In this episode Kristen and Carrie talk about secrets and betrayals, remember the fun of Care Bears, gigantic stereos with dual cassette tape players, and songs from 1981 movies. They also invite a friend over to try a recipe with a secret ingredient.
Let me start by extending our thanks to Laurie for being our taste tester! She was a real trooper and we appreciate her for so much more than just her cake testing ability!!
To make this delicious cake, just click here!
The best Care Bears a girl could own!
Thank you Aunt Nellie for making the only Harvard Beets I could find!
Florence Henderson and Wessonality
Which actually sounds NOTHING like Bear Necessities....but see for yourself!
I’ve Got a Secret Cake Transcript
do you remember when we were kids and you would try to get me to tell you what I had gotten you for your birthday I always told you the same thing do you remember what it was I do because it was so weird you would always tell me that you got me a tomato plant that's right I am so lame at not giving things away so do you want to know what we're cooking today of course I do okay it's a tomato plant oh that's a jerk it's a secret oh fun I can't wait for the big reveal [Music] welcome to Mom's wooden spoon get your apron on and your fanny flicker ready as we cook up some Nostalgia yummy [Music]
hi this is Carrie and this is Kristen and welcome to today's episode where we are going to bake I've got a secret cake oh I cannot wait for this either it's from Mary's memo February 23rd 1981. oh 81 that was a good year it is and I'm so excited to hear all of your deepest darkest Secrets today Kristen oh I can't wait to share them Carrie sucker I'm going to share them with the world you guys don't want to know this much about me when I was seven I stole a piece of paper that's right I ran around the classroom and got in trouble that's right yeah those were my deepest darkest okay it makes me think of The Goonies yes and chunk and chunk gets caught the rest of the Goonies are down below the bowels of the nasty building looking for Treasure and they're trying to get a chunk to tell them things and so they're putting things in a blender and threatening him and and so he's like one year I pretended to barf in the movie theater and he's crying it's great and they're all rolled they're these hardened criminals they're all rolling their eyes as he's confessing all of his nine-year-old secrets that's awesome yeah so apparently those are all the ones you have too oh absolutely yeah I was just so naughty yeah me too they're just not very exciting no yeah I have some good secrets for you today I would like some juicy ones well speaking of juicy we have some juicy ingredients in this recipe we do and a secret oh yeah so do you want to tell everybody what we're putting into this cake today yes so it's you know cake stuff flour sugar oil blah blah but we're also going to include cottage cheese ooh pineapple okay yum some walnuts not your favorite but they're good and the super surprise ingredient beets and not just any beets yeah Harvard beets Harvard beets now we used to have pickled beets when we were kids and you know I actually kind of liked pickled beans I'm a huge fan of the beet oh I love beets yeah we make them today I roast you know whole beets in the oven oh that's fancy you're fancy a little balsamic drizzle and some goat cheese don't get no better than then maybe some walnuts ooh yeah wow um I open I got shoe strings I was feeling fancy you're fancy yeah I put them on a salad oh yeah but now Harvard beets I've never had these as a kid no so I've never heard of them I had no idea what I was looking for right all I could really find is one company that makes Harvard Beets yeah a crap ton of recipes oh my gosh for Harvard Beets yeah and I thought I'm gonna have to make Harvard Beets in preparation for today I had to get them on Amazon I couldn't find them anywhere that's wild so in case you were wondering what's so fancy about Harvard Beets obviously they're well educated oh nice but so like a pickled beet has a pickly juice vinegar a brine yeah Harvard beets are a sweet and sour sauce oh they're saucy they are saucy so they thicken the juice and they're added some sugar so it's it's kind of pickly right so that's that's a Harvard beet cool um we're gonna cut them up into little pieces and I'm guessing we're gonna have a really cute pink cake wouldn't that be neat if it was pink or maybe it'll be like a confetti cake all right I am doing the dry ingredients so I'm getting together the flour two and a quarter cups okay of flour and I'm doing the juicy ingredients oh yeah which are eggs so they're going to be some loud bangs here so here I should have broken those already okay here we go egg number one all right so as I mentioned these are one of my favorite vegetables as a kid when I really ate nothing certainly no vegetables right I liked beets they were one of my favorite which is so odd it is odd because they do have a very earthy flavor they're sweet but they also are earthy go ahead and craft that next egg I'll be quiet they are but I've I've just really loved them all right one more egg okay oops oops so you're putting the wet oh I got shell oh Carrie what the shell Carrie what the shell all right I've got my two cups of flour I gotta get a little quarter cup here I am getting over a cold I'm gonna sniff I'm gonna cough oh man and I apologize if you hear any of it I'm gonna try really hard not to but sometimes you do and you don't even know you're doing it you guys ought to be just happy you don't have to eat this cake cooked by somebody who's sniffle snuffling