By Jere Hough Meteorologist / Feature Reporter
Published: Fri, February 09, 2007 - 6:02 am
Last Updated: Wed, August 29, 2007 - 3:46 pm
Last Updated: Wed, August 29, 2007 - 3:46 pm
Jere Hough
This is the goal...perfect for Mardi Gras. The king cake: gaudy, delicious, and with plenty of religious symbolism. Pollman's Bakery estimates they make more than two thousand king cakes during Mardi Gras. Considering that Mr. Charles Pollman started making them in the 1960s...that works out to a lot of cakes.
Page Pollman puts plenty of filling in each cake...one of their secrets, according to his father
Charles Pollman proudly describes his pastry. "I don't know if you noticed there's a lot of filling in that cake. Did you get some on your hands-"
Jere Hough laughs and replies, "A whole bunch...."
Pollman smiles, "Good!"
Pollman says the three colors on the cake are symbolic: Purple is Justice, Green is Faith, and Gold is Power.... And the cake originally celebrated the three kings visit to the baby Jesus. "It started from the Epiphany...twelve days after the birth of Christ," he says.
Today of course...it's part of Carnival before Lent. Incidentally, the pink and blue sugar is just for extra color.
They're made with a sweet, yeast dough...a process that takes just about all night in order to have them ready by 7:30 AM.
Page Pollman, one of Charles sons who works at the bakery starts to make a King Cake. "This is the sweet dough for our king cakes. It's kind of sticky right now so I want put a little dusting flour on them to get them to level out nicely."
After flattening the balls of dough, generous amounts of the cream cheese filling is spread.
Then some pecans, cinnamon and sugar...all rolled up.
The next step is two long cuts . Notice that you don't see machines doing this...all hand made, including the braiding.
Yeast dough has to rise awhle. Time for a break to learn more...one tradition is no longer followed here. It used to be that a small newborn baby doll was hidden in each cake.
Pollman explains, "Whoever gets the baby buys the next cake."
But finding the baby by biting down hard and breaking a tooth would stop fun...so now the baby is packed along side the cake.
After the dough has expanded....time for all that colored sugar...liberally applied, and then the actual baking.
Finally, the first of the today's cakes are ready.
Hough stands before a freshly cut King Cake. He has a newborn doll in his hand. He sets it on the top of the cake. "The newborn, of course, on the outside not in.The question is, do we eat king cakes because they're tradition or do we eat king cakes because they really are good- Mmm...the latter. On County Road 5 at Pollman's Bakery in Mobile, I'm Jere Hough, News 5."
(TAG) POLLMAN'S BAKERY GOES BACK NEARLY NINETY YEARS. CHARLES POLLMAN'S FATHER OPENED IT IN DOWNTOWN MOBILE IN 1918.
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