Heritage Cakes From the Mountains of Henderson County, North Carolina. Baked Weekly in Chattanooga.
Seven Recipes. Four Generations.
Every recipe comes from our family's cookbook dated 1955-1986. We bake a limited number weekly.Order buttons below each cake:* Local Pickup* Local Delivery (Chattanooga area)* Ships anywhere in TennesseeFor delivery or shipping, please note your address at checkout.
OUR CAKES
Sunday Morning Honeybun
Entered Cookbook in 1978
While the rest of the world has the doughnut, the mountains have the honeybun.We've traded the convenience-store wrapper for buttermilk, butter, local honey, dark brown sugar, and cinnamon, layered with a warm cinnamon-nutmeg ripple.Finished with a delicate cinnamon glaze, it captures the simple, unhurried spirit of a Blue Ridge weekend.
Serves 12-15 people
Dark Corner Whiskey
Entered Cookbook in 1986
Give it as a gift or serve it to guests and become legendary.Dark Corner is bourbon-forward by design - layered and soaked slowly so the flavor runs all the way through, not just in the glaze. Buttermilk, butter, dark brown sugar, and a walnut crown create a cake that's rich, bold, and unapologetically indulgent.Named for the old moonshine country where Henderson, Polk, and Transylvania counties meet, it pays tribute to North Carolina's liquid history.This isn't a sweet cake with a hint of bourbon. It's a bourbon dessert that happens to be cake.If you're not a fan of the barrel, skip it. If you are, you've just found your holy grail.(Designated driver recommended.)
Serves 12-15 people
Nana's Blueberry Cream
Entered Cookbook in 1959
This Blueberry Cream Cake is a true mountain heirloom.Rich with butter and cream cheese, it's filled with four cups of blueberries that burst into the batter as it bakes, while a ribbon of brown sugar and cinnamon winds through the center.Warm, comforting, and made for slow mornings with a cup of coffee, it's a taste of the Blue Ridge in every slice.
Serves 12-15 People
Edneyville Apple
Entered Cookbook in 1965
Edneyville Apple Cake traces its roots to the Appalachian Apple Stack Cake, a mountain tradition dating back to the late 1700s.Made the old way with Granny Smith apples, dark brown sugar, molasses, local honey, and butter, it's finished with a rich honey glaze that captures the flavors of the Blue Ridge.Inspired by the orchards and apple festivals of western North Carolina, this is mountain baking at its most iconic.
Serves 12-15 people
Mud Creek Pumpkin
Entered Cookbook in 1977
This is the year-round pumpkin cake.Our founding flavor and most-requested recipe, it's crafted with pumpkin purée, buttermilk, butter, and dark brown sugar, then finished with our signature cream cheese frosting.Rich, balanced, and subtly sweet, it's the epiphany cake - designed to win over even the most dedicated pumpkin skeptics.
Serves 12-15 people
Church Cookbook Carrot
Entered Cookbook in 1981
A Southern classic rooted in the church cookbooks of Henderson County.This recipe reflects a tradition shared across Blue Ridge congregations since the 1950s.Made with freshly grated carrots, dark brown sugar, molasses, local honey, butter, and buttermilk, it delivers genuine spice, texture, and depth beneath a silky cream cheese frosting.A quiet favorite among those who truly know cake, it's more than dessert - it's a piece of our shared history.
Serves 12-15 people
Flat Rock Blackout
Entered Cookbook in 1955
Decadent, moist, and deeply chocolatey.Rooted in the mountain summers of Henderson County - where Lowcountry families once escaped the heat with refined tastes in tow - Flat Rock Blackout traces its lineage to a late-1800s recipe.Made with real cocoa, buttermilk, dark roast coffee, dark brown sugar, butter, and dark chocolate, this rich Bundt is soaked with bourbon-infused cocoa syrup and finished with a restrained dark chocolate praline ganache.Dark, elegant, and unapologetically indulgent.
Serves 12-15 people
MY STORY
Some of my best memories are of family kitchens in the mountains of western North Carolina, where recipes weren't written to start a business — they were written to feed the people we love.For generations, the women in my wife's family filled church suppers, holiday tables, and Sunday dinners with food that became part of the family's story. Handwritten recipe cards were passed from one generation to the next, some of them tracing back to the early 1900s, each one carrying a memory along with the ingredients.I'm not your typical baker. I'm a former college football player who ended up in Chattanooga through my day job as an executive in the rug industry. Along the way, I married into what I call North Carolina food royalty. I was dragged into the kitchen kicking and screaming — but somewhere between scraping sweet corn, working up pork shoulder, and licking batter from the cake bowl, it all stuck.Years later, I found myself returning to those same cake recipes (mostly because the guys I grill with are terrified to bake anything). I realized this legacy deserved more than a place in a cookbook — it deserved to be shared. Culpepper Cakes is my tribute to the ladies who taught me that the best recipes are really about bringing people together.Today, every Culpepper Cake begins with one of those original family recipes. I bake in small batches using the same techniques, the same attention to detail, and the same belief that a great cake is not a delivery system for two inches of sugar-shock icing — it's built from the pan up with real ingredients. And I promise you this: if these cakes weren't total game-changers, I wouldn't put my name on them.Each one carries the name of the community or family that inspired it — from Flat Rock Blackout to Nana's Blueberry Cream — because every recipe has a history worth remembering. That same legacy lives on professionally at my brother- and sister-in-law's restaurant, Shine, on Main Street in Hendersonville. If you haven't been, it's worth the trip.My hope is simple: when you gather around one of these cakes with family and friends, it becomes part of your story, too.Thank you for letting me share a little piece of mine.— Brandon Culpepper
Founder
OUR PROCESS
Small-Batch by Design: To maintain the integrity of our recipes, we limit our oven to a select number of slots per week. This ensures every cake receives the exact saturation and crumb texture our heritage demands.The Ingredients: Inspired by Appalachian tradition, our ingredients are simple and honest. We swap seed oils for butter and avocado oil, use only fresh produce, natural cocoa, and real Blue Ridge infusions. We don't shortcut the process; we prioritize quality over volume in everything we craft.
Proudly baked in Chattanooga using recipes from Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Thanks so much for your interest—and for supporting something made close to home.