all over the place that's me I get to eat this cake this is very sad because we we're putting all your viral load into this cake and then we're having a guest we are having a guest yes we are so our friend and my co-worker Laurie hates beets from the core of her being so when I saw this recipe evil Carrie came out to play you are so evil it was like ooh Laurie needs to come and taste the secret I can't imagine when you look at a pink cake that maybe she's not going to have an idea as to what's going on I don't think she's going to have an idea because what grown-up would think I'm going over to another grown-up's house and they're going to fool me with a cake filled with vegetables and beets in particular beets and knowing that she hates them right right so you would do this to her so she may be aghast she may become your arch nemesis at work now one would think as a friend maybe that wouldn't be my go-to move I'm not sure I would have done this but I think she's an awfully good sport and let's give it a try so she's going to come in toward the end and we're gonna surprise her and see what she thinks yeah it'll be a surprise cake for her for sure oh yeah yeah that's absolutely all right so I have the flour the cinnamon the baking soda and the salt all mixed up together in a small bowl and Carrie is pouring the oil now the directions on the Mary's memo say to get Wesson oil yes now we don't have Wesson Oil yeah yeah but do you guys remember that Florence Henderson AKA Mrs. Brady was actually in the ads for Wesson oil in the very early 80s maybe late 70s I do now I went online and watched one and it is so so cute does she sing she made on some of them the one that I watched there's these three little kids that run up to her open window in the kitchen okay because that's fno screen wide open yeah bring the flies baby yeah yeah yeah and they come up and they're like Ms. Florence Henderson we heard you make the best fried chicken ever our mom says you have a secret and she said you know what the secret is Wessonality it's so weird it is then she goes on to explain Wessonality means that when you cook your chicken it is going to be crisp on the outside and moist and juicy on the inside okay so now that you have said Wessonality the only thing running through my head is isn't there a song in Tarzan that like Baloo sings Tarzan Baloo is not in Tarzan The Jungle Book The Jungle Book that's right you've got the Wessonality the simple Wessonality
that was not in The Jungle Book folks it wasn't in Tarzan either oh Tarzan oh my goodness all right so I have a whole lot of oil and sugar and eggs and extra vanilla that the recipe didn't actually require you guys know us we are all about adding the extra vanilla yes okay so now I shall firmly mix our oil and sugar mixture okay and so after she gets that stirred up really well I think we're going to add the dry ingredients yep and then we add all the special fun unique ingredients ooh yes and I don't know if you mentioned as you were putting these dry ingredients together there was a lot of cinnamon I was very excited about that too and I think a lot of cinnamon is going to be partially what hides the taste of the beets I would think yeah yeah when we were talking about this recipe in my mind it was a white cake yeah I was thinking confetti cake as I said earlier right right but in fact this is more like a spice cake it might be like a pink hummingbird cake oh hummingbird cakes that's right they have nuts they have um pineapple coconut pineapple oh yes and a cream cheese frosting which is what we're making later yeah ooh fun I was right I think you were right good day I'm gonna be sick again y'all this is working in my favor maybe it's your viral load that causes you to be so smart what it's certainly not my brain oh that's so mean Carrie's a very smart lady all right let's add the dry ingredients yes ready a little bit at a time is that the best way or do you want it all in umm yeah a little bit at a time all right there's a little bit a mix okay and our next ingredients are going to be I think we're going to start with the cottage cheese I remember cottage cheese in our fridge growing up all the time our mom always had cottage cheese she liked to put fruit on it oh she did and sometimes oh she put maple syrup on it that you mom put maple syrup in her cottage cheese and she would give it to us and it actually tasted good Carrie hated it no but I asked her one time where the heck did you learn that weird thing about cottage cheese and she said she babysat when she was younger and that's how the kids ate their cottage cheese really yep and she learned about it from them and she enjoyed it so she served it to us too huh I did not agree with those children I liked it as a kid but as an adult I would never in a million years think to add maple syrup to my cottage cheese and stir it around no that's really interesting I mean fruit fruit's normal all right okay so I'm getting the cottage cheese all right fantastic and there are some very large curds yeah it's small curd that's what it asked for but these are pretty big they are yeah okay so since this is called I've got a secret cake yes and I like to bake I of course have some of my favorite baking secrets oh yeah so a lot of times you have to have room temp butter oh yes and I am classic for forgetting like I'm halfway through the bake yes yes and I'm like oh crap I forgot the butter I haven't set it out I take my stick of butter I put it in the microwave for no more than five seconds yes five seconds absolute max flip it from one side to the next side yes do an abs so I keep doing that it usually takes about two flips of five seconds each and then you have perfectly soft not melted butter for your recipe that is my hack that's good but you know sometimes they say that microwaving butter can kind of maybe change the consistency and ruin your bake so sometimes I worry about that right ah yeah so I I have a trick that is the most mortifying trick ever this is so bad I can't believe I'm telling you guys this I will take the stick of butter still wrapped and put it in my bra Laurie if you're listening to this later the butter was room temp she she's not carrying around some some butter with her I'm not and so I was walking around the house one time and my son's like what is that your shirt and I was like it's butter
