A regional desert found in the southern state of Arkansas has recently garnered substantial attention on the national scale. Misty Stowers, owner of Buttercream Bakery and Frozen Custard in Pocahontas, Arkansas, has received critical acclaim for her “Possum Pie,” which has earned her the opportunity to compete at the World Food Championships in Indianapolis.
It is unknown when the desert first originated, but reports suggest that it was first mentioned in the media back in 1983 in a restaurant review in the Arkansas Gazette newspaper. Stowers opened her bakery in 2020, in the heat of the pandemic. Despite the challenging headwinds of the time, she managed to scale her business, receiving notable attention for her famous dessert dish.
“I like to joke around and tell people one of our specialties is the Arkansas Possum Pie – and there’s no possum included,” Misti Stowers told Fox News Digital. “The Arkansas Possum Pie starts with a pecan base crust,” Stowers said. “Then we have a cream cheese layer, and then we have a chocolate pie layer. Then it’s topped with homemade whipped cream and more pecans.”
According to the Wikipedia page on the dish, “Possum pie is a pie in American cuisine that is an iconic pie rarely seen outside Arkansas. The pie is made with several layers, with the most common being layers of vanilla pudding, cream cheese, chocolate custard and/or sour cream. There are many different combinations making use of alternating layers of cream cheese and puddings topped with whipped cream. The pecan shortbread crust is different from other icebox pies.”
Wikipedia further noted, “Possum pie earned its name because the pie “plays possum” by hiding all the layers of its ingredients under a thick whipped cream topping. The dessert does not actually contain possum meat.” Playing off the desert’s name, Stowers joked that roadkill is not an ingredient in the dish “We don’t go pick up roadkill,” she quipped.
Stowers maintained that those visiting Arkansas “can’t go wrong” when trying the Possum Pie. “If you’ve never tried the Possum Pie, you’re missing out,” she added, praising the desert. “It’s delicious. It’s comfort food – and we love comfort food in Arkansas.”
The food review website Most Delicious Life had a glowing review of the popular desert. “Who knew Arkansas was holding out on us?!!! Four layers of crazy delicious! A crust with butter, brown sugar and pecans…then a cream cheese layer, a chocolate pudding layer and topped with whipped cream and more chocolate!” food enthusiast Cindy Alldredge wrote.
She added in her article, “And why is it called “Possum Pie”? Well. Nobody seems to know. The general consensus is that you can’t tell what’s hiding underneath the top layer, as in, it’s “playing possum”. Hmmmm. There may not be a good explanation but I LIKE the name. It’s also called “Four Layer Pie” amongst other things, but it had me at “possum”.
See a home-cooked example of Arkansas’s famous “Possum Pie” below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video/
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