There are some things you can count on in the South. Your legs will stick to the ballpark seat in August. There’s a Waffle House just up the road. And Garden & Gun newsletter readers will deliver when you ask them a question. (See exhibits A, B, and C.)
In a recent Talk of the South newsletter, we asked a tough one: “If you could only eat one Southern dessert for the rest of your life, what would it be?” Responses ranged from the highly specific (like the “gone but not forgotten” white chocolate banana cream pie at Atlanta’s now-closed Buckhead Diner) to the classic if sometimes underrated (hummingbird cake or coconut cake, anyone?). New Orleans could be a category of its own; readers drooled over Doberge cake, Bananas Foster, and a traditional NOLA wedding cake filled with pineapple and almond.
But like cream in fresh milk, a handful of favorites rose to the top, including one clear winner. Get a rundown—and recipes—below.
7. Sweet Potato Pie
“Sweet potato pie. Need I say any more?” wrote reader Don O. “Needs no further explanation,” declared Michael F. Mic drop. Fair enough. But if you grew up on the ubiquitous pumpkin variation, you might not know that this soul-food staple is generally sweeter and airier than its oft-canned cousin. Fresher, too, thanks to the South’s abundance of the heat-loving crop. (North Carolina is the country’s leading producer of the tasty tuber by a long shot.)
Recipe: Sweet Potato Pie, Perfected
6. Bread Pudding
Photo: KATHERINE COBBS / BLUELINE CREATIVE GROUP
The ultimate upcycled dessert dates back to medieval England, but leave it to Southerners to douse their sweetened chunks of stale bread in what more than one reader called “hard sauce.” In a tip that had us immediately googling tour companies, Jackie M. shared: “I have been known to take the bread pudding tour of New Orleans more than once. Served warm with bourbon sauce, it can’t be beat.”
Recipe: Eggnog-Raisin Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce
5. Pound Cake
Plenty of readers pined for pound cake—but not just any pound cake. Suzanne N. singled out her “grandmother’s cold oven pound cake,” while Donna D. remembered eating her “mama’s sour cream pound cake” for breakfast with butter and a cup of coffee. And kudos to Martha M. for rightly viewing the sunken “sad streak” in her mother’s creation as the sign of a perfectly imperfect labor of love.
Recipe: The Ultimate Pound Cake
4. Cobbler (Preferably Peach or Blackberry)
Warm, fresh fruit bubbling under biscuit dough, on the other hand, is so good even mama can’t compete. “The question caused me to remember all the delicious baked goods my mother made during my childhood in Atlanta,” began Michele H., “but my favorite is one I started making after moving to North Carolina as an adult.” That would be cobbler, of course—and surely mom won’t mind being upstaged by succulent Southern-grown peaches or berries. A “freshly picked, freshly baked blackberry cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream…is worth all the chiggers, thorns, and finger stains you get picking them,” affirmed Tom C.
Recipe: Blackberry and Peach Cobbler
3. Pecan Pie
We’re getting to the heavy hitters here, and no matter how you pronounce it, this sacred marriage of sweet, buttery, nutty, and crunchy in pie form is the G.O.A.T. to many readers. Some like it with a “touch of whiskey baked in,” others demanded chocolate in the mix, and a few identified Blue Bell vanilla ice cream as the ideal companion. “Eternal dessert,” rhapsodized Dean W. “Rapture in a pie shell,” agreed Anne H.
Recipe: Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie
2. Key Lime Pie
Judging by the popularity of this silky, citrusy slice of South Florida, even more of you prefer tart to cloying. (Unless you’re Jennie M., who’s just hungry: “Key lime pie tops the list, but lemon icebox pie might be more Southern. But strawberry shortcake is always fabulous if made with sweet biscuits and not that ol’ cakey mess you see up north, which brings me to cobblers with their drop biscuits atop…”) If you’ve ever amassed a mountain of discarded rinds in the service of one pie, you know what a chore those itty-bitty Key limes can be, but readers emphatically agree: Their juice is worth the squeeze.
1. Banana Pudding
Given how polarizing its titular fruit can be in other contexts, some might find our readers’ devotion to this dessert surprising. Not Rhonda M. “Everyone is going to say banana pudding,” she predicted, astutely recognizing that it’s a whole different banana ballgame when sweet custard and soft Nilla wafers are involved. “No brainer…banana pudding that just came out of the oven,” echoed Steve B., while John C. expressed similar certitude (“Easy…Aunt Crystobel’s ’nanner puddin’”) and Ron L. all but tucked a napkin into his shirt (“Skip dinner! Give me pudding!”).
While some prefer it warm and others like it cold, many of you agreed: Only the good stuff, please. That means homemade custard over instant pudding and real, toasted meringue over whipped topping—just as the Nilla wafers box advises. To quote Patricia S., “I’m sure this is served in heaven.”
Recipe: Rob McDaniel’s Warm Banana Pudding
