Celebrate Mardi Gras With These Five Alternatives to Traditional King Cake

With Fat Tuesday coming up, you’re probably seeing your fill of Hurricanes and King Cake. But the traditional dessert, made with brioche dough and fillings like cream cheese might not be everyone’s cup of tea. (Also, no thanks to the tiny plastic naked baby inside.) To mix it up this Mardi Gras, we’ve rounded up some sweet King Cake alternatives.

From gluten-free macarons and beignets to donuts and keto-approved mini cakes, these local bakeries have you covered.

We The Birds Macarons

From now until February 28, We The Birds is offering limited-edition Mardi Gras macarons through its website. The Dallas-based brand (part lifestyle blog, part bakery) run by sisters Sarah and Natalie Knowlton has become well known for their ornately decorated French macarons, handcrafted out of their East Dallas kitchen. We The Birds can customize macs for all occasions year-round, but for Fat Tuesday, they’ve whipped up a gluten-free alternative to the classic King Cake.

Starting at $45, you can order a gift box of 12 macarons topped with royal icing and decorated with purple, yellow and green sugar crystals. Three fillings to choose from include cinnamon vanilla, strawberry cream cheese, and almond praline. There’s also party trays of 24 and 50 macarons available for bigger celebrations. Order here.

Le Bon Temps

Known for their French Quarter-style beignets, this is the Deep Ellum spot’s time to shine. For Mardi Gras, Le Bon Temps is crafting a special “Make It Mardi Gras” beignet and “Kings Cake” ice cream, all of which are available through the end of February.

Unrefined Bakery

If you still want the classic look of a King Cake, but with cleaner ingredients, Unrefined Bakery is offering an organic gluten-free, dye-free mini King Cake for Mardi Gras. (It’s even keto-approved.) Available through March, you can pick up this dessert in store at any of Unrefined’s four Dallas locations.

Urban Donut

At Uptown’s Urban Donut, you can special order Mardi Gras donuts or come in on Fat Tuesday and grab one in-shop. Decorated with purple, green, and yellow icing and gold sprinkles these are a close, but still different, alternative to a King Cake.

Tart Bakery

For Mardi Gras, Park Cities’ Tart Bakery has created iced shortbread cookies with fun, festive designs, like musical notes, bead-wearing llamas, and phrases like “Geaux Crazy” for $4 each.