A different kind of controversy awaits you today, king cakers. That’s right, it’s the elusive savory king cake! Today we are digging in to the City Pork Boudin King Cake. Join me.

For some reason, savory king cake tends to be extremely controversial, but it really doesn’t have to be. I get it! It’s not cake. It’s not sweet. It’s technically not a “king cake” in the true sense of the term. But as you know, we embrace king cake inclusivity in this particular space, and I’m here to tell you that savory king cake can be quite enjoyable when done well.

I had a recent and somewhat last-minute trip to the Baton Rouge area, and lately I’ve been thinking of all travel (even drives across the city of New Orleans, lol) as a good reason to get king cake outside of my neighborhood. I asked the wonderful resource that is Facebook for ideas for my Baton Rouge king cake quest, and boy, did it come through. A friend, with whom I attended high school, home of the fighting tornados, commented and told me to DM her—if I was open to trying a boudin king cake, she said, she could make it happen. She runs City Pork in Baton Rouge, which has multiple locations and also does catering.

If you’re reading this and don’t live in Louisiana, you may not know what, exactly, I’m speaking of, so let me try to explain boudin. Boudin, in Louisiana at least, is a type of spicy sausage that is made with pork and rice, or dirty rice, inside pork casings. It can also be a blood sausage. You know the phrase “how the sausage is made”? And how you don’t want to know about it? I’m pretty sure this phrase originated when someone asked too many questions about boudin. Don’t worry about it, it’s delicious! Also a little organ meat never hurt anyone, probably. According to the internet, boudin is also a geology term used to described a series of elongated parallel sections formed by the fracturing of a sedimentary rock stratum during folding. Wow! We are learning so much here!

So yea, I absolutely love boudin, and I wanted this cake. I swung by the City Pork location on Government Street and picked up my carefully packaged boudin king cake. It is three pounds of house-made boudin rolled into danish dough and topped with pepper jelly, cracklings, bacon, and parsley. Her description concluded : “comes with a squeaky pig, and a knife, which stays in the box.” (Side note: the knife stays in the box is a WHOLE THING. Once you cut a king cake, the knife stays. In. The. Box. It does not leave until the cake is finished. This is a rule.) 

Y’all. This was insane. It is complex and wonderful. The flavors were incredible. I was prepared to like this cake but it blew me away. Y’all, three pounds of boudin is A LOT of boudin. And that’s just the boudin! This is MASSIVE. At $45, it wasn’t exactly cheap, but it was honestly fantastic value for what I got. This is dinner for a family of 6. I don’t have a family of 6, but I can barely feed myself dinner for $45. Okay, I obviously have expensive taste. That’s beside the point.

My friend had packaged the cake so that the toppings were on the side, which included generous helpings of fresh parsley, pepper jelly, chopped bacon, and cracklings. (Cracklins?) Per the helpful and straightforward directions, I refrigerated the cake overnight and took it out of the fridge about one hour before heating it. I then preheated my oven to 350, placed it on a foil-covered baking tray, and covered the entire cake (pre-toppings) with foil. I baked it at 350 it for 25 minutes (the directions said 30 minutes but I was terrified of overcooking it). I then took it out and placed it in its original box and brought it to the office for my krewe! I “dressed” the cake by adding the pepper jelly “icing” with a knife and then sprinkling the parsley, bacon, and cracklings. It makes for a gorgeous presentation, especially for the very minimal DIY effort.

The pepper jelly was fantastic! It was tangy and sweet with a kick but not overwhelming. As I mentioned, I “dressed” the cake myself and didn’t use ALL of the pepper jelly but I figured my colleagues could add more to taste.

The dough is a Danish dough that felt almost like puff pastry and it is perfect. It is light. Is is buttery. It is crisp. It is absolutely delicious. It might have been the best part of the cake. There was a layer of what I am nearly certain was pepperjack cheese immediately under the pastry. That was also delicious. Again it had a kick but wasn’t too spicy. I would call this family-friendly but probably only if your family is from Louisiana.

The boudin itself is more of a dirty rice than sausage in that there was no casing. It’s essentially a dirty rice with generous chunks of pork. I got a couple of chunks of pork with some fat still on it which was slightly off-putting, but not nearly enough to turn me off of the cake. Not even close. I only meat once or twice a week, and pork is maybe my least favorite kind of meat (other than bacon because obviously). I do, however, know that chunks of fat fully come with the territory when dealing with pork. I’m not stupid! But caveat emptor for those of you who aren’t big meat eaters.

The boudin rice overall really was fantastic. It was spicy but not painfully spicy. It had a kick and wasn’t greasy at all, which was huge. Overall, all of the flavors balanced out really well, especially the pepper jelly and the pepper jack cheese! And the pastry! Imagine loving boudin, eating a boudin king cake, and having the boudin being the least interesting (but still excellent) part of the cake. Many people at the office were not bold enough to try it. Their loss. The people who did try it absolutely loved it and raved about it. My colleague called it a work of art. So there you have it. I had two and one-half pieces with zero regrets.

Don’t be scared of this cake. It’s a sausage pastry, and the flavors really did go well together. In fact, you’re really holding yourself back if you don’t give it a shot. FREE YOUR MIND AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW. 4.5 stars.