She's Not a Looker

Episode Transcript for Bumpy Cake

So Kristen, this year we wanted to highlight some regional favorite recipes in addition to Mary's memos. You know, to kind of shake it up. Oh, that sounds like fun, right? So this is our first attempt and it's from Michigan. And you went to college in Michigan. So what do you think it might be? Hmm, let's see. Boone's Farm, uh, Big Jug Beer. Mad Dog 20/20. Did you not eat anything? Not much.

Welcome to Mom's Wooden Spoon, where the recipes are retro and so are your hosts. You can say that again.

Welcome to season 4, episode dos. Yahoola. I just stared at Kristen like right in the eye and I'm like, "Come on, say something witty. And boy, she was right there with me I was ready with the wit yahoola all the way. Oh, Carrie. So, you know, guys, sometimes life's a little bumpy. Yeah, it is. You know, it's a bumpy road. Sometimes we hit some speed bumps along the way. Kristen and I in four years of podcasts have missed some high fives and fist bumps. Just before this episode, Kristen was doing a little bump and grind. Yeah baby. Not really. No, really. I'm just giving y'all hints because this recipe is from Michigan. Yeah, it is really kind of a Michigan classic recipe. There you go. Because I've asked several Michiganers if they have heard of this and only one of them have heard of it and none of them have tried it. Okay. So then this begs the question, are they Michiganers or Michiganders? That's a great question. We'll have to look that up. Okay. I thought it was D, Michiganders but you lived in Michigan. Yeah. Okay. So, you look that up and I will tell you this recipe is called a bumpy cake. Yeah. So, what I'm saying y'all is if you have a baby shower to go to, I think this is exactly what you need to take. Bumpy cake. I agree. Baby bump baby bump. Yeah. Yeah. That's so fun. Or if somebody's just having a hard time, just send them a bumpy cake. You know, sometimes life is just bumpy. Oh, I love it. Yeah. I think that this is the perfect cake for multiple scenarios. Yeah. In which you're absolutely going to find yourself in the next week or two. I totally agree. And I think it's actually going to be quite delicious. Now, I looked it up. Carrie's right. Gosh, you know that the uh Michigander may have originated from a speech by Abraham Lincoln. Really? Figure that. Or you can call them Michiganians. Michiganians. I don't want to do that. Yeah. Michiganders. Michigander is perfect. Listen did it wrong. Sorry all my friends who live in Michigan. I mean you should be sending her hate mail for sure. I know, right? We would accept any mail. Nobody sending us we'd be so excited to have mail. Oh my gosh. So Carrie, tell us what's in this bumpy cake cuz it's freaking delicious sounding. Yeah. So it's chocolate and chocolate and chocolate. Yeah. It is a devil's food cake. Chocolate. Devil's food cake. Homemade. Oh, homemade. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's no box mix involved in this mess. And then buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache. That's right. And the super cool thing is you're going to pipe I'm saying you're going to because Carrie's the baker here. You're going to pipe tubes of vanilla buttercream in stripes down the cake. Yeah. So, this was weird. Yeah. Trying to figure out why is it a bumpy cake and what the heck is going on? Yeah. But that's completely correct. So, we're going to have a 9 by13 cake. Yep. We are going to make buttercream frosting. We are going to pipe round tubes, speed bumps down the cake, and then we're going to pour ganache over the whole thing. So, my first question is, how thick do we have to make this ganache so that it sticks to the top of the bumps? Well, the trouble is it's a melted ganache. You pour it on hot. That's fascinating. And I've looked online and in some cases it kind of sticks. It kind of doesn't, but it gets thicker as you have it pulled off the stove, right? So, I guess you could like drizzle more over the bump parts, you know, as it cools and it thickens a little bit. It'll be, as usual, an experience. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um Kristen and I, as we've kind of previously said, have decided to do some regional recipes. Yes. And this is going to be our first one. Yay. And since obviously we grew up in Ohio, we decided Michigan close enough. Let's go with that. Yes. Um it just sounded delicious. It does. I'm thinking it might staste might staste Yeah, definitely staste. It might taste like a ding-dong. Yes. Ding-dongs are like ho hos, right? Or are they the round? Dingdongs are the round hockey pucks. One that used to be wrapped in foil when we were kids. You remember those? I do remember. Those were special. You had to open the magic foil. I was thinking more like a Swiss roll but without the roll. Obvy. Yeah. I'm thinking it's going to be more like a ding-dong because all the frosting is going to be like in a tube one bite, you know? Yeah. It'll be interesting. It will be interesting. And then we're going to have to decide like how close do we put the stripe because you know you're going to want one bump per slice, right? So, we're going to have to spread that out. Oh gosh. There's going to be math involved in this. Oh no. Oh no. What