Happy 2026, y’all! It’s the 26th year of the Third Millennium, MMXXVI! As we scream through the ether towards certain death, I’m so happy that we have Twelfth Night, the official start of Carnival, to look forward to. And even sweeter still, beginning on this day, it is permissible to eat king cake ‘til 11:59 on Tuesday, February 17th! Along with figs, crawfish, and my dad’s French toast, king cake is one of my favorite ambrosial delights. A king-cakish-cake first hit the scene in the 5th century. As per usual, when it comes to enjoyable things, the party animal pagans created the cake. It was a fun, creative, and yummy way to decide someone’s fate during the yearly Saturnalia festival. This cornucopia of wild, wine-sloshed, nekkid-dancing, orgy-abundant, gluttonous parties lasted a week. On the first day of the festival, a group of slaves or peasants were chosen to chow down on a bean cake, a king-cake-like honey-sweetened pastry (similar to a bundt cake), inside of which a fava bean was hidden. Whoever found the bean was crowned the rabble-rousing Lord of Misrule. This lucky pagan was allowed to boss around the higher-ups of the household, chase women, gamble, dance around a fire, and cause general chaos before happily sacrificing themself to insure a bountiful spring harvest. Eventually, the pious, party-pooping Catholic Church co-opted the celebration and the cake. In Catholicism, king cake was eaten on Epiphany Eve (Twelfth Night) or Epiphany Day. The Epiphany celebrates the three wise men visiting the Christ Child. The “Three Kings Cake” became a symbol of the gifts bestowed unto Jesus by the three Persian Magi. As Christianity spread across the globe so did the tradition of king cakes. From the rosca de reyes in Spain and Mexico, to the galette des rois in France, all the way to the dreikönigskuchen in Germany, people gobbled up that heavenly sweet baked dough. Instead of banishing the debauchery of Saturnalia, the church tamed the celebration a bit, removing the killing and orgies and keeping the drinking and binging. After French and Basque people brought the tradition of one-day-a-year king cake eating to New Orleans, the tradition morphed once more. In the late 19th Century, New Orleanians began the “return” king cake party, whereby the finder of the bean, trinket, and eventually baby figurine hidden in the cake was tasked with buying the next cake and throwing the next party. Voilà! The king cake baby was introduced in the late 1940s by McKenzie’s Bakery (RIP) and was not meant to be a symbol of the Christ Child. According to Donald Entringer, Sr., owner of McKenzie’s Pastry Shoppes, a salesman came into the store one day selling porcelain baby figurines. People loved the babies, but there were complaints about teeth being chipped on them. Because of this, the bakery switched to plastic babies, and the rest is confectionary history. I hope on January 6, you indulge in the first of many slices of king cake. May the sugar and bread sustain you through the debaucherous Carnival slog. Feast your eyes on some tips below!
How do I remove dried-on sugar from my plastic container?
Yep, sugar sure is sticky. Those hulky hydrogen bonds really hold fast. Solid sugar is made of 22 hydrogen atoms, 12 carbon atoms, and 11 oxygen atoms. When you add liquid to that cloying sucrose, the oxygen-hydrogen bond divorces and the hydrogen looks for a new boo to stick to. When the strong intermolecular forces of the wet sugar meet the polar polymeric plastic, a super-duper bond is created as it sinks into any cracks in the container. When the water evaporates, the sugar crystalizes and forms a cross-linked lattice that acts like a kind of glue. So yes, it can be a challenge to remove. Fill the container with very hot water from your tap. Squirt some Dawn dish soap into it. Carefully (so as not to scald your hands) swish the dish to create a little bubble bath. Let it soak for about an hour. Pour the soapy water into the sink. Grab a soft sponge, and dribble on some Dawn. Sprinkle baking soda all over the inside of the container. Thoroughly scrub it, then rinse. If you still feel some granules and if the plastic is microwave-safe, place a damp paper towel inside of the container and heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Leave the container in the now steamy appliance for about five minutes. This should help to loosen the sugar. Remove it from the microwave, squirt some Dawn onto your sponge, and wipe out the sugar. If it’s still a little crystally, pour some olive oil into the vessel. Grab a rubber kitchen utensil and lightly scrape the lumps. The oil should aid in the sugar-plastic bond breaking. I hope that one of these tips helps!
How do I remove dough from my hair?
Dayum! You must have really gotten lost in that baking session. I can relate, because I’ve actually dealt with sticky-dough-hair before. Once upon a time, when my friend Monica and I were about 10 years old, we thought it’d be fun to bake cookies at my house whilst my dad was at work. We did this even though a) I wasn’t allowed to use the stove or oven without parental supervision, and b) I had no idea how to make cookies or how to use said oven. This genius idea led to a dough fight and green, turd-looking, hard-as-rocks biscuity things. While the dough fight was extremely fun, it was also extremely messy, and it took hours to remove all evidence of the resulting carnage. But then, as now, I was an epic cleaner and the kitchen gave up none of its bad cookie secrets. The hardest part of the clean-up was de-doughing my hair. I basically papier-mâchéd my head, minus the paper. Because I had no idea how to get the rock-hard dreads off of my head, I did a lot of combing and a little cutting. Tips From Theriot didn’t exist then, geez! Had I been able to ask adult me, I would have known to slather some peanut butter over the hair clumps and slide the dough casts off. Or, I could have dipped my hair into a mixture of half white vinegar and half water, let it soak for about 30 minutes, then gently pull it away from my mane. Gosh dern it, it could have been as easy as a little dish soap and warm water lathered into the blonde crust. Ah, to be 10 again and unafraid to sling some dough. Good luck!
Got cleaning questions? Email isabel@antigravitymagazine.com
illustrations by Ben Claassen III
