List names the 'most iconic desserts' from each state, and Kansas' nominee is so tiny

A list by the website thedailymeal.com published earlier this year attempts to name the most iconic dessert from each of these United States.

For Kansas, the winner is a Mennonite specialty that many in the state have likely sampled during the holiday season: a tiny, spicy cookie known as the peppernut, or "pfeffernusse."

"You may be saying to yourself, 'What the heck is a peppernut,'" said the Kansas entry on the site. "And we are right there with you."

We Kansans are not saying that to ourselves.

The tiny cookies, each about the size of a dime, don't contain pepper or nuts. They trace their Kansas origins to a group of about 5,000 Russian Mennonites who emigrated to the state in the 1870s.

Often cut out using a thimble, the cookies are flavored with star anise and signal the beginning of the Christmas season. You'll find them at Christmas gift markets all over Kansas. They're always in stock at Prairie Harvest in Newton, and you'll find a recipe for them in nearly any Kansas cookbook.

The Daily Meal list, which is sure to make your sweet tooth ache, includes some pretty obvious findings: beignets for Louisiana, Boston cream pie for Massachusetts, Key lime pie for Florida.

I, for one, have never head of Alabama's Lane Cake or Iowa's Blarney Stones. Missouri's iconic dessert, according to the list, is the ice cream cone. Nebraska's is kolaches. And Oklahoma's is pecan pie.

Poor Utah got stuck with Jell-O.

You can find the whole list here.

This story was originally published June 12, 2018 at 10:17 AM with the headline "List names the 'most iconic desserts' from each state, and Kansas' nominee is so tiny."