were we thinking? I don't know, Carrie. This is awful. Awful. Mhm. Okay. But it's a real deal cake. There's no shortcuts on this one. Kristen and I are going to be putting all of our baking knowledge to use. Oh boy. So, we're going to start with making the cake. Yeah. And then as that's baking, we'll whip up some buttercream. And then last but not least will be the ganache. That's right. We have to freeze it between every level because if the cake isn't super super cold, the buttercream will melt and then if the buttercream isn't super super cold, the ganache will melt it. So, woo. Okay. So, first to get us started, it's just cake ingredients. This cake does have some buttermilk in it. That's usually nice. Makes for a nice little fluffy cake. I think that's nice. Obviously, a boatload of cocoa powder. So, Kristen, par usual, has gotten us going. She's measuring like crazy. And I, yes, am going to tell you the history of this cake cuz I know that's the first thing on everybody's mind is what is this bumpy cake? Well, seriously. And who came up with putting rows of frosting down a cake? That's weird. It is weird. It is. Absolutely. So, Fred Sanders Schmidt. Schmidt. Schmidt. German dude. Yeah. Um, his father was a baker and confectionary. Oh my. in uh Germany. They moved here to the US long time ago in the 1800s. He wanted Fred after he showed interest in baking to be the best. So he sent him back to Germany to get trained. Oh. Oh yeah. It was a big thing. Wow. So Fred comes back and he opens um a bakery and confectionary in Chicago. Yeah. And then the great Chicago fire happened. Oh my gosh. And the story goes is that he left his confectionary ahead of the fire, ran home ahead of the fire, grabbed his uber pregnant wife. Oh my gosh. Threw her in a cart of some kind. In my mind, I have a wheelbarrow pictured. I don't know why. Get in the wheelbarrow Maude. And the wheelbarrow from when I was a kid that my that my dad that our dad had was Harvest Gold. Oh yeah. So, in my head, there's Fred, super pregnant wife whose name I don't know. We're going to call her Maude. Oh, I was going to go with Greta. Oh, Greta's way better. It's more German.Yeah. Yeah. So, he's got Greta in uh the Harvest Gold wheelbarrow. Yep. Of course. Um and ran him out of town ahead of the fire. My gosh, he's a really smart guy and very athletic. Fast as heck, too. Wow. So, I might have taken some creative licenses in the story. What? But needless to say, and then he just kept running. Fred pulled a forest gump and he was off and they just decided to go until they found the next big town. Wow. Um, and that was Detroit. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, 1875 Detroit. Yes. Fred opens Sanders Bakery. He calls it Sanders Bakery despite his last name being Schmidt because his father also had a bakery. I wondered why. Interesting. Didn't want to seem to be in competition with his father. Right. Okay, that's a good thing. He's a good boy. He's a very good boy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Cuz he loved his loved his dad. His dad passed away in 1912. And sometime after that, Fred decided he wanted to try his hand at perfecting his father's favorite dessert, devil's food cake. Really? Yeah. So during one of his tests as he's, you know, practicing to perfect this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He was short on buttercream, right? And so instead of spreading buttercream across the entire top of his cake, he made four rows of buttercream, which is funny because I would have just spread it real thin. That's very creative. It was. Anyway, people loved it. They loved it. And so they started asking for it as that uh cake with the bumps on it. Isn't that funny? I love how mistakes become wonderful things. Oh my gosh. You know, we've talked about it before how potato chips kind of came about actually due to rage. Yes. Remember, the guy was so so angry. We want crispier potatoes. I'm going to show you crispy potatoes, you jerks. And made he made potato chips, right? And there was another one. Chocolate chip cookies were an accident. Remember, I think you talked about this, how the uh the woman who had the toll house boarding house, how she wanted to make chocolate cookies and so she chopped up a bar of chocolate and it didn't end up melting. They stayed in the cookie. Remember that? You have an incredible memory Kristen. I know. I'm smart like that. Well, there are some others that were accidental creations just like uh this bumpy cake that I thought you might find fascinating. Yeah. The popsicle was an accidental discovery. Really? It was. In 1905, this dude called Frank Eperson. Okay. Was mixing himself up a tasty beverage of soda water and some other delicious fruity things. Okay. And he left his soda water outside and it was freezing out and he left the stir stick in it. Interesting. And and then when he gets out there in the morning, he's like, "Oh, my delicious fruity soda water's on a stick. Let me pull that up and taste it." How cool is that? Like, I can just eat it like this. Yes. And so he started to show his creation to his friends and they thought it was so totally cool. And they originally called them Epsicles. Epsicles after his last name. Ah, that's hilarious. I wish they were