I will  be reviewing one of my very favorite king cakes in the city this year, the Tartine Cinnamon Cream Cheese king cake.

Tartine is a charming little cafe in the Black Pearl (or “way uptown”) neighborhood of New Orleans owned by Cara Benson and her husband Evan. Tartine also owns all of the “Toast” cafes in New Orleans, and I have it on good authority that you can pick up the king cake at those locations too. This is actually the king cake that I’ve gotten the most requests from the public to review. It has also become my go-to cake to recommend for out-of-towners to ship. I have tried this cake in years past and have actually had the pleasure of eating this cake twice this year, and I will say that it is better than ever.

Tartine sells one cake and one cake only, and it is the cinnamon cream cheese. If you don’t like cream cheese, it’s time to change your mind about that! Seriously. There is something almost intangibly good about this cake, which I can only attribute to the care that must go into making it. The quality of this cake really shines through—there are no shortcuts here, and it shows. The BBKC has some gorgeous photos of Tartine’s cake making process, which involves braiding the brioche dough. Remember how important the braiding is??

As I mentioned, a few people have reached out to me about this cake and I was chomping at the bit to get one by the time early February rolled around. I should note here that I read Ian McNulty’s review of this cake earlier this week and it’s hard not to borrow from his verbiage because it was so spot-on. He is good at his job. Ian had one line that I absolutely had to cite—he noted the weight of the box, saying that it “felt like it was filled with books” and that when he tried to weigh it at home (he had to improvise), it weighed in at over four pounds. I can personally attest to this. This cake is HEAVY heavy.

My initial notes on this cake from my first slice are as follows (this is not a fabrication, these are the actual notes I made on my iPhone): “Amazing.” “One of the softest bready cakes. How you get so soft.” “The filling is perfect. Everything good about praline without the nuts. Syrupy.” “Woman behind me said bread pudding.” “5 [expletive deleted] stars.” I’ll attempt to translate this into coherent thoughts.

The dough is a truly gorgeous brioche. It somehow manages to be perfectly crisp and golden brown on the outside while being amazingly soft and chewy on the inside. It’s bread but it’s also not bread. I don’t understand it, either. Also, there is a perfect amount of icing and sugar. Someone record these proportions—this is it. This is the way.

The filling, as I mentioned, is a cinnamon cream cheese. This cream cheese is baked into the cake absolutely perfectly. The combination of the cinnamon with the cream cheese is nearly indescribable. I’m glad I have my notes here because I kind of love what I wrote down. It does remind me of the flavor of praline even though there are no nuts in this cake. There is a syrupy, almost caramelized element to the filling. It’s such a special combination and it’s pretty different from the other cream cheese fillings in other cakes around the city. It’s basically in a class of its own because it’s so unique. It’s inimitable. In fact, the BBKC captured what I was having a hard time articulating (or was I??) and it’s so accurate that I feel compelled to share it here: “[The cake] turns golden brown in the oven, and it’s a unique and delicious surprise when you bite what you think is dough, only to realize it’s a baked piece of cinnamon cream cheese instead. ‘My husband calls those king cake cookies,’ Cara laughed. ‘It’s his favorite part, too!” YES! This is the best part about this cake. There are these tiny baked creamed cream cheese surprise bites throughout the cake that delight the palate.

What I really love about this cake is that it is still unquestionably traditional. I don’t think many people would dispute this cake’s status as a true New Orleans king cake. In terms of high-quality traditional New Orleans king cakes, this is one of the very best available. Get one while you still can. Five HEAVY stars.