Award-winning king cake has this Alabama business working overtime to keep up with orders
Barbara Sylkatis and Laura Stafford are co-owners of Gourmet Goodies in Daphne and creators of the Crawfish King Cake. (Michael Tomberlin / Alabama News Center)
Alabama’s award-winning king cake isn’t dusted with colored sugar or layered with cinnamon. In fact, it’s not sweet at all.
Instead, the Crawfish King Cake from Gourmet Goodies in Daphne is filled with a tasty crawfish stuffing and covered in a crawfish cream sauce.
The king cake was recognized as the top king cake from Alabama along with other awards at this year’s King Cake Extravaganza in New Orleans.
But Gourmet Goodies owners Laura Stafford and Barbara Sylkatis almost didn’t even have the king cake in the contest.
Gourmet Goodies is home of Alabama’s award-winning Crawfish King Cake and more from Alabama News Center on Vimeo.
As Gourmet Goodies was getting back going after the holiday break this year, Mardi Gras season was coming alive. Then came a request from a customer in Pensacola.
He was going to be traveling to New Orleans and was wondering if they could make a Crawfish King Cake on Thursday. He had heard about the crawfish king cake a year earlier when the unique creation had made the local newspaper and become a hit in the greater Mobile area.
Gourmet Goodies was not planning on making king cakes until Friday but decided to take the special order. The Pensacola customer also requested a traditional sweet king cake.
Come to find out, he was collecting entrants for the King Cake Extravaganza charity contest in New Orleans. Alabama had an open spot for an entry and the Crawfish King Cake would end up taking that spot.
Gourmet Goodies’ king cakes would be among 150 king cakes from five states competing for top honors.
Phone calls and text messages kept Gourmet Goodies posted on how they progressed in the competition.
They made the Top 20, then the Top 10.
Stafford was on her way to church when she was told she had to keep it a secret until the formal announcement, but the crawfish king cake was recognized as the third best overall, the best savory king cake, the best from Alabama and the best new entrant.
The announcement of the win has set off an unending wave of orders and media attention that has Gourmet Goodies busier than ever.
“The phones began to ring off the hook, orders started coming in and that’s where we are today,” Stafford said.
The award-winning Gourmet Goodies Crawfish King Cake. (contributed)
Where they are today is trying to make king cakes as fast as they can and that is requiring orders to be placed two weeks in advance.
“It’s an awesome, awesome thing,” Stafford said. “We are both so shocked and really just like, ‘God, you are so good.’”
A business is born
God and church have been central to Gourmet Goodies from the beginning.
Stafford, a children’s minister, started selling gourmet candied apples as a fundraiser to take a church children’s group to Disney World. They were able to raise nearly $19,000 by selling the apples.
After the Disney trip, she received requests for more apples, an indication that there was a real market for her cooking.
Stafford’s sister, brother and father are also in the ministry. While Stafford was working with a church in north Alabama, her family had started Coastal Church.
At her brother’s urging, Stafford came home to do hospitality events for the church her family started. Gourmet Goodies started as a catering company and then as a café at the church.
“It exploded,” Stafford said.
And then the pandemic hit.
Sylkatis and her family were attending Coastal Church and she got to know Stafford.
Her job had been stymied by the pandemic, and Sylkatis shared with Stafford that she has always enjoyed cooking and making cakes.
“I needed a job and she needed a partner, so it just kind of went from there,” Sylkatis said.
Gourmet Goodies is now a stand-alone business that offers a variety of baked goods, sweets and breads. They also sell prepared meals, soups and sandwiches. They also do lots of catering.
“We kind of have become a jack of all trades, kind of a one-stop shop, if you will,” Stafford said.
Savory king cake
Stafford had tried a savory king cake before that was stuffed with boudin. She is not a boudin fan but was intrigued to see what she could do with a savory king cake.
Because Mardi Gras is associated with Mobile and New Orleans and because crawfish is big in the two cities, Stafford decided to stuff her savory king cake with crawfish. Sylkatis mastered the bread to make it turn out perfect.
They collaborated to perfect the recipe to include a sauce for the top and those who tried it seem to like it.
It became popular and a story was done in a local newspaper. The Crawfish King Cake was a huge seller during the 2022 season. That’s where it got the attention of the man from Pensacola. The rest is history.
King cake and Mardi Gras
With so much in the South and Mobile tied to food, it’s a bit surprising that not many food items have strong Mardi Gras ties. To be sure, food and drink are consumed in great quantities in parades, at balls and in conjunction with other Mardi Gras events. But not many foods are quintessentially Mardi Gras.
The king cake holds that distinction, said Chris Andrews, co-founder of the Bienville Bites Food Tour.
“Certainly in modern times, the king cake is the food symbol for Mardi Gras,” he said.
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Andrews said food is a great unifier and a big part of the Southern hospitality that we enjoy. King cake, then, makes perfect sense as the Mardi Gras food.
“It’s fun. It’s colorful. It can be enjoyed by all people of all ages,” Andrews said.
Although a savory king cake isn’t traditional, Andrews said he likes to see king cake culture grow in fresh, new ways because Mardi Gras culture grows with it.
“I have an order in for the Crawfish King Cake,” he said.
He’s not the only one. People are ordering sweet and savory king cakes from Gourmet Goodies and it has the business working day and night.
And the victory in New Orleans has Gourmet Goodies keen for more competition.
On Jan. 27 at the King Cake-Off in Mobile, Gourmet Goodies took home the top prize for the traditional king cake. Stafford and Sylkatis took their entire team to the competition – a reward for all of the hard work so far this season.
After Mardi Gras season, they continue to use the king cake bread to make savory king cakes that Gourmet Goodies calls “sandwich rings.” They come in flavors that include Monte Cristo, Reuben, Philly Cheesesteak, club and even a breakfast one.
“As long as people want ‘em, we’ll do ‘em,” Stafford said.
For those wanting the king cake flavors but not the full king cake, the same crawfish stuffing and sauce can be found in Crawfish Bombs that are sold in smaller servings as long as they last most Fridays. The sauce is also served on their prep shrimp and crab pasta meal.
To get through the season, Gourmet Goodies has a team devoted to king cakes and the rest of the staff works on the other products.
“We’re not doing a lot of sleeping during this time,” Stafford said.
“But it’s worth it,” Sylkatis said.
“It’s such a unique opportunity and gift, and we want to steward it well,” Stafford said.