still called Epsicles today. I kind of do, too. That's kind of fun. It is fun. Epsicles. So he renamed them about two years later to popsicle. Yeah. To popsicle. That's pretty great. I I might have told this story. The way that whatever is Fred created the Epsicle or Frank is the same way. Yeah. Yeah. Frank is the same way that we saved my hamster. That's right. He was on death's door. He was almost dead. Poor Pookie. gave them to the neighbor in Ohio in the winter who kindly put his little box coffin. Yep. In the trash can. Yeah. Came outside and there's Pookie scratching to get out. He was not an Epsicle. He was alive and kicking. He was not even a Pookisicle skull. He was not a Pookisicle. And there apparently is a disease that hamsters get that cold fixes. Yes. Totally weird. It is. Yeah, I have stories of other times that he got sick with that disease. I never had the heart to put him in the freezer. Oh gosh. And I was a teenager and I put him in our refrigerator and he chewed out of the box I put him in and ran through our refrigerator. I never told our mother. Did he poop everywhere? No. I mean, I cleaned all the shelves off. Yeah. But there was some ham. He ate ham. He ate ham. But I knew if I threw out the ham, mom would notice. What did you do? I just cut off the part he chewed on. I didn't know this story about the ham. My mom was like, "Did you want to ham sandwich?" No. That's awesome. Oh, Pookie ate ham. Wow. I confessed to our mom recently about this. And you know, it's amazing what you know, 30 years will do. Boy, I did not know that hamsters were carnivores to be honest. I didn't know either. I was surprised. Oh my gosh. Okay, so here's another one that was created by accident. And this one made me laugh. Saccharine, our mom's favorite sweetener. Speaking of mom, really, the pink stuff. Oh, that we just can't stand. And it's so funny. She thinks it tastes delicious. And she can't eat any other sweetener because other sweeteners taste bitter. Have you tasted saccharine? It's the most bitter of all bitters. It is. The only other one I can think of that's even kind of bitter is stevia. Right. But I mean, it's all natural. All natural. Yeah. Yeah. So, saccharine is so not natural. It happened at John's Hopkins University. There was a researcher in 1879. His name was Constantine Falberg and he spilled a chemical on his hands right before lunch and then just ate his sandwich. What? Dude, dude, he just starts eating his sandwich and he's like, "Wait a minute. This sandwich tastes sweet. Did they not have OSHA back then?" Like, what? Seriously? I know, right? No gloves, no nothing. Spills chemical on his hands and makes a sandwich basically. And he's like, "Wow, this is deliciously sweet." Hence the evolution of saccharine. That's insanely crazy. I mean, not just by accident, but by danger. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, maybe he could, you know, talk to Marie Curie and put some, you know, I can't think what it's called. Uranium. Uranium in his pocket, too. I thought that was insane. That's crazy. I know. And then this one's going to gag you out really, really badly. Uh there are actually two possible mistake or maybe purposeful origin stories of pink lemonade. You never suspect that, right? You think pink lemonade, strawberry lemonade, right? You would never suspect that that would be a weird origin story, but it's pretty gross. Both of these origin stories revolve around the circus. Oh, you know that's bad. Oh, yeah. When clowns are involved, you know how I feel about clowns. Okay. So, the first claim involves performer Henry Bunk Allet. Okay. One day around the late 19th century, Allet was selling lemonade to circus attendants when he accidentally supposedly Oh, no. He bled in this. No. No. Oh god, that would be so bad. I was Well, you said I'd be grossed out. That would have done it. He spilled cinnamon candies into the vat of lemonade and then everybody just loved it because it was pink or cuz it was because it was pink, I guess. But I I wouldn't like cinnamon in lemonade. That does not sound like a good combo. But so that one wasn't so bad. Oh, cinnamon candies and the lemonade. The other one was real real bad. The other one centers around this uh Pete Conklin who was the brother of a lion tamer. So he wasn't even a circus performer. So we don't know how it happened, but we know it was a circus. We know all of that. We know it was a circus. That's right. And apparently in 1857, in an effort to get more water to sell more lemonade at the circus, Pete scooped up used washing water in which the people washed pink tights. Come on. To make the lemonade. Come on. And people loved it. I I have a hard time. I have a hard time. That's true. That's the best. Oh, we need more water. We're selling lemonade like crazy. Oh, here's some dirty underpants water. Let's get it. Can you ? And it would smell. No way. No way. I call no. Oh, dang it. I call no on that one. Okay. Cuz I mean, if you're a circus performer wearing pink tights, you're sweating. Oh, yeah. You are. So then you wash that in a vat of. That water is going to smell. That's true. I don't know. Maybe that's why they liked it so much. Cuz it smelled. Yeah. Like sweat. Like sweat and death. Despair. Despair. Clowns. clowns. Oh, I thought those were great. That's a lot. Accidental creations or purposeful. Getting the dirty dirty water and people loved it. Well, if that was it, you know, he laughed all the way to the bank. No flipping kidding. And then what do you do after that? You're like, we need more of that pink lemonade. You guys better get to washing. We need more tights. More tights. Okay, so so far that's gross. So, we've added the flour. There's an equal amount of flour and sugar. 