Today is the Alabama edition of the king cake review! Some of you are wondering why in the world someone would bring a king cake from Alabama to New Orleans. Some of you already know, and you’re already mad about it even though I haven’t even said it yet. Yes, it’s taken us exactly one month to address Mobile Mardi Gras, and today we are reviewing the Warehouse Bakery Strawberry Cream Cheese King Cake from Fairhope, Alabama.

You’re probably wondering why someone I don’t know gave me a king cake and—if you’re not from New Orleans (or Alabama), then you’re STILL wondering why there is a king cake from Alabama. Both of these require further explaining. The answer to the first question is this: A member wanted the King Cake Baby reviewer to review this king cake, and as a King Cake Baby of my word, I stepped up to the task. Also, my mom reminded last week that, when I was about four years old, she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up (standard question) and I said I wanted to be a critic (not-so-standard four-year-old answer). LOOK AT ME living my LITERAL CHILDHOOD DREAM. It’s never too late!

Now that I’ve calmed you down, I’m going to bring up Mobile Mardi Gras again. CONTROVERSY! Here is the distilled version: New Orleans definitely invented Mardi Gras, and as an elaborate scheme to upset New Orleanians, Mobilians claim they invented Mardi Gras. And they have their own Mardi Gras events, including parades and balls. Fun! There’s more to this, of course, and it involves the fact that Mobile was the first capital of Louisiana as founded by French settlers in the very early 1700s and also that Mobile allegedly had the first “carnival-style” parade. Fine, Mobile. Have it. But please be aware that New Orleans owns Mardi Gras, and it definitely owns king cake. Also, I read on Wikipedia that Mobile Mardi Gras season starts in NOVEMBER, WHICH IS BLASPHEMY. That’s like, a full two months before epiphany. It’s offensive. I’m offended. Also, they only have two colors, purple and gold, instead of the three (purple, green, and gold), which also offended me until I remembered that purple and gold are technically two of my favorite colors for multiple reasons. Sigh. Anyway, the king cake part isn’t even close. Read on.

Warehouse Bakery & Donuts is located in Fairhope, AL, which is right outside of Mobile and is basically Mobile for all intents and purposes. Sorry again, Mobile. The Bamabuzz.com (yea, I know, let’s just pretend that isn’t my best source) calls Warehouse Bakery & Donuts a “fan-favorite” and “three-year-award winning king cake.” I don’t know what the three-year award is, but… I’m KIDDING. This is a local bakery (to Fairhope) and we support small businesses here!

Let’s be clear. You know that I know that you know that I wanted to hate this cake. But I didn’t. It certainly wasn’t my favorite, but it had several redeeming features. Let’s discuss.

First, let’s just talk about this cake’s appearance and, in particular, the shape. This is not a traditional dough ring. This is… something else. A colleague said it looked like a football, which is hilarious because she doesn’t even like football. She didn’t mean it as a pejorative here—or did she? You’ll have to ask her. But yea, it really kind of looks like a football.

The dough was… fine. It was REALLY bready but, y’all, I do have to say that the bread was delicious. But it was almost too savory. I wanted to make an egg salad sandwich with it. Okay, not really. But it had a legitimate bread crust and it honestly reminded me of a loaf of sandwich bread in both flavor and texture. All in all, I didn’t hate it, and, in fact, I liked it, but it’s not exactly my king cake dough preference. In my notes, I wrote down that the white icing sugar was “unremarkable.” Yeesh, I’m a tough, tough crowd. Your New Orleans Mardi Gras bias is showing, King Cake Baby. Really, the icing was fine.

And now, I will begrudgingly tell you the best thing about this cake. The strawberry cream cheese filling is excellent. Like, really good. The strawberry tastes fresh and like real strawberry. This was a very good strawberry jam. The cream cheese was light and delicious. It was Very Good. This is also the reason that the sandwich bread dough kind of works here—it allowed the filling to stand out. My other colleague, which is never confusing for any of us, said the filling made up for the dough. I don’t disagree, but I sure wish that filling was in some other dough, or that the dough was used to make a delicious avocado and sprout sandwich instead of a king cake. 3.25 stars because all out-of-state submissions get automatically docked one quarter of a star. I don’t make the rules. Wait, yes I do!