The Buttery Trick That Made Elvis' Favorite Breakfast Food That Much More Delicious

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The King of Rock 'n' Roll, Elvis Presley, was known for maintaining his down-home tastes in food long after riches and fame enabled him to eat the finest cuisine. For Elvis, it was all about homecooked fare like meatloaf with wheat germ and the sandwich he loved best of all: fried peanut butter and banana. The King also loved butter. One of Elvis' favorite cakes was a rich, buttery classic — a special pound cake that called for half a pound of butter among its ingredients. As part of his go-to breakfast, Presley favored homemade biscuits, fried in so much butter that his former cook, Mary Jenkins Langston, reported that he'd have butter literally running down his arms while he ate them.

There are a couple of different biscuit recipes reported to be favorites of the King. One was featured in the book "Are You Hungry Tonight? Elvis' Favorite Recipes." Its ingredients include flour, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, salt, shortening, and milk. Another book — "Elvis Presley: The Man. The Life. The Legend." — shares a recipe for buttermilk biscuits that is similar, but it trades out the milk for buttermilk and adds in lukewarm water and a packet of yeast (also eliminating the cream of tartar and using baking soda instead of powder). Whether it was one of these bready compilations or a different recipe that Langston prepared for the rock idol, we don't know. But we do know that those breakfast biscuits were always swimming in butter.

Butter was a necessity in the Presley household when it came to satisfying the King's penchant for rich foods. In addition to liking his breakfast biscuits soaked in the dairy product, there was also a whole lot of butter goin' on in Elvis' favorite sandwich (which he ate by the loaf). It reportedly took two whole butter sticks per every three sammies to get the snack just the way he liked it — grilled in butter until it was all soaked up (ooh, ooh, ooh!).

The blueberry corn muffins recipe featured in the "Are You Hungry Tonight?" cookbook calls for not only buttering the muffin tins, but also topping the baked goods with more butter while they're still warm from the oven. Butter-baked sweet potatoes were another of the King's favorites. For an authentic Elvis Presley recipe, the cookbook stipulates real butter must be used. Substitutes such as margarine, while acceptable, make it no longer a genuine Presley creation.

In commemoration of Elvis Presley's birthday in 2019, cooking star Paula Deen shared a recipe called Elvis Gooey Butter Cakes, featuring — you guessed it — lots of butter. Two whole sticks go into the dessert, which also calls for cream cheese, peanut butter, and a mashed banana. Food Network star Duff Goldman also offers an Elvis Cookies recipe paying tribute to the King, which similarly requires two whole butter sticks to get the job done, along with peanut butter, bananas, crushed pretzels, bacon, molasses, and chocolate chips.