1 and 3/4 cup of flour and sugar. And then 3/4 cup of cocoa. And now I'm going to put in a teaspoon of baking powder. And then I think we need two teaspoon of baking soda. Let's see how much salt. One teaspoon of salt. This is really actually a very easy recipe. I found I was looking at Reddit of course for um bumpy cake experiences. Oh, fun. And um people just got all excited. Oh my gosh, I haven't seen one of these in years. Really? Um I used to live in Michigan and we, you know, get one. They sell them in Meyers now. That's what I had heard. I heard that a lot. Um well, anyway, one lady I wrote this down because I just got such a good chuckle and I thought, "Wow, this may need to be the name of this podcast." Oh, what is it? Bumpy cake. She's not a looker but made up for it in deliciousness. She's not a looker. Her ganache didn't stick to the top of the roll. She obviously did not freeze it long enough. The the lines of buttercream and kinda melty squishy not round. And she was not a looker. She was not a looker but makes up for it in deliciousness. That's hilarious. Oh my gosh. Just shorten it to bumpy cake. She's not a looker. Or just put she's not a looker. And let people imagine. Are they talking about Kristen?

or Carrie. Oh my gosh. Who makes the headings? I think it's Kristen. She's got to be talking about Carrie. Yeah. Okay. So, on that note, we are now going to take this dry ingredients. I'm going to go over to our handy dandy stand mixer and we're going to add the wet ingredients. We're going to do that not on the recording because it's loud and obnoxious. We're going to add buttermilk and oil and what other good stuff? Vanilla and room temperature eggs. Oh, and the piece de resistance. We are going to add one cup of strong coffee. Yes. Which if we've not discussed here before, definitely is supposed to bring out the chocolate flavor. It's a great way if you're ever making a chocolate cake, if you're using a box cake and a chocolate  box chocolate cake, substitute if there's water to add, substitute the water for straw. hot coffee preferably. Isn't that interesting? And it's it makes the chocolate chocolatier. So, what we're going to do is we'll mix this and then we'll come back and we'll do a sniff test. And it's supposed to be a real runny batter. So, we'll have Oh, we'll have all kinds of Just wait to be wowed people.

So, we have the batter. Yeah. Boy, is it liquidy. It is. I mean, I've made liquidy batters before. This is This takes the cake. Oh, look what I did. You didn't even know. Oh, I'm funny. Holy cow. Welcome to season four of the puns. That's right. Oh, we're sorry. We're very, very sorry. Wow. I'm so glad that they said that in the recipe because you and I would have looked at this and said, "We've done something terribly, terribly wrong." All right. Now, take a big sniff of this. It smells great. Oh, it really does. It smells like a baked cake already. Really, it's so good. Okay, great. So, we went ahead and buttered the dish and put in parchment. And because this sucker is in a 9 by13, we did parchment with the um flappies. Yeah. So that we can pull this sucker out little handles because we had a great debate before we started recording. Do we take the cake out of the 9 by 13 or just do all the bumps and the ganache in the pan? When I make a 9 by13 inch cake, I never remove it. I serve it from the 9 by13 inch pan, but Carrie said we won't really see the side view of the bumps. It won't look as good. I don't think I agree. And then I'm afraid that the ganache will just pool. So, we'll lose the bumps because we'll have pooling ganache between and there won't be ganache down on the sides of the cake or anything. So, yeah, we're going to try to pull this sucker out. Yeah. Okay. All right. Here we go. Into the 9 by13 pan. I tell you what, getting it out of the mixing bowl really easy no sweat. Yeah. All right. So, the directions say to bake this at 350 for 30 to 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. We can handle that. And then starts the cooling process. The cooling. I'm hoping I don't slosh this on the way to the oven. Oh, you're totally going to. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to sit back and laugh. Let's record it. Let's not. Oh, yeah. Keep it on. Okay. Off you go, Kristen. Off you go. She's being very careful. She's walking carefully. She's singing about it. Okay. So, just She has a double oven and she's putting it in the one in the bottom to maximize the challenge. Can she squat and not slosh cake? My thighs. My thighs. Thank goodness she's been working out, people. That's right. It's in, baby. She did it. And we have the end of your floor routine and gymnastics pose. Tada. She's so proud of herself. Oh, yeah. We'll see you guys in 30 to 35 minutes. Maybe.

