What America's Presidents Loved To Eat For Dessert

As a nation, we're enamored with celebrities' favorite foods. After all, is there any better way to get a real picture of someone's true character? When it comes to American politicians and presidents, we've forever followed their campaign trail pit stops, inaugural menus, and secret family recipes. We can easily relate to Richard Nixon's demands for coconut-ice cream sundaes topped with pineapple or Teddy Roosevelt's weakness for Sagamore Hill Sand Tarts, with these seemingly minor details bringing them down to earth. 

When it comes to dessert, there's sometimes more to our leaders' choices than first meets the eye. Some presidential favorites were trendy signs of the times, while others resourcefully depended on whatever ingredients were locally available. While it may seem minor, these preferences can even play a role in how presidents are viewed by the people. As author, James Beard Award winner, and President Bill Clinton's former special assistant, Adrian Miller, told Atlanta Magazine, "We love the president to love the foods of their childhood and revel in American regional specialties. That makes it seem as if they love the country more or have the common touch." From our Founding Fathers to our current commander-in-chief, here are 12 desserts America's presidents loved to eat.

Biographies of our first president indicate he ate heartily but very simply. George Washington infrequently ate dessert, but was particularly fond of fruits and nuts, often procuring hazelnuts by the barrel. While Washington lived plainly on what the farms and orchards of Mount Vernon could provide, he made generous and elegant refinements for guests. Presidential dinners included plentiful varieties of red meat, fowl, puddings, preserves, and an astounding amount of wine. For dessert, there was Martha Washington's beloved Great Cake.

A common but laborious dessert of the colonial era, a Great Cake was a dense, sweet spice cake somewhat similar to the British fruitcakes or Italian panettones we know today. As the name implies, Great Cakes tended to be quite large. Martha's version, recorded by her granddaughter Martha Parke Custis, involved 40 eggs, as well as copious amounts of butter, sugar, flour, and fruit (probably currants), plus mace, nutmeg, Madeira wine, and brandy. The combined ingredients were baked for over five hours. The Great Cake was enjoyed by the Washington family for tea or celebrations, especially at Christmas. It remains one of the few surviving recipes directly associated with the first first lady.

President Thomas Jefferson was an avid traveler. During his worldly adventures, he took detailed notes on the foods he enjoyed – including Dutch waffles, macaroni and cheese pudding, coffee cake, and pretty much anything French — in order to recreate them at home. Jefferson likely encountered the frozen delicacy known as ice cream during his time in France, and the dessert was later made in his kitchens for the rest of his life.

While Jefferson was not the first person to bring ice cream to the U.S., he definitely helped to popularize the sweet treat. During his presidency, he frequently served homemade ice cream to guests. It was a simple recipe made with cream, egg yolks, sugar, and a stick of vanilla. Several visitor accounts described the ice cream as being served in an unusually elegant manner. "Ice-creams were produced in the form of balls of the frozen material [enclosed] in covers of warm pastry, exhibiting a curious contrast, as if the ice had just been taken from the oven," said Harper's New Monthly Magazine (via HathiTrust).

Jefferson's methods for making ice cream were indeed impressive for his time. In an era without electricity, the recipe relied on whisking the mix by hand. To enjoy ice cream for celebrations throughout the year, the Founding Father had 62 wagonloads of ice harvested from the Rivanna River during winter.

James Buchanan was a wealthy bachelor and epicurean who loved to entertain in grand style. Despite his penchant for formal etiquette and fine French cuisine, Buchanan's preferred dessert was the apee, an unpretentious spiced butter cookie from his home state of Pennsylvania.

Recipe archives from the 19th century show differing versions of apees. Some include anise, while others feature caraway seeds, cinnamon, mace, and a glass of wine for good measure. The Pennsylvania Dutch recipe most likely enjoyed by the head of state featured simple ingredients of flour, butter, sugar, milk, and grated nutmeg. The pie-like dough was rolled into thin sheets, cut into rounds, and baked in an iron pan.

In the 1800s, Philadelphia bakers commonly sold buttery crisp apees right on the street. One particularly popular baker, Ann Page, gets credit for the cookie's unusual name. She stamped her baked goods with the initials A.P. It's unclear if President Buchanan ever enjoyed an official A.P. apee, but it seems White House bakers had plenty of ingredients to keep his sweet tooth satisfied. According to "The First Ladies Cook Book: Favorite Recipes of all the Presidents of the United States," Buchanan was "so particular about the quality of his food that he had fresh butter sent [to] him regularly from Philadelphia in a locked brass-bound kettle."

