You know how those Southern dessert recipes go—a cup of sugar here, a stick of butter there, eight squares of bak­ing chocolate, or a pint of the season’s juiciest fruit. That recipe for blueberry cream pie—it’s been passed around the church for so long nobody can quite remember who made it first. Or how about the one for red velvet cheesecake you’ve been trying to coax out of your sister-in-law for years? She serves it every Christmas Eve, but so far her lips are sealed.

These are the types of food traditions that inspire You Be Sweet—a celebration of Southern dessert recipes and the people who cherish them. In this compilation of stories and sweet treats, Patsy Caldwell and Amy Lyles Wilson peek in on those occasions special enough to demand something decadent, and memorable enough to be repeated time and again. You’ll find the strawberry jam bars that always make an appearance at the neighborhood picnic. The German chocolate cake roll that pulls in the big bucks at the charity bake sale? That’s here too. The blackberry jelly recipe that has graced Mason jars all over the South for decades? It’s here, and it’s just about the best hostess gift you can offer up. Be sweet? You won’t be able to help it!