We have cake. Oh, yes, we do. We have buttercream frosting. Yes. So, we are ready to The cake is frozen. Not really. The cake is cold. It is really cold. Yes, the frosting is cold. I've got it in the piping bag. Okay, so Carrie has on this beautifully round tip. Oh my gosh, it looks gorgeous. It looks like a speed bump. She's doing great. So Carrie is piping the frosting the short way down this 9 by13 inch cake. You know, there is actually bumpy cake controversy. Oh. Oh yeah. What? I want to hear. And it's from not that long ago. In 2023, Bumpy Cake production had to be paused. Okay. Yeah. Because uh the bakery that was baking it, it was not the original Sanders Confectionary. They had a a bakery that that did this for them, or at least it was one of the bakeries. They shut their doors. And so it caused a run on the stores of Bumpy Cake. People were buying up all the Bumpy Cakes and selling them on eBay at exorbitant prices. What? It was like Oh Tickle Me Elmo, hand sanitizer during COVID. That's right. Toilet paper during COVID. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. People went crazy. And then other people got in trouble for price gouging. It was insane. People were followed to their cars in shopping centers only to be held up at gunpoint for their cakes. Are you kidding me? No. That's crazy. I don't think my bumps are big enough. I don't think they're big enough either, Carrie. That's what she said. Maybe you can just add some to the top. Yeah, I'm gonna have to refill my bag. I don't think that impressive of a bump. No. And there's still some Oh, you know what? There's not that much frosting left. Maybe you can just add some to each one. But there's plenty of rows. So, I think you're doing okay with that. You know, there's also another debate about this whole thing. About the bumpy cake. Yes. No. Yeah. There's a big debate on how to pronounce Sanders Confectionary. Oh, I was like, how to pronounce bumpy? That's right. Is it boompay? Right. Right. Do we go with the German? Baumpy. Baumpy. The French bumpay. I like it. No. No. Is it Sanders or Saunders? Oh, no. Well, he's German, right? So, it could be Saunders, but it's spelled S A N D E R S. So, I don't know. We're calling it Sanders here. Did the Did the Interwebs give you any idea? No. No. It was just all this big debate. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Interwebs. Thanks, Interwebs. You're probably going to run out of frosting and then maybe make I don't know what what to do. This is going to be an ugly bumpy cake right here. Um, she may not be a looker, but she'll make up for it in deliciousness. Heck yeah, cuz we don't want to waste any of this beautiful buttercream frosting. Really I think I can get through them all. That looks pretty good. Okay, so speaking of Michigan, where Puppy Cake is from. Yes. I was looking up some interesting stuff about, you know, Michigan weird things from the Great Lakes states. Okay, so you'll never believe what I found. Okay, number 30 on a list of weird things from the Great Lakes State from the what, you know, Michigan is the round barn. What? Yes. A perfectly circular barn from the 1910s stands in Williamston. It was built based on a theory that the shape would make farm work more efficient. But we also know what happens in a round barn according to our father. Well, a man died in there. He did. You know why? No. He couldn't find a corner to pee in. There's a round barn in Bryan, Ohio. On your way to Bryan. That's right. And every time we go past, our dad tells the joke. Well, I did that to my son this year. We were driving to Bryan, Ohio, just the two of us, to go to the Spangler Candy Company's new museum. Nice. And we passed the Round Barn and I pretended I was dad. I pretended to to pick up a little microphone like I was the pilot. And I said, "Attention folks, please look to your left. On the left, you will see a round barn. Something unfortunate happened in that barn." Yes, it did. And my son played along. Good for him. He's a great boy, right? You raised that boy right, "Heck yes, I did." Mhm. Oh, yeah. I have a picture of a round barn in my house. Do you really? Cuz it reminds me of my dad. Aww love it. Absolutely. All right. So, now we have to make ganache. That's right. And we really need to put this in the freezer. And I think we need to freeze this a lot longer than it will take us to make the ganache. Yes. So, I think we'll need to see you later. Okay. And then I have I have a whole bunch of foods that are special to Michigan. Oh, well, let's talk all about it when we come back. Yeah. So, I've been holding holding out on you. It's not a long list, but it's a couple things that if you're in the Midwest area, I think you'll know. And when I shared them with my husband, who is from the South. Yeah. He didn't know what I was talking about. Really? Yes. It's a mystery. Yeah. So, find out when we get back what Carrie has to tell us. I mean, Scooby-Doo, folks. Scooby-Doo mystery. Yoinks.