Legend has it that our 16th president often skipped meals and was too busy to give much thought to food. Despite his supposed sparse appetite, historical accounts reveal Abraham Lincoln may have had a slight sweet tooth. Delicious tales link the former Illinois attorney to apple pie, blackberry pie, lemon custard pie, gingerbread, burnt sugar cake, and Mary Todd Lincoln's white almond cake — a dessert that played a special role in Mary Todd and Abe's courtship and marriage.

Mary was notably known for her frugality. Her cake was simple yet elegant and made with the accessible ingredients of sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg whites, and vanilla or almond extract. She subtly varied the cake's texture by mixing finely chopped blanched almonds right into the batter, which she poured into a cake pan. Reminiscent of a velvety pound cake, President Lincoln reportedly called his wife's dessert "the best in Kentucky" (via The Saturday Evening Post).

Today, you can find multiple versions of Mary Todd Lincoln's white cake circulating the internet. Some adaptations are plain, while others are topped with powdered sugar or white icing and candied fruit. Historians aren't sure which recipe is the most accurate, but they do agree Mary Todd's wealthy family received the treasured recipe from Kentucky confectioner Monsieur Giron. The Frenchman originally created a fancier rendition of the cake to honor Marquis de Lafayette's visit to Lexington in 1825.

Ulysses S. Grant was a simple man with simple tastes, and his dearest dessert was a simple rice pudding. Throughout his years in the White House, Grant made his love for the homey concoction quite clear. When first lady Julia Grant hired Valentino Melah to head the presidential kitchen as the White House steward, Grant insisted the chef's 29-course meals still include his favorite dish.

A true steward of the White House dining room, Melah rose to the challenge, experimenting and elevating rice pudding to levels worthy of an official state dinner. Esteemed guests seemingly approved, with newspaper correspondent Emily Edson Briggs (via "The First Ladies Cook Book: Favorite Recipes of all the Presidents of the United States") writing, "The dessert is inaugurated by the destruction of a rice pudding, it is a pudding as would make our grandmothers clap their hands with joy." President Grant also enjoyed sampling a simple rice pudding recipe as often as possible when dining alone with his children, despite Melah's efforts to introduce him to new desserts. The Union Army general particularly enjoyed a version brightened with fresh lemon zest.

Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were on board with cheese long before charcuterie became a trend. While the couple enjoyed a special fruitcake or angel food cake, cheese was their preferred indulgence. According to housekeeper Henrietta Nesbitt in "The Presidential Cookbook: Feeding the Roosevelts and Their Guests," the Roosevelts were big fans of cheese at any point in the meal (via Food Timeline). "The Roosevelts liked cheese as an appetizer, in salads, for snacks, and as a main course, or a dessert, and I often thought it was the President's favorite dessert," she wrote. "He liked Camembert, Roquefort, Swiss, Gruyère, and Liederkranz."

Cheese may have come as a comfort to Roosevelt, who served as president during both the Great Depression and World War II. Sharp American cheese reportedly became a mainstay at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue during the Roosevelt era and was kept on hand for presidential snacks and sandwiches. Roosevelt was known to be especially fond of the classic grilled cheese. The sandwich would go on to become a consoling American classic for presidents and citizens alike.

Hailing from Independence, Missouri, the Trumans moved into the White House in 1945. With them came their family cook, Vietta Carr, and an arsenal of confidential family recipes. One of these recipes may have been for Harry Truman's favorite Ozark pudding, a cakey apple-nut dish topped with whipped cream or ice cream.

By all accounts, Truman was not a fussy eater and didn't particularly care for elaborate food, with the president preferring the likes of well-done steak. Carr was known to prepare the same dishes the Trumans loved to eat back home, such as fried chicken, bean soup, cornbread, and turnip greens. They all showed appreciation for rustic simplicity and ingredients sourced from the Ozark mountain region.

Ozark pudding gained national fame when first lady Bess Truman began serving it at White House events, where it was allegedly popular with the Democrats. Harry Truman's most-loved treat was no longer a secret when Bess shared her recipe in a 1948 edition of the Congressional Club's cookbook. Described as a cross between a pecan pie and a macaroon, Bess Truman's Ozark pudding is said to have inspired the creation of another regional dessert, the Huguenot Torte.

Our 34th commander-in-chief was a five-star army general and passionate home cook. He loved preparing homey dishes like vegetable soup and beef stew in the White House kitchen, and he maintained a personal cookbook of clipped recipe favorites, just like the rest of us. When it came to dessert, historical accounts reveal Ike was partial to prune whip, apple pie, and Mamie Eisenhower's fudge.

