The Good Book of Southern Baking: A Revival of Biscuits, Cakes, and Cornbread

A comprehensive, contemporary collection of more than 100 beloved Southern baking recipes from the James Beard Award-winning Kelly Fields of the New Orleans bakery Willa Jean.

As the reigning queen of Southern baking, celebrated pastry chef Kelly Fields has spent decades figuring out what makes the absolute best biscuits, cornbread, butterscotch pudding, peach pie, hummingbird cake, and, well, every baked temptation in the Southern repertoire.

Colorful and sometimes sentimental storytelling introduces each recipe as Fields brings bakers into her world, generously divulging her ingenious tips and tricks (00 flour makes the flakiest biscuits; soaking your cornmeal overnight produces the moistest cornbread). With more than 100 recipes for quick breads, muffins, biscuits, cookies and bars, puddings and custards, cobblers, crisps, galettes, pies, tarts, and cakes--plus dozens of irresistible variations on the standards--this is the new bible for Southern baking.

So, whether it's biscuits (Fields includes seven recipes, including one for dog biscuits because every Southern baker has a good dog to spoil) or Chess Pie you crave, Kelly Fields has you covered--and highly entertained with asides like "I'm gonna bury y'all in biscuits and cornbread." Bakers of all ages will sing the praises of this collection.

Kelly Fields grew up near Charleston in a family with a strong Lowcountry baking tradition. She has worked as a pastry chef for more than twenty years, including first working under Susan Spicer and then at August in New Orleans before opening her own Willa Jean, after which Eater New Orleans named her Chef of the Year. She won Outstanding Pastry Chef from the James Beard Foundation in 2019 and was named one of the most influential people in the South by Garden & Gun magazine. She founded the Yes Ma’am foundation to inspire, encourage, and mentor the next generation of women in the restaurant and hospitality industry. Like every good Southerner, she has a good dog (Kinney) by her side.

Kate Heddings is a food journalist and writer, and the former food editor at Food & Wine.