We have a cake in the freezer. Yes. Double bumps. We have Kristen at the stove where she belongs.

Oh, that hurt to say. I'll misogynous much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Kristen's at the stove doing what she does best, making fun of me. I was going to say crabbing. that too. Oh, bossing her around, all those things. And so she's working on the ganache. Now, this is not a ganache like I have ever made before. Yeah, me either. I usually melt some chocolate chips, add a little milk and butter. Voila. Ganache. Easy peasy. No, this has lots of different things. Cocoa powder, the hardest known to mankind, dark Karo syrup that Carrie brought. Should I look to see when that sucker expired. Oh my gosh, I'm a little frightened. She said, "Oh, I have dark Karo syrup in my pantry. I never thought for a million years that it would be incredibly expired." Oh no, she's made a face. When did it expire, Carrie? I'm not saying that for anyone to hear. Oh no. A hot minute ago. Oh no, we're going to poison our family. Pause it and Google. Okay, so corn syrup has a very long shelf stable life. So where we're a go folks. We are a go. Here we go. All right. Okay. So, changing the subject quickly away from my atrocities. Michigan is famous for foods beyond just bumpy cake. Yes, they are. Yeah. And so some of them I just thought everybody knew about. Okay. So, for example, if I say Vernors, you would say ginger ale. Yeah. My husband said, "I have no idea what you're talking about." Vernors what? You're kidding me. No. Okay. Along the same lines, and you have mentioned this brand in the past. What's that? Faygo. Really? It's a Michigan brand. And so I asked my husband, "If I said Faygo, what would you say?" He's like, "I don't have any idea what you're talking about." You're kidding me. And I was like, "It's a soda, but they have funky flavors. They have grape and orange and great flavors." So I said to him, my southern husband, yeah, they have grape and orange and red. And he goes, "Oh, so it's like Nehi" What? Come on. Yeah. Really? He'd heard of Nehi. Doesn't Faygo have rock and rye? Oh, I saw that. They do. I looked up flavors. Yeah. Um and they have some interesting ones for sure. Yeah. They don't they don't sell a lot of Faygo down here. No. And FYI, the red is called Red Pop. Oh my gosh. It's not soda, it's pop. Yes. As it should be. Yeah. Uh for a Michigan brand. So those are two of the brands I was like and he'd never heard of. Oh my gosh. Okay. So here's something else that everybody in the area knows and loves. Superman ice cream. Oh yes. I love a good Superman ice cream. I asked him, "Have you ever had Superman ice cream?" He said, "What?" No. Yes. He's like, "What's the flavor?" And I'm like, "I don't  know fruit." Yeah. It's like a lemon custard, blueberry custard. I think it's kind of a light lemony and light blue. It's It's pink and and pastel blue and pastel yellow. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even think the yellow's pastel. I think it's pretty bright. Okay. So, maybe um maybe brighter than pastel, but yeah. Pink, blue, yellow. Or red, blue, yellow. Yes. And each one has its own fruity flavor. Yes. And it makes up Superman ice cream. Okay. So, here's something fascinating about Superman ice. You will share. I will share. The flavor was actually concocted during Prohibition before Superman. Excuse me. Wait. True story. No. Yes. What? Yes. Yeppers. The origin of its name then, uh, though, nobody really knows. That can't be true. Mhm. because it predates Superman. And it does say there is some mystery around the flavors. Okay. Yellow. They do not know if it's vanilla, banana, or lemon. Oh. Mhm. It You're right. It's