Best Sweets in Charleston

Pralines, glazed pecans, bear claws, and benne wafers—Charleston has plenty of unique and local offerings for visitors with a sweet tooth. You can't walk around the Market area without breathing in the irresistible aroma of pralines.

Employees of candy shops like Market Street Sweets (100 N. Market St.) stand outside offering samples of their wares, including pralines and cinnamon-and-sugar-glazed pecans.

Benne wafers—which are sweet cookies rather than sesame crackers, as the name might suggest—are a Charleston original. Benne is the African word for sesame seeds, which were brought to America via the Transatlantic slave trade. Once in Charleston, all it took was a little brown sugar, and a confection was born. These diminutive cookies, the size of a quarter, can be sampled at Charleston's Farmers' Market, downtown in Marion Square on Saturday mornings. They are also found at Harris Teeter (290 E. Bay St.), packaged appropriately for gift-giving by local company Food For the Southern Soul.

For more locally made sweets, the adorably quaint Sugar Bakeshop (59½ Cannon St.) specializes in cupcakes such as grapefruit and chocolate raspberry, homemade ice cream, and cookies. For macaron lovers, the French-influenced confection can be bought at the Macaroon Boutique (45 John St.). Raspberry is the flavor of choice, matching one of Charleston's favorite colors—pink.