17 Vintage Southern Desserts That Deserve A Comeback ASAP

Coastal states might lay claim to many Michelin stars, but foodies know that it’s the South that holds some of the greatest gastronomical innovations the U.S. has ever seen. Sure, there is nothing inherently gourmet about blackberry dumplings or banana pudding, but those flavors don’t lie. One bite and you’ll be hunting for out-of-print cookbooks to try and make them yourself.

The history of food in the South is quite literally baked into our national cuisine, drawing from Native American, West African, and European traditions. Given the centuries that have gone into this unique fusion, it’s hardly surprising that many of the once-beloved dishes from the region have now given way to a more narrow line-up of tried-and-true recipes. While you can still find Lane cake and benne wafers in certain pockets of the South, they deserve a much wider audience. Whether you’re looking to level up your pie game without having to head to the store or want to wow your dinner guests with a show-stopping cake they’ve never heard of, here are some of the most mouthwatering desserts from the South that deserve to be celebrated as much as peach cobbler and pecan pie.

Buttermilk is the most underrated dairy product out there. Unlike milk, it is full of acid, which helps break down gluten and protein in dough to yield more tender cakes, biscuits, and cookies. That acidity also adds a hint of tanginess, which is its primary purpose in buttermilk pie. Like its close cousin, chess pie, buttermilk pie is part of a category called “desperation pies,” which use mostly unrefrigerated pantry staples and were therefore more affordable and long-lasting than easily spoiled and more seasonal fruit pies. Silky, custardy, and just a little tangy, buttermilk pie is a deliciously textured and flavored dessert when you want something that isn’t sickly sweet or predictable.

Make sure you’re using real buttermilk for the recipe instead of a substitute. Nothing can quite match it, especially when it’s the star ingredient. Don’t worry – there are plenty of ways to use up the leftovers if you have any. You can also dress up a buttermilk pie, for example, with a simple dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of chopped fruit, or a spoonful of blackberry moonshine.

If you’ve ever been to an Alabama bakery, you’ve probably seen a Lane cake. Bourbon is the secret ingredient, imbuing the dessert with a hint of boozy decadence, while the egg whites keep the texture light as air. Throw in some raisins, peaches, or cherries, slather it with inches of rich coconut frosting, and you’ve got yourself one of the most swoon-worthy cakes in the South.

Alabaman Emma Rylander Lane is credited with inventing this luscious concoction. It earned her the top prize at a baking competition at a county fair in Georgia and was later the standout recipe in her modestly titled 1898 cookbook, “Some Good Things To Eat.” The Lane cake rocketed to fame in the 1960s after it featured in Harper Lee’s classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” in which Miss Maudie Atkinson, the Finches’ next-door neighbor, is famous for her extremely boozy version of the recipe. The cake was also a favorite dessert of President Jimmy Carter, who had one baked every Christmas, even in the White House.

In traditional Southern cooking, dumplings usually refer to balls of dough dropped into boiling water rather than parcels of dough filled with savory fillings. Apples are a favorite main ingredient, but blackberries are also common, given that they grow prolifically in the summer. The origins of blackberry dumplings are murky, but for those who have had them, they often carry a sense of childhood nostalgia. Perhaps their simplicity is the reason they seem so old-fashioned, or maybe it’s just the carefree act of picking wild blackberries in the summertime that makes them seem part of an idyllic past. Whatever the reason, they are a comforting, even sentimental recipe for many Southerners. 

To make them, all you have to do is form balls out of plain dumpling dough and simmer them in homemade blackberry sauce. Think of blackberry dumplings as an even easier and more foolproof version of blackberry buckle or cobbler. Serve them with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and you’ll be in flavor heaven.

Unlike many old-fashioned recipes, the origin of the sock-it-to-me cake can be traced back to a specific time – around the late 1960s and early ’70s. Sock-it-to-me” has meant something along the lines of “tell it to me straight” for more than a century. In the 1960s, it was cemented as part of broader African-American culture with Aretha Franklin’s hit song “Respect,” in which the background singers repeat “sock-it-to-me.” It later became a catchphrase on the popular variety show, “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.”

So, what does any of this have to do with cake? Well, Duncan Hines knew a marketing opportunity when it saw one and decided to print a recipe for a pound cake filled with streusel and topped with vanilla icing on the back of its cake mixes, after the zeitgeisty phrase. Unfortunately, that may have also given it an all-too-short cultural shelf life, since the popularity of this delicious recipe seemed to fade with the phrase itself. Rich, sweet, and easy to make, there is no reason this uniquely named confection shouldn’t be a home baking staple.

Smith Island cake is one of those recipes that is so region-specific that few people outside its small geographic sphere have heard of it. However, it also happens to be the state dessert of Maryland. The fact that it is associated so closely with the small area of Smith Island (which sits in Chesapeake Bay) is kind of the point. The villagers on Smith Island traditionally made their living off harvesting oysters, and when the men were away for weeks on end to bring in the year’s haul, their wives would send them on their journey with this distinctive treat to remind them of home.

