What to drink before the parade: Le Roi Cafe’

I LOVE Mardi Gras. I just love it. It turns out that I went a bit overboard this Mardi Gras season…buying King Cake Flavored vodka, and King Cake Flavored coffee… I drew the line at King Cake Flavored soda, but it’s a pretty thin line. But then I realized that most of the drinks people are making with King Cake vodka are just plain terrible and honestly I’m not sure that anyone but 21 year old tourists in New Orleans for the first time ever would drink them. King Cake coffee is pretty delicious, but maybe just a bit too much for everyday consumption.

So what do I do? I make a pre-parade slash post dinner party coffee cocktail (AND a virgin version for festive non-drinkers.) As a nod to KING Cake, I named it Le Roi Cafe.` You’ve had Irish Coffee, right? Well, this just might be better.

What you need for the Cocktail:
TAAKA King Cake Flavored vodka (it’s southern-born and southern bred, plus New Orleans tasters said it was the best. AND it’s CHEAP… like $7.50)
a Pot of STRONG, STRONG coffee OR if making the virgin version, Community Coffee King Cake Coffee
Green, purple, and gold sugar
Homemade whipped cream

For the sugars:
Red, blue, yellow food coloring
3 small plastic bags
1 cup sugar, divided into 3rds

For the Whipped Cream:
1 1/2 Cups heavy whipping cream
2 1/2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (Can be left out if not making the cream ahead of time.)

What to do:

I make my whipped cream in advance so I can keep in the fridge for a day or so beforehand (hence the gelatin).Otherwise, you end up with a sloppy, wilted mess instead of lovely, fluffy whipped cream.

Here’s what you do:

First, take 1/4 cup of cold water in a small saucepan and sprinkle in your gelatin. Let it soak up water for about a minute, and THEN turn on low heat and stir it until it dissolves (it looks like a simple syrup at this point).

Take it off the heat, and mix your 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar with your cold heavy whipping cream until you have stiffish peaks. (I use my trusty handheld emulsion blender here…did you get one, yet?) Mix in the gelatin/water mixture and blend again until you get softer peaks. You can store this for a couple of days in an air-tight container, which is AWESOME for when you’re having company AND when you just want a spoonful of the most heavenly stuff ever on a Tuesday afternoon.

Brew your coffee. I went with like 3 tablespoons of coffee/cup of water, which is WAY stronger than I usually make it. Also, for the hard version of this drink I used Community Dark Roast coffee (we ALWAYS buy community coffee down here… #drinklocal) for a super robust flavor. If you’re making the virgin version, I’d go easy on the King Cake flavored coffee (1 tablespoon of coffee/cup of water) as it has a VERY strong vanilla flavor. I also mixed it with some dark roast to cut the sweetness).

While your coffee is brewing, make your colorful sugars, (or you can be smart and do this in advance, also). In each plastic zippered bag, put 1/3 cup sugar. In one bag, put in yellow food coloring, in another, mix in green, or if you don’t have green, make it with about 2 drops of Blue + 2 or 3 drops of yellow.

In the third bag, make purple sugar using 2 or 3 drops of red and 2 or 3 drops of blue.

Mix the colors and the sugar together by smushing the bag with your fingers and moving the sugars and dye together. SO EASY! Now, if you find the sugar colors are too dark, or “too red” or “too blue” You can add in more sugar (to lighten it) or more of the opposite color. Put these aside or store until you’re ready to use them.

You can decorate your drink in one of two ways… 1) you can sprinkle a touch of each color sugar on the top of the whipped cream. Either way is great and both turned out pretty in my book, but I think I’m a “sprinkle on top kind of girl.” Just FYI, In these photos, the sprinkled mugs are the alcoholic drink, and the rimmed glasses are just coffee and whipped cream.

OR 2) You can rim your glass in sugar (which crystallizes really well when the hot coffee hits the glass mug!) rim your glasses with a touch of milk and sprinkle the sugar on a piece of wax or parchment paper. press the wet rim into the sugars and voila!

Measure 1/2 ounce King Cake Vodka (if making the alcoholic version) and pour it into your mug.

Then, pour the hot, strong coffee into the mug until it reaches the top.If making the non-alcoholic version, just pour the King-cake flavored coffee right into the glass.

Top with 2 heaping Tablespoons of whipped cream, sprinkle with sugar (if the glasses aren’t rimmed) and serve immediately. OR, I guess you COULD dump it all into a thermos and carry it with you to the parade…
I promise, The Le Roi Cafe` will keep you warm, it will make you happy, and even if you aren’t going to a parade, it’ll make you want to holler “Laissez bon temps rouler!!” to all passers-by.

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