Today we are reviewing a relatively new-school king cake that has been one of my favorites over the past few years: the Bittersweet Confections Chocolate King Cake.

I still remember the first time I had this king cake back in 2017. It may have been the first chocolate king cake I had every tried and it legitimately blew my mind. I think I ended up getting this three or four times that year.

Bittersweet Confections is located downtown on Magazine Street and very near our office. Bittersweet sells all kinds of coffee shop fare, as well as breakfast, lunch, and specialty cakes. In terms of king cake, they sell both a traditional style king cake, the chocolate king cake, and a VERY ridiculous scaled up version of the chocolate king cake called the “Bittersweet King Cake.” As an aside, the Bittersweet King Cake will set you back a whopping $75, but has an added layer of chocolate mouse in between the brioche dough, chocolate cream cheese filling, chocolate ganache icing, sprinkles, and dark chocolate truffles. WOW! If you want to buy me this, I will accept it with great gratitude. In fact, I’ll write a poem about it.

But back to the standard chocolate king cake. It is many of the previously mentioned elements—the brioche dough, the chocolate cream cheese filing, the chocolate ganache icing, and purple, green, and gold sprinkles.

Let’s start with the filling, which is exceptional. The chocolate cream cheese is wonderfully tart and has a nearly yogurt-esque quality about it, but it is still undeniably chocolate. Y’all know me, and you can probably predict what I’m going to say here. I wish there was more filling! I can’t help it! I love fillings! I’ll also say, though, that I love the way the filling is baked into this cake. It’s really a thing of beauty.

The dough is a brioche but a very bready and chewy in a wonderful fresh-baked sourdough kind of way. I would almost describe it as a stiff-baked bread? Weird. This one was baked incredibly well and had a gorgeous golden brown crust.

The chocolate icing is just divine. This is quality dark chocolate ganache, as it should be for a bakery that it is undeniably also a chocolatier. Finally, this cake has some official king cake Mardi Gras flair with the addition of purple, green, and gold sprinkles.

As much as it pains me to say this (and it really does), I just didn’t quite get the 2017 magic when I ate this cake, which is to say that it was still Very Good but I am fairly confident that I have had better versions of this same cake in prior years. And it is to say it’s not still an excellent cake, because it is. It is delicious. And if you are a “chocolate person” and haven’t tried this cake, you absolutely need to try it. AND, guess what else? Bittersweet ships their cakes. You’re welcome! 4.5 stars for this consistently good chocolate delight.