Baking a Smith Island cake might not be as demanding as a weeks-long journey into open water, but it isn’t for the faint of heart, either. Made of around eight to 10 layers of yellow cake held together by decadent chocolate frosting, it’s a challenging undertaking, but the results are worth the effort.

Louisiana’s cuisine is inextricably tied to  Creole fare, which fuses French, West African, Spanish, and Native American food together to create one of the most distinct and delicious cuisines in the U.S. However, one of Louisiana’s greatest dishes has another origin entirely. The doberge cake is a classic New Orleans concoction made of layers of yellow cake (usually eight) divided by layers of chocolate or lemon filling. It was created by Beulah Ledner, a baker born to Jewish immigrants in St. Rose in the 1890s. She opened a bakery in New Orleans as a way to supplement her husband’s income during the Great Depression.

The doberge cake (pronounced “do-bash”) was her version of a Hungarian dobos torte, but instead of sandwiching the layers of cake with rich buttercream, she opted for a lighter custardy filling which she believed was more appropriate for the sweltering Louisiana climate. As for the name, it was her nod to New Orleans’ French heritage.

Mixing multiple tried-and-true flavors isn’t always a home run. Peanut butter and chocolate lemon bars aren’t going to win you any prizes, and key lime pumpkin pie probably won’t disappear at the Thanksgiving potluck. However, the same is not true for blackberry jam cake. This Southern delicacy brings together the tanginess of blackberries and the heady aromas of spice cake. It might not sound particularly harmonious, but trust the history on this one: It’s heavenly.

Blackberry jam cake dates back centuries. According to author Anne Byrn in “American Cake,” it was one of President Andrew Jackson’s favorite desserts. Initially, its winning feature was the blackberries. Spice cake is often associated with autumn and winter months — times where fresh blackberries are hard to come by. Preserved blackberry jam added a splash of culinary sunshine to the autumnal recipe, and the resulting cake was a staple of the season.

Contrary to what its name might have you believe, chess pie is not a chocolate and vanilla pie, but a gooey, sugary, vinegary one. Don’t worry though, it’s a lot tastier than it sounds. Revered by home bakers for its quick assembly and affordable ingredient list, it also happens to be one of the South’s most delicious and crowd-pleasing desserts — a win-win for any last-minute potluck attendees.

Simple though it may be from the standpoint of the baker, chess pie is a perfect example of the marvels of kitchen chemistry. Cornmeal and flour create a crinkling crust on top. Vinegar balances out the sweetness. And don’t scrimp on the sugar, because the ratio between the sugar and the eggs is the key to that trademark creamy, jiggly consistency that doesn’t turn into a gooey puddle when sliced. It might be a bit too sickly for some, but if you have a sweet tooth, chess pie will hit the spot.

The apple stack cake sets itself apart from other vintage Southern layered cakes, including the Smith Island cake and New Orleans’ doberge cake, with its star ingredient. Apples grow plentifully in Appalachia, giving rise to a host of beloved regional recipes. Apple stack cake is a celebration of the fruit, packing in the flavor by slathering each layer with homemade apple butter.

The texture of the cake is also different from other dobos torte-inspired recipes. The cake layers aren’t tender and springy; they’re dense and sturdy. This makes them easier to handle and renders that apple butter all the more necessary. Although the apple stack cake doesn’t have the wow factor of a towering, custard-covered doberge cake or a classic dobos torte, its combination of intense apple butter and sorghum syrup (or molasses, depending on the recipe) yields an unforgettable flavor that apple lovers will swoon over.

Economic downturns have necessitated gastronomic creativity. Tomato soup cake, water pie, and mock apple pie made with crackers were just a few of the recipes that were either invented or popularized during the Great Depression because they replaced costly ingredients with affordable kitchen staples. Similarly, Coca-Cola cake emerged sometime in the mid-20th century and became popular in the 1960s before falling out of fashion. It’s sweet — no doubt sickly sweet for some — but for those who like their desserts on the sugary side, it’s sure to hit the mark.

Despite its name, it does not taste like Coca-Cola. Made with marshmallows, chocolate, and the famous soda, it’s full of strong flavors, none of which steal the show. With dark, fudgy frosting and a warm, tender texture, it’s about as irresistible as you can get. For those who have had the pleasure of indulging in this luxurious treat at Cracker Barrel, rest assured that the homemade version is even better.

The South is known for its cakes and pies, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore all other categories of sweet treats. Among the unsung heroes of Southern desserts is the benne wafer. As with many U.S. foods, these deliciously crisp cookies were likely an indirect product of slavery. During the 18th and 19th centuries, enslaved West Africans brought sesame seeds to the South. Called “benne,” this unassuming ingredient was believed to bring good luck.

