King cake coconut. Some bakers now offer king cakes for other holidays that immediately surround the Mardi Gras season, such as king cakes with green and red icing for Christmas, cakes with pink and red icing for Valentine's Day, and cakes with green and white icing for St. Patrick's Day. Others have gone a step further and produce specialty king cakes from the beginning of football season for Louisiana State University and New Orleans Saints tailgate parties, then for Halloween, then Thanksgiving—and do not cease until after Mardi Gras season, when they produce an Easter holiday king cake. In the Southern culture,
Royal icing icing is traditionally prepared with raw egg whites, which have a very small chance of transmitting salmonella poisoning. Meringue powder or ready-to-use, pasteurized, refrigerated egg whites (wet eggs) can be used with similar results. Increasing concern about nut allergies has led to the substitution of fondant icing for royal icing in some cake decorating, because royal icing often is used with marzipan, which is made of almonds. The OED gives the first mention of royal icing as Borella's Court and Country Confectioner (1770). The term was well-established by the early 19th century, although William Jarrin (1827) still felt the need