Photography by Justin Fox Burks. Photo styling by Amy Lawrence
Audrey Anderson of The Pie Folks in Cordova shows off her National Pie Championship blue ribbons and her scrumptious pecan pies.
For Caramel Cake, It’s All about the Icing.
By Anna Turman
Baker Jo Stanford turns the stainless-steel mixing bowl upside-down and quickly spoons caramel frosting onto a waiting layer of yellow butter cake. The frosting still bubbles as it collects in the cake’s center, ready to be spread, topped with another layer of cake, and frosted again.
Stanford moves effortlessly to assemble the layers before painting the stacked three-layer dessert with a final coat of frosting. A few minutes later, the cake is complete, ready to be wrapped and displayed for sale in the bakery’s crowded cooler.
The caramel-colored beauty won’t take up space for long. “It’s one of our top sellers,” she says. “You’ll see it at nearly every Southern event.”
Photography by Justin Fox Burks. Photo styling by Amy Lawrence
Caramel cake from Frost Bake Shop in East Memphis.
Stanford, 72, has been making caramel cakes for Sugaree’s Bakery in New Albany, Mississippi, for 18 years, and she grew up eating the popular dessert in the early 1950s.
“A friend of mine taught me how to make it,” she says. “Hers were beautiful and smooth on top. She would take a wet knife and smooth the frosting out. That’s what made the sides so straight. No cracks or creases.”
Stanford keeps working as she talks, moving between a cast-iron skillet on the stove and a long metal table where she assembles the cakes. Over 20 layers of cake wait on the table, cooled and ready to be made into Sugaree’s signature dessert.
Sugaree’s, located about an hour south of Memphis, was established in 1997 in owner Mary Jennifer Russell’s home. Today, the small bakery continues to make Southern desserts from scratch and ships them nationwide, including to restaurants in Memphis.
Stanford says boiling the sugar for the frosting in a cast-iron skillet is as “old-fashioned as it gets.”
“We do everything from scratch with the best ingredients,” says Stanford of Sugaree’s. “This cake is very labor-intensive.”
The caramel confection, which sells at Sugaree’s for $60, has steadily evolved since its original debut in the South as a single-layer dessert with French origins.
The earliest known recipe for caramel cake in the U.S appeared in 1877 in the Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping cookbook, one of America’s premier cookbooks at the time. The sheet cake recipe included chocolate and a caramel syrup frosting. In 1901, a few additions were made to the cake when it appeared as Gateau au Caramel in The Picayune Creole Cook Book. The cookbook’s recipe called for sweet cream and stiffly beaten egg whites.
By 1930, Mary Pretlow’s recipe for the cake in her book Old Southern Receipts called for whole eggs, pastry flour, a pinch of mace, and chopped walnuts. The simple, three-ingredient icing recipe suggested a firm, buttercream-style frosting instead of traditional syrup.
Today’s caramel cake recipes can include everything from evaporated milk to sour cream to buttermilk. But Peggy Crumpton, 74, a former vice president of BNA Bank and frequent Sugaree’s customer, says she prefers a thick, stiff frosting created by making real caramel on the stove.
“The best part is the frosting,” says Crumpton, who buys half a cake every Christmas for a family potluck. “It has a distinct caramel flavor. It’s rich and thick. The cake is moist and buttery.”
Another Memphis bakery, Frost Bake Shop, sells 9-inch, three-layer caramel cakes, as well as caramel cupcakes. Like Sugaree’s version, the cake is a customer favorite. During the holidays last year, the bakery sold almost 900 caramel cakes, along with 9,334 caramel cupcakes.
Made with vanilla cake layers and thick, caramel frosting much like Sugaree’s, Frost’s cake recipe includes a dip in vanilla cream to keep the cake moist. The cake also features a circular swirl pattern carved into the frosting with a cake knife.
Frost owner Kristi Kloos says the frosting — made with brown sugar, butter, and handmade cream cheese — is available as a single “shot” inside a plastic syringe and in a one-pound tub and takes up to three hours to make. “Most people skimp on this step since it can take time, but that’s what makes it good,” Kloos says. “I love the caramel cake. It’s one of my favorites.”