Benne wafers themselves are most closely associated with the Lowcountry of South Carolina, which is probably the only place you’ll find them sold today. Luckily, you can make them at home. Dark brown sugar and sesame seeds create a rich, toasted caramel flavor, while the wispy, crispy texture makes them delicate and moreish. Whip up a batch of these buttery slivers of perfection in lieu of your usual Christmas cookies and you’ll be fighting off requests for the recipe.

There is nothing obscure or unsung about sweet potatoes, especially in the South. However, when it comes to pies, pumpkin steals the glory. You might have sweet potato casserole at Thanksgiving, but it’s the pumpkin pie that everyone’s waiting for. And yet, there are many reasons to switch the roles here.

No matter what the Starbucks menu might have you believe, sweet potato is much more conducive to dessert than pumpkin. It has more calories, carbs, protein, and sugar than its lighter, more watery counterpart, providing all the dense, buttery sweetness you could wish for in a dessert. More importantly, this sugary vegetable is deeply intertwined with Southern tradition. 

While European settlers and colonists in the North were experimenting with putting pumpkin into pies, enslaved cooks in the South were using sweet potatoes to make pone, a sugary West African dessert originally made with yams that used spices and molasses, much like a modern-day sweet potato pie. They might look similar, but pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie have vastly different legacies, and the former should not outshine the latter.

Southerners have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the ambrosia salad. Hopelessly dated but undeniably delicious, it harkens back to that moment in the 1960s and ’70s when sickly sweet salads smothered in cream, such as Watergate and strawberry pretzel , were the shining stars of the potluck table. The first known recipe dates all the way back to Maria Massey Barringer’s 1867 cookbook “Dixie Cookery,” in which she detailed a recipe that contained coconut, sugar, and orange. The most popular 20th-century version of the recipe includes pineapple, marshmallows, and whipped cream.

The decline in popularity of dessert salads was more of a crash than a slow slide into obscurity, to the point where serving them now carries a hint of hipster irony. But let’s be serious here: Ambrosia salad was and still is a stone-cold classic for a reason, and relegating it to your grandmother’s recipe box would be everyone’s loss.

If you’re ever in need of a show-stopping dessert for a special occasion and aren’t interested in retreading familiar territory, look no further than the Lady Baltimore cake: a meringue-topped concoction full of sugary dried fruit and flavored with almond, vanilla, and rum extracts.

The origin of Lady Baltimore cake is murky, though it is usually associated with South Carolina rather than Maryland. What is clear is that its popularity took off after Owen Wister published his novel “Lady Baltimore” in 1906, in which the cake is featured. Before then, there were no published recipes. Afterward, recipes began to crop up in cookbooks throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Though less popular today, the Lady Baltimore has lost none of its impact for those lucky enough to try it. The recipe is relatively simple, so you can see what all the fuss is about even if you don’t live near a Charleston bakery.

Transparent pie sounds like the worst kind of diet food, but it’s actually pretty decadent. Like many of the most delicious desserts from the South, it was born out of a need for simplicity and affordability. There are no fancy ingredients — just butter, sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla, and cream. Some recipes substitute the cream with evaporated milk, making it even less reliant on refrigeration.

It probably won’t surprise you to find out that this pie is not, in fact, transparent. But don’t fooled by its appearance. It looks a lot like a chess pie, but it doesn’t have the tanginess of vinegar or the slightly gooey texture from cornmeal. Created in Kentucky, it isn’t nearly as well-known outside its home turf as the chess pie is. However, it’s a delicious alternative and one that requires an even simpler assortment of ingredients. It’s also easy to dress up. Top it with whipped cream and berries and it’s sure to draw attention.

Bananas are not a Southern crop, so you might be wondering how banana pudding became such a staple of the region. When trade routes opened up from Central America and the Caribbean just after the Civil War, the tropical fruit became all the rage across the whole country. Recipes for pudding began cropping up in the late 1880s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that it became associated with the South.

Why this happened is unclear. It might have had something to do with the fact that pudding is cold and therefore perfect for a hot climate. It might have been because pudding is easy to make in bulk and serve at large potlucks and gatherings for which Southerners are so famous. It may have been a simple marketing ploy to make the dish sound a bit folksy. Whatever the reason, banana pudding deserves to be praised from the rooftops, and our recipe is sure to win over any skeptics.

At first glance, Japanese fruit cake is one big (delicious) lie. It is neither Japanese nor particularly fruity. Some recipes hardly contain any fruit at all. But don’t judge it too harshly. What it lacks in predictability it makes up for everywhere else. Made of light, tender layers of spice cake held together with coconut frosting, it’s a moist, decadent confection that puts other cakes to shame.

The fact that it doesn’t resemble a standard fruitcake is a selling point rather than a deterrent. Fear not the dense, gluey doorstop of a cake that people inflict on one another during the holidays. This version is something else entirely. The first printed version of the recipe was penned by Nashville native Kate Brew Vaughan in 1914, but did not give any clues about the origins of its name. Regardless, it became a Southern holiday staple, and with any luck, will come roaring back to popularity and eclipse the classic fruitcake once and for all.