he's like you're the grossest mother ever so just think those of you who know me those of you have come over for dinner just think you could be eating bra Kristen melted butter Kristen bra cake at least you don't stick it in your butt crack ooh Johnny Depp gave Kate Moss a diamond necklace when they were married or dating and he said oh my butt is itchy would you look at it and he turned around he said reach down there and he made her reach in his pants and pull out a diamond necklace from his butt crack ew ew that is way worse than bra butter bra butter yeah yeah I really feel like that went a way I had not predicted I know right unexpected
we've gotta get cutting these Harvard Beets cause they're next and they have to be cubed yep and then I'm just going to cube these a little puppers yeah I think you're going to cube them up so Carrie did you have any secrets that you kept from our parents no I have several well how lame am I I don't have a single solid thing it's just because you can't remember but I remember that my friend Kim and I found a stray cat okay it was white and I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world even though I'm allergic to everything that has fur yeah back then a cat would just send me into an asthmatic frenzy oh yeah it would right but we thought this cat was so cool we named it snowball nice and we would hide it in one another's garages what and feed it that poor cat that poor cat probably wanted to get the heck away from us but yeah we would house it in our garages and just when we think our parents are onto us we'd move it to the other person's garage oh my goodness yep and then one day snowball never came came back shocker snowball ran like the wind snowball ran for the hills snowball was like I gotta get away from those two these
crazy young girls this is not what I signed up for but ooh I loved snowball oh my gosh well guess what uh huh I have another secret story yes so when I was probably the age in which this Mary's memo came out I was probably 11 a little bit more I told a friend that I saw that my parents had gotten me a stereo for Christmas ooh and that it was hidden in the garage I saw it hidden under some stuff and I was thought I was being cool and making a friend she was kind of a new friend and I thought ooh this is fun I'm going to share this with her right and she went and told my parents shut your face she so did did you stay friends with her no no she went and told my parents that you knew what your Christmas gift was yes and so Christmas day came and no stereo did you know she told your parents not until our parents told me yep and so finally at the end of the day it was nearing dinner time oh and you were trying not to let your 11 year old heart break yes and they finally came in with the stereo and went surprise she told us that you knew oh that broke my heart I felt so betrayed betrayed I felt so betrayed and it ruined that friendship in my mind forever of course how could you trust little tell your parents I know right that's the one rule childhood you don't tell the parents thank you so but I wanna let's go back to the stereo what did it look like I mean 1980's stereo oh yeaah yeah yeah that had to be huge it was huge did it have the speakers that you could pull apart from the stereo and then move like a whole foot yes cause they were still attached they had wires yeah yeah so you could have quote surround sound as long as you stood within that two foot that's right radius oh yeah it was huge and it had a turntable oh dual cassette tape yeah I'm sure I listened to DeBarge on that until I stole it until it got ruined and you stole it oh and your Billy Joel oh yes I loved that stereo oh this is turning out to look not pink but more of a peach color it is kind of an interesting color okay so we have beets in next is pineapple and coconut and nuts okay coconut why don't you stir that up okay so I think the mixture is ready isn't it un hum that's it but it looks good kind of looks it looks fun festive it does it's got lots of secrets in it all right we're gonna put this in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes we'll see you in about an hour