Photography by Justin Fox Burks. Photo styling by Amy Lawrence
Pecan pie from The Pie Folks in Cordova.
For Pecan Pie, It’s All about the South’s Iconic Nuts.
By Brooke Luna
Is it pea-kan or pick-ahn?
To be honest, the age-old debate on pronunciation can easily be used to divide a map of the United States into different regions. In New England and the Eastern Seaboard, people say pea-kan, while in the Mid-South, most folks say pick-ahn.
Despite differences in pronunciation, pecans — the only indigenous tree nut in America — have a unifying quality, especially in the South: the iconic pecan pie. In fact, the dessert is so popular that National Pecan Pie Day is celebrated every July 12th, and in Texas, pecan pie is the state’s official dessert.
In Memphis, pecan pie surges in popularity during the holiday season. Last year, Frost Bake Shop sold 112 whole pecan pies and 536 mini pecan pies, the most sold of any kind of pie, says owner Kristi Kloos. Audrey Anderson, owner of The Pie Folks in Cordova, agrees. At her store, pecan is the third most popular pie, after pumpkin and chocolate, but between Thanksgiving and Christmas, pecan pie sales soar.
So, why all the fuss?
First, pecan pies taste delicious, Anderson says. “Also, there’s plenty of pecan trees, so that’s a ready ingredient people can get to make a delicious pie. You don’t have to buy it. You can go pick some pecans, crack them, and make a really good pie.”
Certainly, the availability of pecans plays an important role in the pie’s Southern roots. Pecans are native to areas along the Mississippi River and were a staple in the diet of Native Americans in the 1500s. In 1824, the first known recipe for a pecan pie with a milk-custard base was featured in The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph.
But the pie’s heartfelt pull, especially in November and December, remains in the South. “Everybody likes pecan pie, but it is definitely more of a Southern thing,” Anderson says.
The pie’s defining moment, however, didn’t happen for another 100 years, when the wife of a Karo Syrup executive used the new corn syrup in the filling of her pecan pie, boosting the dish’s popularity. The sweetener remains popular today with many Southern bakers, including Anderson, who has been baking pecan pies with Karo Syrup her whole life.
Bakers at Frost, however, never use corn syrup of any kind in their pecan pies, says Kloos, who operates the bakery with her husband, Bill. “One thing that sets us apart from most is that we do not use any corn syrup in our recipe — only brown sugar,” Kloos says. “It really does make a difference in flavor.”
The whims of nature also impact the flavor and availability of the pie’s most important ingredient. Last year, the pecan industry took a hit from Hurricane Michael, resulting in higher pecan prices. The hurricane destroyed more than 50 million pounds of nuts in Georgia, one of the states that produces the most pecans, according to Pecan Report, an online industry newsletter. This year, trees are rebounding with a plentiful crop, and the industry is on track to produce more than 300 million pounds of pecans, prized for their nutrition and buttery flavor.
Increasingly, pecan pie is being eaten year-round across the country, including New Mexico, another top-producing state for pecans. But the pie’s heartfelt pull, especially in November and December, remains in the South. “Everybody likes pecan pie, but it is definitely more of a Southern thing,” Anderson says.
Editor’s Note: Anna Turman and Brooke Luna are student food writers with the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis.
For caramel cake or pecan pie, special order at these local bakeries:
2581 Broad Ave. (901-454-7930) and 629 S. Mendenhall Road (901-207-1546)
394 S. Grove Park Road (901-682-4545) and 1016 W. Poplar, Collierville (901-682-4545)
Kay Bakery
667 Avon Road (901-767-0780)
3088 Poplar Ave. (901-458-0900)
39 W. Commerce St., Hernando, Mississippi (662-449-7000)
5101 Sanderlin (901-683-8844) and 585 S. Cooper St. (901-683-8844)
110 W. Bankhead St., New Albany, Mississippi (662-534-0031)
1028 N. Germantown Pkwy., Cordova (901-752-5454)
