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,
Opera cake the honour of inventing the dessert in 1960, though an advertisement in "Le Gaulois" in 1899 offers a """". Opera cake Opera cake () is a French cake. It is made with layers of almond sponge cake (known as "" in French) soaked in coffee syrup, layered with ganache and coffee (or ) buttercream, and covered in a chocolate glaze. According to ', " is an elaborate almond sponge cake with a coffee and chocolate filling and icing." The cake was popularized by the French house , but its origin is unclear. One creator-claimant, at in 1955 is , grandfather