[Music] the cake is out of the oven oh yeah it smells very spicy and yummy it does we made some cream cheese frosting and we're gonna go ahead and slather it on there yes you know the cake turned out a lot darker looking than I thought it would yes I meant to say that there's no red or pink tint to it at all no it's just dark brown on the outside I cannot wait to cut into it and see what it looks like it's going to be very interesting to see what the color is I never expected it to get this dark brown no so Kristen this whole time I have been very interested in secrets from the I've got a secret cake yes but so as I was kind of trying to figure out you know like secrets of the 80s on or near 1981. there was a toy in the early 80s and it was called sweet secrets it was absolutely aimed at girls uh huh do you have any recollection of that toy I don't know tell me a little more about it so it was these little like plastic Jewel cases they came in various shapes and they always had a little gem plastic gem on the top and you'd open your little jewel case and inside you would flip up a head and legs and feet oh yes and then you could have a little doll and the jewel case was the doll's belly oh my gosh I remember those do you yes I did not have one but oh I remember the ads and I thought they were pretty cool now I would have been 11. so I guess I could have maybe still had something like that yeah I don't remember having one either yeah but I kept thinking that's just like little girl perfect to keep in her purse and then you're stuck somewhere where you have to be quiet and good and you just pull your little doll out of your purse and you can just entertain yourself oh so fun a sweet secrets so I'm not the only person who's all about the secret as it turns out no now this is not a secret but I remember something special came out in 1981 and it was the Care Bears really yes
and I know you loved Care Bears Carrie love Care Bears I wonder why so my nickname before 1981 was Care Bear absolutely and so I just thought they were so cool so and made for me I mean plus they were just cute right oh so cute I mean who doesn't love a good Care Bear stare yes well I have fond memories of going down to the Stop and Shop in downtown of our hometown and buying you a Care Bear with my own money I know which one you got me I could not remember which one I got you what was it sleepy sleepy time bear oh it's like a teal kind of turquoise yes color yep so I have two Care Bears um it must have been Christmas 1981 I got my first one from Santa Claus actually it turns out that my dad got it for me and he had no idea what any of them were he wanted one that would match my room I'm assuming that was the instructions he was given by my mother because I can't imagine he would care so he asked for the pink one well the pink one is Cheer Bear and Cheer Bear is uh the most popular of Care Bears and so he was told in no uncertain terms that was not happening oh he couldn't get one there weren't any available no not on the time frame he had yeah and so he's like okay well I don't know do you have a yellow one and they're like yep so that year for Christmas I got the yellow Care Bear birthday bear oh rando no it's not my birthday um but cute I think didn't birthday bear have a cupcake yes on its belly good on you I know
the one you got me had a moon I think a moon and a star a sleepy Moon and a star and the bear itself is half-lidded oh funny very sleepy or drunk also known as passed out bear inebriation bear
gosh you have really made such a family-friendly show today first we talk about boob butter now we move into the drunken Care Bear oh you guys are gonna stop listening to this podcast aren't you oh my goodness so I've got the cake frosted I will say that Mary mentioned in the memo that half of the frosting is plenty I politely disagree I put it all on there oh yes and I think it looks absolutely lovely and quite delectable ooh it does we're gonna go ahead and cut it I'm gonna cut some nice big slices here perfect well while you cut that I got thinking so obviously I have fabulously fond memories of 80s oh yes and the movies of the 80s there's just something special about them and so um somebody suggested that it was the theme song of 80s movies that made them so special yes I totally agree really oh my gosh yes so list some of the 80s movies and so we can kind of think about um so what about Ghostbusters uh yes who are you gonna call exactly how about Rocky oh wait eye of the tiger oh yeah you got it okay so we are now going to scoop into this cake take out the first piece and see what the thing looks like on the inside the first piece came out perfectly it's not pink at all no it looks like a spice cake it does like a carrot cake that's the color of it yes it's darker than like a hummingbird cake would be which yes I likened it too and you do see some beet chunks in there but you know they kind of look like raisins gosh we may fool her okay are you gonna go first oh I was gonna let you but I'll do it that's fine okay Carrie's going first okay let's see what she thinks my concern is the cottage cheese and if you're gonna get a big bite of that or if it's just gonna blend in with everything else because as we put it in the oven I could see big chunks of cottage cheese big chunks of beets what do you think it tastes very much carrot cakey with the cream cheese frosting it has that carrot cake texture because of the strings of coconut in it the beets I do not think taste like beets not even a little bit there's no earthy flavor to the cake it's a good cake it is crazy moist it is so delicious and I don't think in a million years she's gonna know those are beets I really don't think she would I specifically took a bite of a beet I was just getting ready so I have a big beet on this side yes I didn't even get any cake in it just the Beet and I did not taste any beetiness at all wow cream cheese frosting is strong and it has that kind of sourness from the cream cheese which is just really good oh my gosh yes really a nice cake I would make this and take this to a party I probably wouldn't tell people that I put beets and cottage cheese in it though no it would be a secret so I think we're gonna make a nice healthy serving for our guest oh yes and await for her to arrive and see what she thinks of I've got a secret cake I cannot wait oh me either
