This year the Juneteenth holiday appears to be getting much more traction than ever before. Banks are closing early. Nike gave their employees the day off. It seems like every major news publication has a primer on this holiday.
…Southern Classics
Sweet Potato Pie
Sweet Potato Pie is a classic, it reminds me of home and my Auntie. Growing up, I only had one Auntie, my mother’s older sister. She, in many ways, was the OG Side Gig/Hustler. After serving in the Air Force, she drove taxis from the airport, there was a Mary Kay phase, and an AmWay phase. But the hustle that she was most known for was filing people’s taxes.
Brown Butter Beignets
Beignet is a word I cannot spell. I know how to make them and I definitely know how to eat them, but the “i” after the “e” when it’s not after a “c” is confusing. When I need autocorrect to be helpful, it takes my combination of vowels and leaves a red squiggly line underneath mocking me as if to say “Girl, we don’t know what that is.”
Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Pound cake is the little black dress of southern baking. Like a LBD, a pound cake can be casual and plain, or they can be dressed up with flavor, like the lemon cream cheese pound cake recipe I am sharing today.
Everyone (and their mama) has a lemon pound cake recipe, some were passed down from generation to generation, while some are modern rifts on the classic. I can’t tell you how many church functions growing up, ended with a dessert table filled with pound cakes. Funerals, weddings, potlucks, family reunions, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Somehow magically, there was always a pound cake.
Edna Lewis Caramel Pie
Caramel pies are basically pecan pies without the pecans. It’s all of the gooey goodness in a pecan pie for people with a nut allergy. This recipe is old school, southern. When I say ‘old school’ I mean, we are using crisco/lard and corn syrup and we are not apologizing for it. This is the pie for the person in your life with the sweetest sweet tooth. …
Sweet Potato Biscuits
Sweet. Potato. Biscuits. I need them in my life way more often. Growing up in Charleston, you would think that these were on the menu all the time. But I honestly don’t ever recall my grandmother making sweet potato biscuits. Sweet Potato Pie- definitely! Sweet Potato Biscuit- Nope. When my bestie got married in Charleston almost 9 years ago she served sweet potato biscuits at her reception. I can’t remember anything else about the food at the wedding, but those Sweet Potato Biscuits were everything. …
King Cake
DO NOT TRY TO MAKE A KING CAKE OVERNIGHT. Leave that sh*t to the professionals! I thought that since a king cake is essentially a cinnamon roll that I could abide by the normal– slow rise in the fridge overnight. Let me tell you what happened. …
Homemade Moon Pies
This post is going to be all about my trip to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for Moon Pies. I consider myself “old school” when it comes to the grocery store. There’s always a handwritten list in the order that you go through the grocery store (produce first, frozen food last). When I am making a new recipe the first time, I write out the whole recipe and then cross off the things I already have (like flour and butter).…
Classic Biscuits
These are the best biscuits in the world. They aren’t made with buttermilk or even butter. These are the best biscuits because they are the ones my grandma made for me growing up in her tiny Ladson, South Carolina kitchen. When I was maybe 8 or 9 years old we moved in with my grandma. I would come home from school and she would be in the kitchen making dinner– usually stewed chicken with carrots and potatoes, white rice, and if she had time, biscuits. She made dinner every single day and my cousins (who were much older) would drop by from whatever they were doing and grab a plate of food….
Cast Iron Cornbread
Any decent southern baker has a cornbread recipe. And every southern baker has an opinion about whether or your not sugar belongs in cornbread. Team Sugar, over here. Cornbread made in a cast iron is a staple. It’s iconic. It’s a classic. I’ve made this particular recipe so many times that I have it memorized. …
