By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
With Valentine’s Day coming up, it got me thinking of sweet things, and in particular, the happy subject of favorite desserts. And as my reading audience is mostly Kentuckians — and Kentuckians like sweets — I wondered what desserts best suit their tastes, and how many are delights of which I’ve not been aware. As a long-time connoisseur of desserts at church potlucks, family reunions, and many school lunchrooms, I’ve seen and tasted many myself.
So, I asked… and received, yikes, some nutritionally decadent answers.
But first, MY favorite. It’s peach pie or cobbler with a dip of vanilla ice cream, slightly nosing out ice cream with blackberry or strawberry pie. My dad having worked at an ice cream company while I was growing up meant that the stuff often made its way to our home and the “creamy” accessory would complement our desserts, or often was THE dessert.
My wife, contrarily, stays away from those fruit desserts that might leave seeds to brush from her teeth. She chooses coconut custard, butterscotch, or chocolate meringue pie. Suzanne says that the size of the meringue, often a source of pride at church potlucks she has attended, isn’t important to her, but the filling and buttery crust is her undying focus. She’s pretty good at baking them for the Flairty household, too.
Terah Hatton, a fourth-grade student of mine back in the 20th century, has discovered “chocolate lava cake.” It’s well-named because it has warm, creamy chocolate inside the cake that pours out onto the dish after a piece is cut. Using one’s imagination, it looks like a mini volcano happening in one’s kitchen, an enjoyable one you run toward.
For Ray Spenilla, it’s a delicacy called “peach of a pie.” It is made, basically, with graham cracker crust, a creamy layer of cream, sweet, condensed milk, etc., “then the top layer adorned with sliced peaches and strawberries,” he said with obvious salivation.
How about Italian crème cake with cheese frosting and a big crystal bowl of fruit salad? Billie Jo Chaplin, of Falmouth, calls her version a “revision to the old family recipe.” A neighbor of mine said he likes getting a “twelve pack of Spalding’s donuts” from Lexington’s Spalding’s Bakery. It seems he got hooked when someone at his church used to bring 48 of ‘em for the morning coffee hour held after the worship service. I always like to keep my neighbors close, and this is one of the reasons.
Bettie Ockerman admits she doesn’t often make her favorite dessert, butterscotch meringue pie, noting that she’ll “eat it all within two or the days.” The Lexington resident made her first one when she was in high school. You might say she is loyal to the brand. Stephanie Brown also referenced high school by mentioning the “strawberry soda pop cake” she made for her high school sweetheart, now her husband of 35 years. That’s some powerful love potion of a dessert!
In what seems like a formal type of dessert, Susan Riggs, of Winchester, is a “tuxedo cake with ice cream” fan . . . and makes sure her own homemade fudge sauce is generously spread on top. Joyce Burnette likes her “chocolate cherry bars,” which, she says, are “more like a cake.” Her husband is a lover of his mother’s homemade carrot cake.
My mother often made “pineapple upside down cake,” but it wasn’t one of my favorites. Maybe Dave Robertson’s idea would have changed things, however. “Try making ‘pineapple upside down cake’ in a cast iron skillet instead of a cake pan,” he said. “The flavors are different, the texture is certainly different, and it is fabulous. Same recipe, different vessel. Your only decision will be whether to just go ahead and eat it or roll around in it first.”
Other desserts mentioned by our Kentucky cohorts are lemon meringue pie, strawberry tarts, and blackberry cake. Rita Watts referenced her ethnic background by sharing her favorite, “vanilla ice cream with crumbled up baklava,” made by her Greek mother.
“Strawberry divinity” candy probably deserves votes for top dessert mentioned, if only for its bold spiritual name. Gayle Deaton loves to make them for her Sunday School class and others, and she’ll send you her recipe if you email her at deaton352@gmail.com.
Perhaps one or more of these suggestions will be good to share with the love of your life. Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.