Laurie thank you so much for joining us Laurie is a foodie a co-worker and a friend who has shared a lot of our enthusiasm about our podcast and so she seemed like an obvious choice to join us for a taste testing welcome to Mom's Wooden Spoon Laurie thank you thanks for having me I'm very excited to be here today yay yay we're excited to have you here now the cake that we're taste testing today is all about secrets so why don't you start us off with one of your deepest darkest secrets ooh juicy or if you prefer you can tell us about a surprise birthday gift or something boring like that sadly I'm not a deep dark secret person oh but I would say for the most part anybody who knows me would not know that I am very much an introvert I'm a very shy and quiet person but when I'm in a crowd I put on this bubbly outgoing person yeah so that's probably my deepest just darkest secret well you've kept a very good secret yay so what is one of your favorite secrets to delicious or easier cooking or baking I think the best secret is to use fresh ingredients when you can if you're using good ingredients how can the thing you're making be bad that's true but Carrie might be able to make it be bad but she has clearly never eaten anything I made on my own but yeah so did you have a favorite childhood dish that maybe had a secret ingredient when when I was a kid my mother made these secret hamburgers ooh so she'd make really thin beef patties and then she would put cheese and onions in the middle and press it together so it looked like a regular hamburger but once she cooked it and bit into it it was all this cheesy oniony goodness inside so it was her secret hamburgers oh that sounds fabulous that sounds really good I know what I'm making tonight I mean that's a secret we're sharing yes now as everyone that has ever listened to Mom's Wooden Spoon knows Carrie certainly has some foods that are not her favorite as a child or even now like peas are there any foods that you really disliked as a child well I grew up in a Hispanic country I grew up in Puerto Rico so I was exposed to a lot of more Hispanic type foods yeah but I will say my mother was an adventurous cook so she would bring out items like beets for example which I have never gotten a taste for and in fact I I think I lost a lot of weight one year because I kept turning down the Beet dishes but you know beets and other mushy type vegetables like squash oh we're not ones that were necessarily in my list and as I'm getting older I really haven't acquired a taste for beets oh no so beets are still not your favorite huh no no beets and squash are definitely you know down down down on the list oh no my daughter would be right there with you smart girl so I suppose we should get to the part that everybody's waiting for the tasting of I've got a secret cake so go ahead and grab yours we're gonna talk for a little bit as you take a bite right because as we know it's really really hard to have a podcast when both of us have food in our mouths well I love cake so I'm excited about excellent it has a delicious cream cheese frosting really thick and good it looks moist yeah it's really moist I enjoyed the coconut and nutty flavor it looks a lot like a spice cake yes it has a lot of cinnamon in it and smelled the house up deliciously yeah so she's going for taste number two those of you who can't see her she's she's really pondering hard I can hear the wheels turning not sure if the microphone was picking that up or not she's not grimacing so that is one good thing no no there's no gagging going on at all so so far we're feeling good yeah so what do you think see Laurie well I wanted to try it first with the frosting yes and then I wanted to try it without the frosting so you see if I can figure out what this surprise is yeah it tastes like surprise might be zucchini is it zucchini oh good guess but no no Carrie zucchini do you want to let her in yeah so it is da da da da beets
really yes for real so there's this little beet called a Harvard Beet it's made in a sauce those are in there but all in all what do you think you know what it's really good I can usually identify beets in most things I can't taste it in here I said to Kristen if she says there's beets in here I'm calling her out because we really couldn't tell that there were and we knew there were beets in there no wow I've never tasted something that had beets it where I couldn't at least taste the earthiness of the beets yes yes I don't know if it's the cinnamon and the coconut or hiding it right it's wonderful I tried it without the frosting it was great oh my gosh that's so good to hear so wait my other question is are you mad at us no oh good not yet
yeah people would be happy if I'm starting to eat beets well that is it for this episode thanks again to Laurie for being such a good sport as we tricked her into eating her most despised food ever she was a champ but I think maybe we deserve the wooden spoon yes we do if you would like to see all the secret things that go with this podcast please head over to our website at momswoodnspoon.com and if you enjoyed what you heard today please leave us some positive feedback and let your friends and family know about us too
[Music] thanks for listening to Mom's wooden spoon if you like what you heard don't forget to subscribe if you want a copy of this recipe or to check out our blog click on the link to our website in the podcast description if you'd rather you can get to our website through Facebook Twitter or Instagram pick your poison don't see poison we're making food