It was just a year ago that Walmart scored a major hit, with its line of Patti LaBelle desserts, when #PattiPie became a viral sensation.
Now, the retailer is hoping to break the Internet again. Five new Patti LaBelle desserts hit stores nationwide, this month: peach cobbler, apple cobbler, berry cobbler (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and boysenberries), apple pecan cake, and the limited release sweet potato loaf cake. The sweet treats were added to the Patti’s Good Life line after Kinna Thomas, Walmart’s senior buyer of cakes and pies, stumbled across one of LaBelle’s famous cobbler recipes, while flipping through one of the legend’s cookbooks.
All three cobblers are priced at $6.98 and are sold fresh–not frozen–in Walmart’s bakery section. They’re pre-baked, so they can be served as is. But, they come with the recommendation to heat at home for 12-16 minutes, for a bubbling filling and crispy crust on the top and bottom. The sweet potato loaf is $4.48, and the apple pecan cake is the most expensive new item from the line, at $9.98.
The cobblers are baked by Houston’s Twin Star Bakery, which already supplies Walmart with a number of specialty dessert cakes. The addition of the cobblers will add more than a hundred jobs, according to a blog post from Walmart. The sweet potato pound cake is a joint venture with Philadelphia’s Brown Betty Dessert Boutique, run by three generations of black women. It will be available only in select stores in the northeast.
These newcomers join the original three desserts of the line: the star sweet potato pie, plus a caramel cake, and a vanilla pound cake.
Early reviews of the new Patti LaBelle desserts have been mixed. Some reviewers have praised the real fruit, but many are saying, overall, they’re just too sweet. We’ll have to wait and see if James Wright Chanel thinks they’re something to sing about, honey.