You may be wondering if I’m still enjoying this. I am! Is it overwhelming at times? Yes! Am I concerned about my nutrition? A little bit! Was this entire effort a bit Quixotic if I’m being honest with myself? Probably! Let’s move on!! I have another under-the-radar king cake today, which is a good thing now… more on this shortly. Today we are reviewing two cakes from tM Breads and Pastries: Cinnamon and also Chocolate Coconut!

A few of you may be ahead of me, but there are so many reasons why the under-the-radar king cake can be the best king cake. First of all, I have found that the smaller operations generally have better quality. Always a plus. But second of all, the very popular king cakes are going to be harder and harder to get your hands on with the passage of each day. This is a big deal! Unless you are literally hitting the parade route (anything goes there, in my opinion), you really should resist the urge to pick up a grocery store king cake and treat your friends/guests/coworkers to something special. It just takes some thought and bit of planning. I believe in you.

I had never heard of tM Bakery even though it is located downtown. This is about as under-the-radar as under-the-radar gets, as I was not able to dig up very much on this operation even after some additional research, and y’all know I am, at least, somewhat competent when it comes to king cake research and I was able to find very little on this bakery at all, much less about these king cakes in particular. But what I do know is: (1) It is located inside the Catahoula Hotel, which I’ve always liked a whole lot in terms of atmosphere; (2) its online reviews are outstanding and people have lovely things to say about the owner; and (3) I really enjoyed this king cake.

This was brought to a Very Important Meeting (with several Very Important People)! Both a cinnamon (traditional) and a chocolate coconut cake were brought to the meeting. They were both very similar in presentation so I will talk about their similarities first and then their differences. First, both cakes are circular (rather than ring-shaped; yes, there is a distinction). They are both glazed rather than iced and are topped with purple, green, and gold sugar in a pleasing swirl pattern. They really are very pretty in a beautifully simple way, especially compared to yesterday’s bright pink glitter bomb that is the Brennan’s Pink Parade. If Brennan’s Pink Parade wears short skirts, tM Breads and Pastries wears sneakers. Brennan’s Pink Parade is cheer captain and tM Breads and Pastries is on the bleachers. The dough in both cakes was wonderfully baked. It has clearly been braided (or at least twisted in some fashion) which you can see by looking at the cross section of the slice. It was chewy and soft. Side note: I know these pictures aren’t great but I was AT A MEETING.

The cinnamon cake, similar to its appearance, is wonderfully simple. The cinnamon comes through really nicely. I think this is the kind of cake that would please everyone. It is simple enough not to offend the most old school New Orleanian who swears they haven’t enjoyed a simple king cake since McKenzie’s. But it’s tasty and pretty enough to bring to a party and can stand up to its competition. 4 stars.

The chocolate coconut was a little bit more of my jam because, you know, fillings. This cake was expertly filled in that the chocolate coconut filling was somehow woven into the layers of dough in a way that I really, really, appreciate. This avoids the scenario where you get a slice of filled king cake and have one bite that is 90% filling and 10% cake, and then four other bites that range from a 90% cake/10% filling ratio to nearly 95/5. I don’t like that ratio! Fillings!

I have to say that the quality of the chocolate inside this cake was really exquisite. I also love coconut, including coconut flakes (apparently many people that I like a lot do not like coconut flakes). I found this to be a very satisfying combination. If you like simple king cakes and love chocolate (and don’t have an aversion to the texture of coconut flakes—okay, sure) then you really should try this before the season is over. 4.5 stars.