Mardi Gras: King Cake Review: Albertson's

I have decided that this year we are going to eat our way through Ad-Lent: my name for the time between now and Ash Wednesday. And what better thing to eat than King Cake?

I started off this season with a grocery-chain king cake: Strawberry Cream Cheese from Albertson's. This one was a definite hit and is almost gone in less than two days.

The cake itself is like a cinnamon roll. It has then been stuffed with both a strawberry filling and a cream cheese filling. Some parts of the king cake have only one filling or the other, and some parts have a mixture of the two. My youngest son gives thumbs up to both fillings.

Albertson's cake has been glazed with a thick, white concoction. The top is decorated with colored granulated sugar in the traditional Mardi Gras colors: purple, gold, and green. They include a small plastic baby for you to insert.

It might not win any awards for authenticity; technically, a king cake is supposed to be more closely related to a brioche. But for $5, it's a pretty darned good imitation and the presentation is fabulous.