It's unclear if Mamie invented the fudge recipe that is famously attributed to her, but it was extremely popular in the 1950s and '60s when First Ladies would often share family recipes. It's possible that the recipe was never actually Mamie Eisenhower's. Sometimes, White House staff would submit recipes in their name, and despite being a charming hostess, Mamie was never renowned for her culinary prowess. She was thrifty and encouraged the White House staff to use cake mixes and Jell-O to save money. Mamie apparently took this approach for both family meals and state entertaining, with some delicious results. The simple chocolate fudge recipe enjoyed by Ike includes pantry staples such as chocolate chips, evaporated milk, butter, marshmallow cream, and nuts. Ironically, it sometimes goes by the name Million Dollar Fudge.

Revered as a moral leader, humanitarian, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter's remarkable life began on a 360-acre peanut farm in Plains, Georgia. His parents, Earl and Lillian, grew small Spanish peanuts used for salted snacks and candy bars. By the age of 5, the future governor of Georgia and commander-in-chief was selling boiled peanuts on the streets.

Carter's connection to the humble crop would become a defining symbol in his political career and his 75-year marriage to his wife, Rosalynn. The Carters' love for all things peanuts included Rosalynn's famous peanut butter pie, a recipe she often made for family gatherings and social events. Rosalynn Carter first shared the signature recipe with a Texas newspaper in 1977. It was a blind-baked pie crust topped with layers of peanut butter filling, creamy homemade custard, and meringue. Her original recipe has been re-shared and tweaked with simplifications over the years, but the pie remains a true testament to Carter's modest Southern roots.

When Ronald Reagan went to work in the Oval Office, he faced the day with encouragement from family photographs, a Kennedy eagle paperweight, and a jar of jelly beans on his desk. President Reagan's commitment to jelly beans may evoke colorful memories of the 1980s, but his quirky candy habit actually dates all the way back to 1966, when the former Hollywood actor made a bid to become California governor — and quit pipe smoking. He was successful at both.

After winning the gubernatorial election, Reagan went on to receive monthly shipments of Goelitz Mini Jelly Beans and Jelly Belly beans for years to come. While his favorite flavor was licorice, the Herman Goelitz Candy Company sent 3.5 tons of red (cherry), white (coconut), and blue (blueberry) Jelly Belly beans to Washington, D.C., to celebrate Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration in 1981. That same year, the company obtained official authorization to develop a jelly bean jar featuring the Presidential Seal. Packaged in a blue box, Reagan often gifted these jars to visiting diplomats and other White House guests.

Believe it or not, President Reagan did enjoy other types of sweet treats. The 40th president was apparently fond of fruit desserts, especially honey-baked apples. Monkey bread was also a Reagan family tradition for holidays and special occasions.

In 2014, our 44th president famously shared a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, in which he declared, "Some people prefer cake. I like pie." From visiting the pie counter at Bingham's Restaurant in Lenox, Pennsylvania, to personally requesting Tom Douglas' world-famous triple coconut cream pie at a fundraiser, Obama's love for the all-American dessert is well-documented.

Pies were apparently in high supply in the White House during Obama's time in office, overseen by its former executive pastry chef Bill Yosses. The first couple even nicknamed Yosses "The Crustmaster" for his perfectly puffy, flaky desserts (via The Week). After a request from the president over concerns about how consuming so many pies would impact his health, Yosses started whipping up desserts with more natural ingredients, such as honey from the White House beehives or fruit from its garden. While apple pie is apparently Obama's favorite, the family's Thanksgiving dinners famously feature varieties ranging from banana cream and huckleberry to pumpkin, pecan, and sweet potato, all to accommodate the president's tastes.

Donald Trump famously loves McDonald's, but he also enjoys a sweet treat. On his documented list of favorite snacks, you'll find Oreo cookies, See's Candies, cherry-vanilla ice cream, milkshakes, and Vanilla Fudge Crème Vienna Fingers by Keebler. While it may be difficult to deduce Trump's first choice in desserts, he has infamously detailed one in particular: chocolate cake.

In 2017, the president sat down with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo to discuss a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping about serious issues of global concern. The interview took a trifling turn when Trump began describing the last course served to Xi Jinping during their formal dinner at Mar-a-Lago. "We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen," boasted Trump, "and President Xi was enjoying it." Dessert also happened to be the moment Trump told the leader about his weighty decision to launch a U.S. missile strike against Syria.

According to a White House menu shared with reporters, the dessert that evening included a chocolate cake with vanilla sauce and dark chocolate sorbet or a sorbet trio. This description closely resembles the Trump Chocolate Cake served at The Beach Club at Mar-a-Lago. The decadent cake showcases seven alternating layers of flourless chocolate sponge cake and Guayaquil mousse, topped with a dark mirror glaze. It was created by renowned pastry chef Cedric Barberet.