Sugary and sweet fried king cakes steeped in family tradition keep the window sliding open even more at Nelson’s Donuts during Mardi Gras.

Eldon Fontenot Jr. is always the first to arrive at the white wooden shop on E. McNeese Street during king cake season, clocking in at about 1 a.m. each shift.

He washes his hands, puts on his apron and works his long fingers into the dough, kneading, scooping and shaping it into a flour-covered mound.

More than half of the dough will eventually become donuts for morning commuters on their way to school zones and work stations. The rest will become king cake.

After the dough has risen — about a 45-minute process — Fontenot uses a metal 18-inch rolling pin to stretch it about a quarter-inch thick before using a pizza cutter to cut it into sets of three strips.

“A lot of other shops bake theirs, but we fry ours to make it a little different. Of course, we have the best donuts so naturally we have the best king cakes,” he said with a grin.

With the exception of added cinnamon to the king cake dough, the ingredients are the same as for the donuts.

It’s a tried-and-true king cake tradition that Nelson’s Donuts, which opened in 1968, has served since 1998.

Fontenot’s father owned the family’s first donut shop — Donut King in Lafayette. Today family members own three donut shops in Lake Charles — Donut King on La. 14, Delicious Donuts on Country Club and Nelson’s Donuts.

“We call ourselves the ‘Donut Krewe’, ” Fontenot said with a laugh while sliding the cutter through the dough.

Once the dough is cut and lined up in sets of three, Fontenot braids the strips and then folds the ends together to make a ring.

“It’s just like braiding a girl’s hair,” he said.

The braided rings are then lined onto a pan and placed in a proof box for the dough to rise in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment.

That process takes about 20 minutes, which gives Fontenot’s nephew, Jeromey, enough time to arrive at the shop by 2:30 a.m. and heat the frying grease.

When the temperature of the grease is heated to 375 degrees, the braided dough is dropped into a large fryer basket. The cake rests on one side in the grease until golden brown then Jeromey uses a wooden rod to flip them over and fry the other side. Once complete, the fryer basket is lifted and the cakes are flipped into a sugar-glazing machine that moves across the top of the cakes dropping a light shine of glaze on them — just like the donuts.

Jeromey said the process of glazing donuts and king cakes is the same, what sets the cakes apart are the added icing lining the tops.

Jeromey, who initially worked at the donut shop while in high school, rejoined the group in 2004 and now works for his sister, the owner.

“It’s not just a donut shop,” he said. “This is our entire family — the ‘Donut Krewe.’ ”

Laci Meadows, the shop’s manager and primary icing artist, takes the freshly glazed cakes and pokes small holes throughout the ring to pipe filling inside before decorating the tops with the traditional purple, gold and green icing.

Gold represents power, purple for justice, and green signifies faith. The shape of the cake symbolizes the unity of faiths.

The cakes at Nelson’s Donuts come in nine basic flavors — Bavarian creme, chocolate, strawberry, cream cheese, cinnamon, apple, lemon, blueberry and raspberry — but combining those flavors makes the possibilities endless.

The Bavarian creme is the most popular flavor, Meadows said while creating icing stripes across the cake ring.

Meadows said she doesn’t like to ice the king cakes just one way.

“Sometimes I go across, sometimes it’s up and down,” she said. “But I do like to put the colors on in a certain order — darkest to lightest. Yellow is on top, that’s just my preference.”

She said the king cake icing is thicker than the icing used to frost donuts — and the chocolate icing is whipped and homemade.

Once the king cake is iced, Meadows pipes a dollop of purple icing into the middle of the ring and rests a plastic baby on it so customers can hide it inside the cake themselves before serving.

Nelson’s Donuts is open 4 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. King cakes are $15 plain, $18 filled plus $2 for additional fillings and can be ordered by calling 337-477-9233.