My first cookbook · Pre-orders are open
Cakes for the Potluck Table
Sixty cakes that never come home leftover. The church cookbook classics, the poke cakes and dump cakes, and the old-fashioned ones your grandmother had memorized.
Pre-orders are open. $29 founding price, and it goes up to $36 when the book releases. Flat $5 shipping no matter how many you order ($20 to Canada). Books ship spring 2027.
Want a handwritten note from me inside the front cover? Type the name it’s for at checkout, or leave it blank for a clean cover.
Want a taste first?
Six of the most-requested cakes in the book.
Printed clean and laid out like cookbook pages. No ads, no popups, no scrolling with frosting on your hands.
One recipe from each of the six chapters, so you get the range. The free sampler is at the bottom of this page.
- Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cola Cake - a can of cola in the batter, marshmallows melted right in
- Hummingbird Cake - the Southern classic, banana and pineapple
- Ugly Duckling Cake - fruit cocktail and warm coconut topping, better than its name
- Easy Carrot Cake - stacked tall with cream cheese buttercream
- Pineapple Sunshine Cake - cool, bright, and better the next day
- Apple Snickerdoodle Dump Cake - cinnamon-sugar crumble, five minutes of work
Where it started
It started at a cake walk.
When I was a little girl, our church held cake walks. Sometimes it was to raise money, sometimes it was just for the fun of it. If you didn’t grow up with one, a cake walk works a lot like musical chairs. The ladies of the church baked cakes and lined them up on a long table at the front of the basement. Numbers were taped to the floor in a big circle, and we’d walk around them while the music played. When it stopped, somebody’s number got called, and that lucky person went up and picked out a whole cake to carry home.
One year I came home with five of them. I felt like the luckiest girl in town.
After that, I was hooked. I went to every cake walk I could find, from our church to just about every other one in our community. That’s where my love of potluck cakes started, and it never left me.
But it was never only about the cakes. It was the church basement suppers, the covered dishes carried in still warm, and the recipes that got passed around a table until everybody had a copy in their own handwriting. This book is my way of keeping those evenings going.
See you at the potluck,
Jessica
What’s inside
Sixty cakes, six chapters.
Every one made with ingredients from any grocery store, in a pan you already own. Some from scratch, some starting with a boxed mix and ending up somewhere a whole lot better.
Cakes like…
- Church Supper & Potluck Favorites - Texas Sheet Cake, Kentucky Butter Cake, Gooey Butter Cake
- Southern Cakes Worth Saving - Hummingbird Cake, Preacher Cake, Butter Pecan Cake
- Vintage Cakes with Stories to Tell - Watergate Cake, Shoofly Cake, Pea Pickin’ Cake, Ugly Duckling Cake
- Family Favorites & Celebration Cakes - Red Velvet with Ermine Frosting, Granny Cake, Pink Lemonade Cake
- Poke Cakes & Icebox Favorites - Lemon Lush, Cherry Yum Yum, Banana Pudding Poke Cake
- Dump Cakes - Pineapple, Pumpkin, Pecan Pie, Cherry
There’s a page in the front to put your name in, and pages in the back to write in your own recipes. This is the kind of book that gets handed down.
A fair question
Most of these are on the blog. Here’s why I made a book anyway.
Mostly because you kept asking for it. You wanted these recipes somewhere other than a screen, so I finally sat down and made one.
A book stays open on the counter while your hands are covered in buttercream. A phone screen goes dark and asks for your passcode. The binding is concealed wire, which is the part I fussed over most. It opens completely flat and stays where you put it, and it still has a real printed spine so it looks like a book on the shelf instead of a workbook.
Sixty cakes in one place, sorted so you can find the right one for a potluck, a birthday, or a Tuesday that needs something. No searching, no ads, no ten-minute scroll.
My hope is that this one ends up splattered and dog-eared with somebody else’s handwriting in the margins, the way the good ones always do.
Questions
The short answers.
When does it come out?
Spring 2027. Pre-orders are open now, and your copy ships as soon as the books arrive from the printer.
What does it cost?
$29 during the pre-sale. The price goes up to $36 when the book officially releases. Shipping is a flat $5 to the US and $20 to Canada, no matter how many copies you order.
Is it a real printed book?
Yes. Full color throughout, 7.5 by 9.75 inches, with a concealed wire binding so it lies completely flat while you cook. The book photos on this page are design mockups. The finished book ships in Spring 2027.
What happens after I order?
You’re charged today, and your book ships spring 2027. If you typed a name at checkout, I’ll write a note inside the front cover before it goes in the box. You’ll get an email with tracking the day it ships.
Can I order one for a friend or my daughter?
Yes. Add each copy to your cart separately so you can type a different name for each note. Shipping stays $5 for the whole order.
Do you ship to Canada?
Yes. Canadian orders are $20 flat shipping. Any duties or GST at delivery are the buyer’s.
Not ready to order yet?
Grab six of the cakes free.
I’ll send the sampler right away, and remind you before the pre-sale price goes up.
Already a subscriber? Pop your email in anyway. That’s how I know to send you the cakes.
No spam. Just cake.