LEXINGTON, N.C. — Growing up in the South, fish fries wouldn’t be complete without a golden-brown side of hushpuppies, you’d normally eat with tartar sauce or ketchup.
What You Need To Know
Sinfully Delicious Bakery sells Lexington Style Hushpuppy mix, at their store in Lexington off 28 West Second Ave.
Wende Everhart says being able to sell this hushpuppy mix is an ode to her father
Sinfully Delicious Bakery sells an array of desserts
Hushpuppies can be cooked different ways, according to Wende Everhart
"You can also airfry them by freezing them for about an hour or putting them in your air fryer,” Wende Everhart said. "The oil is about 350, and you just going [to] do them until they get about brown, a golden brown, or whatever your choosing."
Everhart says most people like to eat them with fried fish, barbecue or by themselves. She owns Sinfully Delicious Bakery in Lexington and uses a friend's restaurant to cook up her fried deliciousness.
"In Lexington, people just eat them as a side, you know, wouldn’t you think just as a side. I don’t need anything I can just eat them just as they are. Salt and pepper, ketchup. Just whatever you want to do with them," Everhart said.
Her hushpuppy journey began when she was a teenager, her dad co-owned a Lexington Styled BBQ Restaurant. It recently closed its doors, but she’s kept the theme, calling her concoction, the Lexington Style Hushpuppies.
"You know I feel like my dad and his partner made this recipe what it was, and everybody just loved it. So, whenever we shut down and I realized on Facebook that when the restaurant shut down, I realized everyone wanting hushpuppy mix, I said 'well, I know this, and I can do it,'" Everhart said.
And bringing the delicious fried treat into her bakery is her way of giving back, offering the community favorite inside her store, where she sells a decadent array of desserts.
"It was a way I decompressed after 30 years, anything I done it went back to baking. When my nephews where young, I could put a cake together and make a design out of it, and I just continued getting better," Everhart said.
She sells the hushpuppy mix in the front fridge of her store, and like everything else in the bakery, the hushpuppies have a hint of sweetness.
"But ours is a little sweeter than what the other ones are, some places aren’t homemade, some places are frozen, some places just have mix that they add water to, but we do it a little extra special to ours to make them a little bit better. There is onions in them, I can tell you that, we use dehydrated onions," Everhart said.
And Everhart says being able to sell this hushpuppy mix is an ode to her father.
"It does make me feel good to have a little piece of him in here. He’s been gone for 19 years, and it does make me feel good to have a part of him in my bakery," Everhart said.
You can find Sinfully Delicious Bakery, Lexington Style Hushpuppies mix, at their store in Lexington off 28 West Second Ave.