Sweet Summer Treats: Big Ben’s Desserts

Picture this: A huge family reunion is happening. Kids are playing kickball; the smell of grilled food is overwhelmingly tasteful, and the summer heat is taking over vastly. After you have eaten your hot dogs, hamburgers, and Uncle BB’s famous barbeque ribs, that sweet tooth hits you hard like the summer sun. You look across the yard, right above the cooler of beverages, you see the dessert table. Made from scratch Banana Pudding, Strawberry Short cake, Red Valet cake, and even Oreo cupcakes for the children, are all sitting there on a bed of ice waiting to be eaten.

Ben Hall, maker, baker, and creator of Big Ben’s Desserts can make this picture a reality (no grilled food included of course!)

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Ben Hall, a former Clemson Tiger, NFL Tennessee Titan, and Arizona Cardinal never purposely chose baking desserts as his first career choice, it just happened. “Growing up, I was always really good in sports so I was not even thinking about baking then. As early as my junior year [in high school], colleges from everywhere across the country would come out just to see me play,” he said as he proudly sipped on his Hot Chocolate from Starbucks.  Hall began to receive football scholarship offers from different colleges and thought he could give college a real chance. “I was scared of it. I was fearful of it, and I really didn’t know much about it because I was really the first one in my family that actually got a chance to go to college, but I did it for my mom.”

It was Hall’s college days that initially led him to the stove. “No one really taught me how to cook. My mom was a single mom and she was always at work so by the time I got to college, you know how it is in college, you’re broke with no money so you had to make a meal out of nothing.” Hall began to experiment a little. “I use to get some Roman Noodles and cut up some hot dogs to throw in it or some Spam meat and put it over white rice, and that is what I ate.”

Baking, however, came a little later for the soon to be dessert guru. After being drafted into the NFL early and playing for NFL Europe, Hall made his way back home. “I didn’t start playing around with baking until about 2008. It started with my Banana Pudding.” He created his own recipe but he still felt like it wasn’t good enough. So he started adding more ingredients including adding strawberries on the top. Hall was making this Banana Pudding for himself at first and never really saw himself cooking for anyone. “I started bringing some to work for myself and people would ask could they taste it. Then people started talking like, ‘man Ben this is really good!’” Hall had a few “silent customers” in the beginning. He had about four customers including a married couple that he would make Banana Pudding for and shortly began making it for their family and friends as well. He never charged them; they would just pay for the ingredients.

It was Thanksgiving of 2014 when Hall’s famous Banana Pudding started taking off. “I just put it up on Facebook, just simply saying if anyone wants a Banana Pudding for Thanksgiving contact me. I wasn’t trying to blow it up. It was last minute so I was like…let me see how many people would respond.” Hall got more than what he bargained for.

“I ended up making 30 Banana Puddings for Thanksgiving last year! The day of Thanksgiving, I was running here and there, meeting people and delivering Banana Puddings.” The following holiday, which was Christmas, Hall received about 30 more orders and about 90 percent of them were the customers from Thanksgiving. He then decided to add more things to his list of desserts such as his Strawberry Short Cake and Oreo Chocolate Cake just to see how people would respond to it. “I didn’t really do any real advertisement; all of my business comes from word of mouth and social media. People don’t understand that social media is a powerful marketing tool. If your product is good, people will talk. So it just kind of blew up from there. I have gone as far as Charlotte and Atlanta just to deliver desserts. My thing is I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of little bakeries or little Mom and Pop joints that people could choose from in those cities, but the fact that they chose me…It’s an amazing feeling; trust me when I tell you.”

Hall proudly pulled out his order book loaded with orders.  “These are just orders for the next few days and this is a new book too; I actually delivered a Red Valet Cake in the parking lot before I came inside to meet you!”

Hall is most definitely on the fast track to owning his own bakery. Now, he has added even more sweet treats to his list like the Upside Down Peaches cake, Double Chocolate Cake, Hersey Chocolate Reeses Cupcakes, Honey Bun Cake, and even birthday cakes! Hall can also do a split dessert pan for those customers that cannot decide between the delicious treats.

So what’s next for Spartanburg County’s very own Dessert King?

“I get that question a lot in terms of opening up my own bakery, so the answer, as always, is Yes, I do eventually. I really want to know how far I can take this thing. So for now, however, I do have a full time job outside of my desserts so it’s already hard trying to keep up with my orders. No one have my recipes but me. And I am very detailed as to how I want my desserts to look and taste; I am very particular that way. So until than…who knows, we’ll see.”

Hall also, very passionately and very candidly, reveal that his true passion is in becoming a motivational speaker for the youth when asked the question of what would Suga be writing about him in the next five years. “I love the kids. When I was a football player, I use to get invited to speak to the kids all the time at different schools. It was such a pleasure and an honor. I can’t wait to get back to that.” A baking, ex pro football playing motivational youth speaker? Taste like Success!

You can also find Big Ben’s Desserts at the Cornbread Café in Lyman South Carolina.