just kind of generally I was thought it was like a lemon custard, but it's just a general light fruit flavor. Yeah. The red they're not sure if it's raspberry, strawberry, cherry, or even cotton candy. Oh my. Mhm. And the blue they think is from Blue Moon Ice Cream. What? I've never heard of Blue Moon ice cream. I don't know anything about Blue Moon ice cream other than this article said Blue Moon ice cream is an enigma in and of itself. My goodness. The whole Superman ice cream is an enigma within an enigma. Okay, there's a couple more. Detroit pizza. Oh yeah. So Detroit style. Do you know what makes Detroit style special? I was hoping that you were not going to ask me because I really probably should know this answer and I do not. Well, I mean, as a one-time Michigander, I know, right? It's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for you. Yeah. Yeah. I use old Karo syrup. You don't know anything about the state of Michigan. I know nothing. Whatever. Mhm. Other than what? Big beer. Big jug, baby. Big jug. I've never heard of that. Never heard of that. Okay. So, Detroit pizza is thick and a crispy crust. It's rectangular in shape. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, don't act like you know now. I knew it all along. Mhm. And it has square slices. Yep. Obviously, you're not going to make them pie shape for square pizza. That would be Oh, yeah. Okay. So, Detroit pizza. So uh one more thing that is Michigan that I have had you can buy in grocery store because I have seen it down here in Georgia. What you have? Yes. Okay. What is it? Win Schulers bar cheese. Oh yes. Win Schulers. I know that very well. We used to eat when Kristen was in college. We used to eat at a Win Schulers. That's right. The original Win Schulers in Marshall, Michigan. Yes, that is correct. Yes. So,  Win Schulers is actually the name of the dude that started them. Really? Clearly a German dude. They did at one point have quite a few restaurants around Michiganand  Indiana. They got rid of them all. They are just back down to the one in Marshall, uh, Michigan. And I have seen Win Schuler bar cheese for sale in a grocery store here locally in Georgia. Really? I've seen it in Ohio. I was shocked. That's crazy. Uhhuh. And my husband was not impressed at all. Oh, yeah. So, it is a spreadable cheddar cheese. It has horseradish in it. Yes. And in my opinion, you can use it in replacement of pimento and it is much tastier. I'm not a big fan of pimento cheese, but I love me some Win Schulers. I do like Win Schulers it's delicious. So, if you find it at your local grocery store, you should get some. How you doing over there? This is taking forever. I have never had to bring a ganache up to the soft ball stage. Yeah. on a candy thermometer. Again, it's just melt chocolate chips, melt butter, and sometimes there's a little whipping cream in it. That's it. And it takes minutes. Yes. This is a long drawn out process. Holy moly. And I have it on medium uh low, but it has been boiling and boiling and boiling. And it's still not up to the soft ball state. I'm afraid it's going to melt off the end of my spatula here. Wow. It is crazy. This homemade stuff is is not easy. It's for the birds man. So, I'm thinking that we may take a pause while Kristen continues to sweat it out over the stove. It tastes a little extra salty. It's just the sweat on my forehead. It was just probably the super old Karo syrup. Probably. Okay, that's probably why it won't. It's the Karo syrup. It's all the fault of the Karo syrup. Everything. If the cake doesn't work out, Karo syrup. Yeah, for sure. Blame it all on Carrie. Okay, we'll come back. We're gonna sweat and swear and see you in a moment. Bye.

