, who’s ready for a little trip down the bayou? A dear friend and former colleague volunteered to contribute to The Cause earlier this week. He now drives to Houma, LA on the daily for his new gig. For you out-of-towners, Houma is charming little bayou town south of New Orleans that was hit particularly hard by Hurricane Ida in 2021. Houma has its own Mardi Gras parades and traditions that are similar to NOLA Mardi Gras in a lot of ways but still unique in their own right. He asked if I took out-of-town king cake submissions (duh) and the very next day he hand delivered Houma’s favorite king cake, the Cannata’s Gooey Butter Snicker Doodle king cake, to my porch. Yes, this was the five-cake day. It was the first king cake delivery and the second one I ate.

Y’all, this king cake made my kid heart so, so happy. First of all, it had [non-edible] decorations that cracked me up, including a doubloon and a clown head (??). (Side note: I included a picture of the little card that came with the cake, which shows a close up of the clown ornament. I’m not even one of those people who is scared of clowns, but this clown is creepy! Is this a Houma thing?? If you have information on this, please let me know because we don’t really do clowns as part of NOLA Mardi Gras and… yea, I just need to know.)

Clowns notwithstanding, the cake presents very traditionally, in a traditional shape with white icing and purple, green, and gold sugar. Upon taking my first bite, it immediately reminded me of the king cake from days of yore, before millennials like me wrote several paragraphs each day about king cakes dusted with gold flakes and turmeric, probably.

To be a bit more specific, felt like my personal definition of a “traditional” king cake…even though there is nothing traditional about “gooey butter snickerdoodle” filling. I think the most nostalgic thing was the amount of cinnamon, which was very prominent. The Cannata’s website aptly describes it as follows:

‘If Gooey is Good, Butter is Better’ in a filling…. [editor’s note: where’s the lie?] And so it is—we can only begin to describe this very sumptuous handmade filling that enhances the richness of every bite of our GooeyButter King Cake. It’s our own proprietary blend of wholesome ingredients that come together texturally in a rich, velvety way. Think Cinnamon- Think Creaminess of Cream Cheese and just the right a amount of sweet (can you taste it?). GooeyButter is our signature line of king cakes and can be combined with other fillings, or just enjoyed alone-Snickerdoodle is our most popular!

Apart from some odd punctuation choices, I am quite impressed by how well the description fits the experience of eating this cake. But let me also break it down for you, because I read this a few times and I’m pretty sure I have this figured out. This king cake has an ungodly amount of butter in it. More than you would probably ever consider putting into anything you’ve ever made. More than you would probably feed someone you love. But that’s okay here, because Cannata’s is owning it. It is what it is, and I respect that.

The texture and consistency of the dough was delightfully springy and chewy. The white icing + sugar + snickerdoodle filling fest that was my last bite should have been waaaay too much, but somehow it wasn’t. I felt like I was ten years old again, anxiously awaiting my mother to throw me a toy spear from her float on the Krewe of Omega, only to have it ripped out of my tiny child hands by a woman in her 50s (who did not give it a second thought and ran off into the night one giant toy spear richer—or maybe two, because I’m pretty sure she took the spear intended for my brother, as well).

This cake was pure unexpected nostalgia, which is the best kind of nostalgia. Even though it was on the sweet side for me, I’m awarding this one 4.5 stars for the nostalgia factor. Drive down to Houma and get you some!