The secret behind this Alabama BBQ joint’s beloved cake - AL.com

Barbecue connoisseurs know to order the sliced pork sandwich with outside meat and a dollop of chow-chow when they go to Alabama’s Full Moon Bar-B-Que.

And if they have a sweet tooth, they often top off their meal with a slice of Full Moon’s almost-as-famous carrot cake with cream cheese-and-pecan frosting.

It is a recipe that goes back at least until 1986, when Pat and Eloise James opened their mom-and-pop barbecue joint, Pat James’ Full Moon Bar-B-Que, in a cozy, cinder-block building on Birmingham’s Southside.

Pat James, who served as an assistant football coach under Paul “Bear” Bryant at Alabama before he got in the restaurant business, oversaw the barbecue operation, and his wife, Eloise, took charge of the desserts.

While Pat and Eloise have long since passed on, their legacies live on at Full Moon Bar-B-Que, which has grown to include 15 locations around Alabama – with a 16th scheduled to open in Huntsville later this year.

Eloise James’ two dessert specialties were her “Half Moon” chocolate-chip-and-pecan cookies and her three-layer carrot cake, and they both remain staples on the Full Moon menu.

“The carrot cake sales are still strong to this day,” says David Maluff, who, along with his brother, Joe Maluff, bought Full Moon Bar-B-Que from Pat James in 1997.

Full Moon Bar-B-Que carrot cake — Dorothy "Miss Dot" Denson, left, worked at Full Moon Bar-B-Que from 1986 until she retired in 2019. David Maluff, right, co-owns the Full Moon chain with his brother, Joe Maluff. (Photo courtesy of Full Moon Bar-B-Que)

‘Desserts were her baby’

Dorothy Denson, fondly known as “Miss Dot” to the Full Moon family, started working for Pat and Eloise James not long after they opened their Southside barbecue joint, which they affectionately nicknamed “The Best Little Pork House in Alabama.” Denson retired last year.

Since Denson worked the barbecue pit, she never baked a cake, she says, but she well remembers how particular Eloise James was about her desserts.

“The desserts were her baby,” Denson says. “You had to do it her way. . . . She was really particular about her desserts.”

She was also particular about their presentation.

Each slice of cake was served on a plastic plate and snugly sealed with clear plastic wrap.

“A lot of people just put that cake in a container and say, ‘Here,’” David Maluff says. “Eloise wanted (it on) a plastic plate, and that film wrap had to be so tight that all you saw was the cake.”

Then, she tempted customers by putting the cakes and cookies right by the cash register.

“Her thought was, you put the cake and cookies in front of the customer when they are ordering at the register, they’ll always grab it, and add it to the order,” Maluff says. “It’s right in front of you. We still do that today.”

The secret ingredient

In early 1997, a little more than 10 years after they opened their barbecue joint, Pat and Eloise James handed the keys to their business over to the Maluff brothers.

For about a year after they sold their place, though, Pat James would drop in to greet customers and Eloise James would stop by to check on her cakes and cookies.

“She was always overseeing the desserts,” David Maluff remembers. “She took a lot of pride in that.”

One of the secrets to her carrot cake, he adds, was that she used 6-ounce jars of Gerber Baby Food Stage 3 pureed carrots in her recipe instead of shredded carrots. The baby food made her cakes moister than most.

“Our cake is pretty smooth,” Maluff says. “When I say smooth, there are no raisins in it, no shredded carrots in it, no walnuts in it. It’s very similar to a spice cake to me, just because it’s so creamy.”

Finding enough jars of Gerber Baby Food to keep up with the demand for the cakes presented a challenge, David Maluff says.

“A lot of these (distributors) that we bought food from -- like US Foods and Sysco -- they didn’t carry baby food, so we had to go to the grocery store and buy it from them direct,” he says.

Then, a few years ago, they hit a momentary snag when Gerber stopped selling the Stage 3 pureed carrots.

“We tried (using) pure carrots, real carrots, and making a puree with them,” David Maluff says. “We tried a little bit of everything.”

Eventually, they found a worthy substitute in an organic carrot puree that they purchase from a distributor in California.

Full Moon rendering — Full Moon Bar-B-Que has 15 locations in Alabama, with a 16th scheduled to open in late 2020 in Huntsville. (Photo courtesy of Full Moon Bar-B-Que)

About 40,000 cakes a year

Since purchasing Full Moon Bar-B-Que 23 years ago, the Maluff brothers have expanded the dessert menu to include coconut, chocolate and key lime pies to go along with the carrot cake and Half Moon cookies.

“That still didn’t take away from the cake at all,” David Maluff says. “To this day, it’s one of our biggest sellers, along with the cookies. We sell a lot of cakes.”

How many?

Maluff starts to do the math.

Six to eight cakes per location, per day. Times seven days a week. Times 52 weeks a year. Times 15 locations.

It all adds up to roughly 40,000 carrot cakes a year, give or take a couple of hundred.

“A lot,” Maluff says.

Cakes ‘taste better’ on Southside

The original Full Moon Bar-B-Que where Pat and Eloise James started is still smoking five days a week. The dining area is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but the drive-thru remains open.

Because the kitchen space is limited at that location, though, the carrot cakes and Half-Moon cookies are now baked at the Full Moon Bar-B-Que on U.S. 280. All the other locations bake their own cakes and cookies on-site, David Maluff says.

Perhaps it’s just nostalgia or maybe it’s because they miss seeing Eloise James, but regulars at that original Southside location swear the carrot cakes just taste better there, Maluff says.

And there’s no convincing them otherwise.

“Every store does their own except Southside,” he says. “And I still have people tell me the carrot cake tastes better (there). You can’t explain it to people.”

Full Moon Bar-B-Que has 15 locations throughout Alabama. For locations, hours and menus, go here.

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