Sister Honey’s Bakery

Orlando is blessed with an abundance of wonderful, locally-owned bakeries.  I’ve reviewed many of our best ones already, so please click here to see all my other bakery reviews.  But I had yet to review one of my favorites, to add it to my bakery pantheon (or pan-pantheon): Sister Honey’s Bakery (https://www.sisterhoneys.com/).

Sister Honey’s is a Black-owned bakery in the SoDo area (South of Downtown Orlando), named for owner Evette Rahman’s mother’s nickname.  Evette is a champion baker with awards and accolades to spare.  From 2014 to 2016, she took the Best in Show awards at the National Pie Championships, hosted right here in Orlando by the American Pie Council.  That’s the pie-baking equivalent of winning Best Director three years in a row at the Academy Awards!  (I had the honor of serving as a pie judge in this prestigious competition in 2018 and 2019, and wrote about it right here on this blog.)  As of 2017, Evette had won 27 blue ribbons from the National Pie Championships, including a staggering 10 alone in 2016.

So needless to say, if you haven’t been to Sister Honey’s before, knowing this now, your expectations will be pretty high.  Well, I promise that they’ll be even higher if you make it all the way through this review, and you WON’T be disappointed.

As far as I’m concerned, Evette makes the best key lime pie I’ve ever had, and key lime pie is one of my Top Five all-time desserts.  This is the whole pie, which I’ve never bought from her:

But in all the years I’ve been going, I think I’ve eaten the equivalent of a whole key lime pie, one decadent slice ($5.99) at a time.

Key lime pie isn’t the hardest thing in the world to make at home, and Publix even makes a damn fine one, but you have to try Sister Honey’s version at least once, to see how it stands alone.

I’ve also had the strawberry cheese pie many times, with its thick graham cracker crust, gooey cream cheese base, fresh strawberries, and fresh whipped cream.  It was the National Pie Championships Best in Show winner in 2014, and the judges chose wisely.
On my most recent visit, Evette brought this pie out from the back when I was already about to pay, so I was able to request a last-second slice but wasn’t able take a picture of the whole pie.  It melted a little in my car on the long drive home, but you get the idea of its pure decadent deliciousness.

My wife’s favorite delectable dessert from Sister Honey’s is the vanilla bean pound cake.  Usually the icing on the top is perfectly smooth, but I smeared it taking it out of its plastic clamshell box, so that’s on me.  It’s incredibly moist and vanilla-ey, and the icing is never heavy or greasy like the gross buttercream on a lot of supermarket cakes.

Rear view:

Coconut and German chocolate cakes on display.  The coconut cake is my wife’s second-favorite:

Here’s the latest slice of coconut cake she got ($5.99).  It looks much better in person, and it is incredibly moist and rich.  The gooey coconutty filling between layers is my favorite part of this cake.

This was the first time I ever saw a golden pineapple cake available.  Longtime readers know how much I love anything pineappley, so I had to go for it.

Here’s the slice I got ($7.99).  The cake itself and the icing were both more subtle than I expected.

I make a mean pineapple upside-down cake that my in-laws crave, to the point where I make it for us every Thanksgiving instead of more traditional Thanksgiving desserts.  It’s also a big hit at work potlucks.  But I make it using a Duncan Hines pineapple cake box mix that smells and tastes as “pineappley” as you might expect, probably due to being so processed and artificial.  Evette’s cake has real chunks of pineapple in the icing between the cake layers and the delicious topping, and if anything, it probably has more real pineapple and pineapple juice in it than the store-bought cake mix I’m more used to.  It was another hit.

We’ve never tried her carrot cake, but for $5.99 a slice, how can you possibly go wrong?  If you see it up close, the smooth cream cheese frosting (my favorite part of any carrot cake) is sprinkled with gleaming orange and green sugar crystals.

Sister Honey’s also offers multiple types of cupcakes, which I fully admit aren’t usually my thing, although I’m sure hers are a cut above the rest.  Seen below: Peanut butter chocolate, German chocolate, and Very vanilla cupcakes ($2.99 each).

Seen below: Cookies & cream and Chocolate vanilla cupcakes ($2.99 each).

Evette has cookies too, and the wedge-shaped shortbread cookies are rich, buttery, and quite good, but I think the pies and cakes are the star attractions at Sister Honey’s.

Sister Honey’s is a good distance away from home, so it requires a special trip to make it there.  I always shoot for Saturdays around 11:30, to give them time to put everything out after opening at 11:00.  (You heard it here first!)  Evette’s husband Andy is always manning the front, boxing up slices, patiently answering questions, and ringing people up.  I admit I’ve never actually met Evette, but I’ve dealt with Andy so many times over the last few years that he recognizes me now, even with my mask on, and always asks how my wife is doing.  He’s a real mensch, and I hold them both in high esteem.

It is a very small bakery space with no indoor seating, so plan on getting everything to go.  But these days, that’s the safest bet anywhere, anyway.  You may want to bring a cooler if you’re planning to get perishable pies like the key lime pie and strawberry cheese pie above, or Evette’s equally exquisite coconut cream pie.  They might melt and droop a bit in this oppressive summer heat, even if you’re running the air conditioner in your car.  But the cakes are ideally left out at room temperature, as Andy advises, to avoid drying them out in the fridge.

I can’t sing the praises of this bakery and its award-winning baker enough.  Anytime anyone asks wants to know the best key lime pie in Florida, this is where I direct them.  Yeah, I said it!  Pretty much anything I photographed and discussed above is the best of its kind that you’ll find in Orlando.  Now more than ever, we need to be showing love to our small businesses, and especially Black-owned businesses.  If you’re wistfully wishing for cakes, pies, cupcakes, and cookies that transcend the Publix bakery, schlep down to SoDo for Sister Honey’s, where Evette Rahman will make your life that much sweeter.