Shippers help make king cake a national phenomenon

They're hauling king cakes: rings of sweet pastry iced in the traditional Carnival colors of purple, green and gold.

King cakes have been part of New Orleans' Carnival season at least since the 1870s and with the success of overnight deliveries are spreading in popularity to other parts of the world.

Haydel's shipped 34,000 last year and sold about twice that many at its store near suburban Jefferson, says David Haydel. Gambino's bakery, with three stores, sells 130,000 a year and ships 27,000 of them, owner Sam Scelfo said.

The city's bakeries and groceries will probably make 750,000 this year, Scelfo said. "Twenty years ago, there may have been maybe 75,000 made. Maybe."Overnight shipping and changes in the recipes - from a dry brioche dough to sweet cakes filled with jams and cream cheese - drove the increase, he said.

UPS expects to ship 160,000 king cakes this year, nearly all of them out of New Orleans, area sales director Marla Dusyk said. "We own 77 percent of the king cake market."

If she's right, that would mean about 228,500 king cakes are shipped by all the various carriers.

UPS even has boxes emblazoned with "World Famous Mardi Gras King Cake" and decorated with drawings of costumed merrymakers and, in the background, a little brown truck.

Federal Express, which carries Gambino's cakes, also has a box just for king cakes. Airborne Express, which will haul about 20,000, designed a Mardi Gras print which customers can order separately, district sales manager Paul Brady said.

Most shipping is within the continental United States, but some are sent to Canada, Europe, even Japan - although not all that many. Haydel's shipped king cakes to the Vatican when Lindy Boggs, a New Orleans native, was U.S. ambassador there. But for most people, it just costs too much.

Haydel's charges $30.95 to ship a king cake without filling. The package is not just cake. It also includes Cafe Du Monde coffee, three strands of beads, three doubloons (aluminum Mardi Gras coins), a copy of the area's most popular Mardi Gras guide, and - while supplies last - a porcelain Mardi Gras figurine. Filled cakes are another $4.

Also included is a history of the king cake and a warning. Since Medieval times, bakers hid a bean or bauble in the cake; whoever got it became king for a day. Nowadays, the bean is a plastic baby, about the size of a pecan, and the finder gets to give the next party. For the unwary out-of-towners, the shipping wrappers carry bold alerts to avert a broken tooth.

The price covers shipping in the 48 lower states. Sending a king cake to Europe can add another $70, and it probably costs $100 to ship to Japan, Haydel said.

"You've got to have a real good friend to spend a hundred bucks to send them a king cake," he said.

You can't send king cakes everywhere. Some countries don't accept any kind of food. Haydel said he ships to Australia's large cities, but not to the Outback, because the cake would be stale by the time it arrived.

During the Gulf War, he discovered that Arab countries would not accept them. "They thought it was a religious cake, and wouldn't allow UPS or any of the carriers to deliver over there," Haydel said.

And, of course, only the U.S. Postal Service can ship to post office boxes. It made a foray into king cake shipping, including a contract with Wal-Mart, but it dropped out after a Mississippi baker, Sherri Paul Brown, complained in 1997.

She saw fliers advertising king cakes from Wal-Mart Supercenters in the Picayune Post Office and asked how the post office could advertise for Wal-Mart. The post office said at the time that the promotion was legal, and invitations had gone out to all Louisiana companies with bakeries.

But she also said that the Postal Service should have looked more closely at differences in Mississippi and Louisiana state tax laws, and that the various Wal-Marts involved turned out to have inconsistent service.

Although she is in Mississippi, Brown estimated that 40 percent of her annual business is derived from the sale and shipping of king cakes nationwide, about 50,000 in 1997.

The frenzy is also moving north in Louisiana. In Shreveport, Tanya Clark says her bakery, the Dough Basket, shipped 454 of the 1,761 king cakes it made last year.