Okay, we are very quickly uh ganaching over the top of this. Kristen has the ganache. It got to the soft boil candy soft ball candy stage and she is carefully pouring it. It is thick. This is way thicker than any ganache I've ever made. It is. It's beautiful and shiny. It is. So, you can't let me do anything. When reading the recipe, I did not see that there was granulated sugar that went into the ganache. I just saw the powdered sugar. And so, it turns out that the powdered sugar was all added in at the end, not at the beginning. So that could have been part of the reason that this, you know, took so long to boil. I can see why they say if it begins to harden, you can put it on the stove cuz it's getting hard. That's amazing, though, cuz normally it wouldn't do that. No way. I am going to run out of ganache. And my arm is killing me. Let's see what I can do. There's There's some in there. Okay. I just have to kind of scrape it out. See if I can get it over the rest of the cake. We have like one little corner of cake that is ganache free and some of the bumps don't have some of the bumps are ganache free. You know, she's not a looker. She is not a looker this stuff. Yeah, it's hardening up. That's crazy. Just that quickly. Well, it probably has too much sugar in it also. It probably does. Let's see what I can do. There might just be a corner of this cake that has no ganache. And it is the absolute best that I can do. I think we're good. Okay, I'm going to keep trying. We'll take a picture from this pretty side. Yeah, it almost made it. And we'll do creative photography. This is like toffee consistency. It's beautiful. I think it just poured out too thick on the first, you know. Yep. Well, you know, there's a reason that most people in the world make recipes first before they share them. That is true. Uh is because well, and they don't make them with their sister who doesn't read the recipe properly. Right. Huh? I don't know that we did this properly. Well, I know we didn't do it properly. I put in the wrong ingredients. That first half looks gorge. Looks beautiful. The last half. Yep. All right, let's get it back in the freezer. Okay. And then we'll be back and then we're going to try this thing. We decided not to wait. Oh, heck no. I don't think it needs to go in the freezer at all. It's I'm going to say gummed up real well. The vanilla frosting is is squirting out. Uh-huh. It probably should have gone into the freezer, but it's not gonna Oh, it's pretty. Yay. It's a little melty. I think if we We'll put it in the freezer. I'll put the I'll put it in the freezer. Okay. Well, I'll take a picture. It's still pretty. Oh, it is pretty. As long as it's not hard as a rock. Yeah. Who knows? The ganache is a little thick. It is. But again, we'll blame that on Carrie. She screwed up the ingredients. The vanilla frosting's a little melty, but I'm willing to sacrifice. All right. Well, you take a bite. Oh, no. I'm just going to wait because I'm dying to know what you think of it. Yep. Let me get a little Let's see if her mouth gets scalded. How it goes. And I'm dying to take a bite. Is it yum yum? That is so ridiculously delicious. Oh. Oh my gosh. Mhm. Y'all, you got to make this. Michiganders, stand up and be proud, people. Oo, bumpy cake is my new favorite. Even when you jack up the ganache. Yeah. In the worst ways possible.

This crap is good, folks. Good. Holy moly. We both have gone for second bites. There will be no talking on this podcast. Pardon our silence. Wow. It'll be interesting to see what happens as it cools. If that ganache turns into toffee, you know. Mhm. I mean, you wouldn't think it would because we I only did it to the soft ball. Soft ball. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And the cake is cold. The ganache is warm. Holy crap, y'all. Mhm. That is outstanding. They're not kidding. That vanilla buttercream frosting tastes like marshmallow. Mhm. Oh, wow. Amidst that ganache. Okay, so as we were cooking the ganache. Gosh, Kristen and I are both sweaty from this one. Um, as we were cooking that ganache, we kept saying, "I would just make the easy ganache. This is ridiculous. This is so No, no, that tastes better." It does taste better. There is something special about that ganache. Oh, you are not kidding. It is worth it. You have to have a candy thermometer and you have to have some time to devote. Yeah, you really do. You have to stand there stirring it. But yeah, that's basically the hardest part of this cake. It is. And reading the recipe. Well, I mean, that's the hardest part for me in general. Yeah. that I'm going in for bite number three, y'all. This is outstanding. The frosting is delicious. It is. The ganache is ridiculous. I keep trying to take a bite of the ganache on the cold cake to see if it's gotten too hard. And I I don't notice that the ganache is too too hard.

Uh-huh. We both have mouthfuls. We can't stop eating it. That ganache, the texture is like no ganache I've ever had before in my life. It's fudgy. It is totally fudgy. And that's what they called it. Fudge frosting is what they called it. That is not fudge like take icing and add some peanut butter and microwave it and voila fudge. That is Whoa. I am shocked. My husband doesn't like cake, but he's going to eat this. I can tell you that. With that fudge on top. Heck yeah. Mhm. Wow. Wow. Okay, I need to wrap this up, but I I You wrap it up. I'll have another bite Care. Oh my gosh. Thank you, Michiganders. Yay. Thank you, Fred Sanders Schmidt. This was a delight. Oh, so delicious. All right, so be sure to mark your calendars for our next episode on October 20th. You know, really, I think it's perfect that this recipe is coming so close to Halloween. Yeah, because it is just scary. Oh, no. It's no bumpy cake. I can tell you that. All right, y'all. We got to go. There is cake to be eaten and I've almost finished it. So come on, Carrie. See you.

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 see the pictures and other items from this episode, go to our website, momswoodspoon.com. If you'd rather, check us out on Facebook or Instagram. Pick your poison. Don't say poison. We're making food. Welcome to episode four. Nope. Welcome to season 4, episode deux.

That's two in French. You went the French round. I did. Oui oui