King cake bakers remember tradition

• By STEVEN WARD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jan 11, 2009 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 am

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The king cakes Edward James Wesco and Ronald Parker used to make almost 50 years ago at a McKenzie’s Bakery in New Orleans were empty.

That is, the cakes had no filling.

In those days, Wesco and Parker baked cakes that were shaped like slender, golden-brown racetracks with purple, yellow and green sugar sprinkled on top.

Those days are over.

Today, Wesco and Parker, both 72, make king cakes at Gambino’s Bakery on Goodwood Boulevard that are stuffed with decadent sweets such as blueberry, strawberry and praline cream cheese.

“I remember the days of the plain king cake,” Wesco said Thursday morning in the back of Gambino’s while working on that day’s batch of cakes.

Wesco and Parker, who started baking together in 1961, moved to Baton Rouge from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck the city Aug. 29, 2005.

They have been working for Gambino’s Bakery ever since McKenzie’s Bakery closed just before 2000 — first at Gambino’s Metairie location and now the Baton Rouge store.

Something that hasn’t changed from the time Wesco and Parker started and now: the desire for king cakes in south Louisiana in between Jan. 6 and Mardi Gras.

“We will probably sell 20,000 cakes this year. That’s up from last year when we sold 15,000,” Gambino’s Bakery manager Angella St. Romain said.

Gambino’s Bakery makes king cakes year-round and ships them all around the U.S.

Last year, the Baton Rouge bakery shipped out 3,500 king cakes.

The crew at Gambino’s makes anywhere from 300 to 500 cakes a day.