Huguenot Torte

A favorite of Charleston's tearooms, Huguenot torte is a baked apple and pecan or walnut pudding-cake with a crispy meringue-like top, typically served with a dollop of whipped cream. Contrary to the popular misconception, the cake doesn't have French origins nor was it named after the Huguenots - French Protestants who fled to South Carolina in the 17th century for religious freedom.

In fact, Huguenot torte is a fairly recent invention whose original recipe is merely a rendition of a Midwestern dessert called Ozark pudding. The recipe first showed up in print in a successful 1950 community cookbook Charleston Receipts, and was attributed to Evelyn Anderson Florance who stated that she named the Charleston classic after the Huguenot Tavern, a restaurant where she worked as a pastry chef.