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,
Layer cake and carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Many wedding cakes are decorated layer cakes. In the mid-19th century, modern cakes were first described in English. Maria Parloa's "Appledore Cook Book", published in Boston in 1872, contained one of the first layer cake recipes. Another early recipe for layer cake was published in "Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book", published in London in 1894. An older form of layer cake is common in southern and eastern Europe. In Ukraine and Russia, people still make these cakes in the old traditional way. The cake batter is baked in a frying pan in thin