Eat like a king this Mardi Gras: Liger's Bakery king cakes made fresh daily
When you think of a rich, delicious treat for Mardi Gras, king cake is king — though the name is a little deceptive.
It’s not a cake, per se.
“They’re more of a yeast dough. It’s similar to a cinnamon roll,” said Ivy Davis, who with her husband, Donnie Davis, owns Liger’s Bakery at 3040 McGehee Road in the Gay Meadows Shopping Center.
Named after longtime baker Yancey Liger and known as Montgomery's oldest bakery, Liger’s has been operating under different owners since 1944. Ivy and Donnie have had the bakery since 2012, specializing in custom cookies and cakes. They said king cakes are among their biggest sellers this time of year.
“They start early January, and go through March,” Ivy said.
The magic’s in how they’re made.
“It’s a true sweet dough that we let rise twice naturally,” Donnie said.
Ivy and Donnie make the dough fresh each afternoon and let it rise overnight. The next morning it’s time to let the good times roll — adding fillings like cinnamon sugar, cream cheese, raspberry, blueberry and strawberry. The dough and filling is hand rolled into an oval. They let it rise again, and then bake it.
Then it’s time for the icing.
“We glaze things around here with our petit four icing,” Ivy said. “It’s a thin, poured icing. We do the three Mardi Gras colors, the gold, the green and the purple, and then sprinkle the coordinating sugar on top of them.”
Toss on some colorful beads and their king cake looks like a Mardi Gras celebration in itself.
One thing Liger’s doesn’t do is bake their king cakes with a plastic baby figure hidden inside. It’s a tradition that whoever finds the baby in their slice will have good luck.
“Besides being a choking hazard, they’re plastic now,” said Ivy, who believes in the past the babies used in king cakes were made from something like porcelain. “I’m not really into cooking plastic inside of something.”
Ivy says they include a baby with the beads on top of the cake, but that it’s up to the buyer to hide it in a slice if they want.
So how many calories are in a serving? That’s tough for Ivy to judge since it depends on your definition of a slice, and the filling of choice. For king cakes in general, it’s roughly 100 calories per inch of width, according to an estimation by nola.com. But who can eat just a one-inch slice?
The piece the Advertiser sampled was probably in the 300ish calorie range, and was what Ivy considered a usual serving size. The freshly made king cake was tender, with a flaky, moist texture and rich cream cheese filling.
“It’s no preservatives,” Ivy said. “It’s not like this was made to sit on a shelf until whenever.”
She estimated that a single large king cake could offer around 20 slices, depending on how it’s cut.
Large king cakes are $28, while the small ones are $25.
While Liger’s bakes king cakes daily and tries to keep some on hand for walk-in customers, it’s probably best to call a day ahead to order one special, Donnie said. If they do have a non-order king cake that doesn’t immediately sell as a whole, they’ll cut it up and sell it by the slice.
“We’ve even done them for weddings,” Ivy said. “We’ve had people that want their groom’s cake to be king cake.”
Donnie recalled one customer from New Orleans who said the king cake she’d got at Liger’s was the best she’d ever had, and then ordered three more.
“I feel pretty confident that we have something going right with them,” said Donnie, who has never tried anyone else’s king cake.
“I don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, but I just know that it’s good,” he said.
Follow Ligers at facebook.com/ligersgood to see their daily specials, and call them for orders at 334-288-6550. They're open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and closed on Sunday.
Montgomery Advertiser reporter Shannon Heupel covers things to do in the River Region. Contact him at sheupel@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Eat like a king this Mardi Gras: Liger's king cakes made fresh daily
