A Lancaster County Dessert Sampler

It is great selling to some of our area's popular tourist attractions because on the days we make deliveries, we get to see and visit a lot of beautiful and friendly places.

On our travels yesterday, we stopped by the Bird-in-Hand Bakeshop on Gibbons Road (in Bird-in-Hand!) and found this marvelous sampler of Lancaster County treats.

We are not known to be small (girth-wise) people in our area. Most of us have been raised on traditional German influenced farm diets and since most of us no longer work on the farms with the accompanying physical activity, it shows.

Regular meals involve lots of starches.. often more than one per sitting, along with sauces and lots of sweets.

Traditionally, every good Lancaster County housewife always had at least one - usually more - pie on the table for dinner. In the winter, when the fruit was scarce, Shoofly Pie, containing brown sugar and molasses filled the bill.

This sampler, containing not only Shoofly Pie, but a number of other local delicacies, is perfect for a visitor to our area to get a good taste of some of our sweet specialties.

On the platter we have: 1. Shoofly Pie , 2. Apple Struesel, 3. Whoopie Pie, 4. Chocolate Shoofly Pie and 5. Sticky Bun.

I purchased one of these samplers because our son is planning to bring a friend along home from college this weekend and wanted her to have a chance to try a bit of everything. She is from Connecticut and her father is a chef, so I'm sure she will enjoy it. I might have to go pick up a few more for everyone else to try, too!