Golden era food.

[LizzieMaine]

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh yes, Quaker Oats -- the most common US brand -- go back to the 19th century. Boil them up in salt water, and it's just the thing for a hot breakfast on a cold day, and the cost is still dirt cheap.

Even cheaper is corn meal mush, which is simply meal boiled in salt water. We ate a lot of that growing up, and if there was any left over it was good for frying up in left over bacon fat.

My wife and I still eat oatmeal; both Quaker Oats and non-branded. She uses the regular, I use the quick variety. I will also admit to eating instant oatmeal that we keep on hand for travelling. We eat it differently, too. I like mine with sugar, margarine or butter (I'm not particular) and milk. I have some about once a week. The general idea is to make the milk and the bread come out even at the end of the week. Weekends, it's eggs; the rest of the time Corn Flakes.

I also have a bowl of muesli every other week or so but I have to remember it beforehand because it has to soak overnight. But I think about what I'm going to eat Friday evening all week long, so that's not a big problem.

 

[Fading Fast]

I struggled with where to post this, but here seems kinda right as the history I've read about Bumpy Cake (I kid you not) implies a Golden Era period of popularity.

Despite having spent the last twenty years celebrating Christmas in Michigan just outside of Detroit, this is the first year I tried this kooky, fun, Detroit-born dessert. Enough introduction, let's start with a few pictures (worth a thousands words and all and even more when it's about food):

According to the Sanders Company website, the cake was invented by founder Fred Sanders in 1912:

Fred perfected one of our most legendary and original confections, the Chocolate Bumpy ™ Cake by combining chocolate devil’s food cake with buttercream ridges, and then pouring a rich chocolate ganache over the entire baked dessert. The “bumpy ridges” were a happy accident put on the cake after Fred was running short of buttercream on one of his many test runs.
​

Over the years, other varieties were created - I had the classic caramel. Next time I want to try the original devil's food one and the vanilla one (oh, heck, I want to try them all).

This is not a fine French dessert or artisanal this or that, it's a fun, old-fashioned cake that works in a simple way: moist cake + plenty of icing = success.

 

[1mach1]

I struggled with where to post this, but here seems kinda right as the history I've read about Bumpy Cake (I kid you not) implies a Golden Era period of popularity.

Despite having spent the last twenty years celebrating Christmas in Michigan just outside of Detroit, this is the first year I tried this kooky, fun, Detroit-born dessert. Enough introduction, let's start with a few pictures (worth a thousands words and all and even more when it's about food):

View attachment 100158 View attachment 100160 View attachment 100161

According to the Sanders Company website, the cake was invented by founder Fred Sanders in 1912:

Fred perfected one of our most legendary and original confections, the Chocolate Bumpy [emoji769] Cake by combining chocolate devil’s food cake with buttercream ridges, and then pouring a rich chocolate ganache over the entire baked dessert. The “bumpy ridges” were a happy accident put on the cake after Fred was running short of buttercream on one of his many test runs.
​

Over the years, other varieties were created - I had the classic caramel. Next time I want to try the original devil's food one and the vanilla one (oh, heck, I want to try them all).

This is not a fine French dessert or artisanal this or that, it's a fun, old-fashioned cake that works in a simple way: moist cake + plenty of icing = success.

Now, I like the looks and sounds of that bumpy Cake!
Thanks for the brief history lesson. Very cool.

So, you tried the caramel? How was It? Inquiring minds....

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T377A using Tapatalk

 

[Fading Fast]

Now, I like the looks and sounds of that bumpy Cake!
Thanks for the brief history lesson. Very cool.

So, you tried the caramel? How was It? Inquiring minds....

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T377A using Tapatalk

I liked it. It's definitely a mass produced product by Sanders today - no one man in the back baking - so you have to compare it to other mass-produced cakes like Entenmann's, Hostess, etc.

On that scale, it's very good. The cake was surprisingly moist and the icing was both plentiful (skimping on the icing is a crime of treason in my world) and rich tasting. I really wanted to try the original version of the cake - the chocolate with buttercream and ganache one - but it wasn't in the store. I can order it online - but shipping makes it one stupidly overpriced cake. That said, I'll do it, just need to be in the right mood to waste money.

I'd also like to try one from a real retail bakery where the quality would - hopefully - go up a lot. I image that would be closer to how the original one was made back when good old Fred was first baking them.

 

[3fingers]

^^^^ Sounds like a challenge for SGF.
I have every confidence she could gin one up for you.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^^ Sounds like a challenge for SGF.
I have every confidence she could gin one up for you.

She has said the same - she loves a baking challenge and it's on her radar.

 

[1mach1]

^^^^ Sounds like a challenge for SGF.
I have every confidence she could gin one up for you.

She has said the same - she loves a baking challenge and it's on her radar.

I'm ready when y'all are.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[1mach1]

Man pleaser salads, of course.

My mom made the snot out of gelatin salads growing up. You name it, she made it. And still does.

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[LizzieMaine]

Nothing Freudian going on there, nosiree.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Nothing Freudian going on there, nosiree.

Sometimes a fruit salad is just.. well, you know.

 

[HanauMan]

Nothing beats an old fashioned Swanson's TV dinner that your mom used to throw into the oven. My favorite was always the turkey dinner with gravy, mashed potatoes, shrivelled up green peas and carrots and apple and cranberry pie. And I'm talking old school, had to be in a aluminum tray, not plastic. Went real swell with Tang powdered orange juice! And for dessert, a Del Monte canned pudding!

 

[Fading Fast]

Nothing beats an old fashioned Swanson's TV dinner that your mom used to throw into the oven. My favorite was always the turkey dinner with gravy, mashed potatoes, shrivelled up green peas and carrots and apple and cranberry pie. And I'm talking old school, had to be in a aluminum tray, not plastic. Went real swell with Tang powdered orange juice! And for dessert, a Del Monte canned pudding!

My mom all but didn't cook - I consumed an insane number of that exact dinner growing up.

 

[Fading Fast]

Nothing Freudian going on there, nosiree.

Didn't pick it up, though, until you noted it - I don't know if that says more about you or me.

 

[3fingers]

Didn't pick it up, though, until you noted it - I don't know if that says more about you or me.

I picked up on it last night and started to reply but chose to hit the back button and let it pass. I wont attempt to claim the high ground though because I'm starting from the bottom of the hill.

 

[Fading Fast]

Nothing beats an old fashioned Swanson's TV dinner that your mom used to throw into the oven. My favorite was always the turkey dinner with gravy, mashed potatoes, shrivelled up green peas and carrots and apple and cranberry pie. And I'm talking old school, had to be in a aluminum tray, not plastic. Went real swell with Tang powdered orange juice! And for dessert, a Del Monte canned pudding!

This was also a regular growing up (I loved that stupid apple cobbler, but there was never enough):

 

[HanauMan]

Love it.

Do you remember that thin skin that formed over the whipped potatoes and the crust over the pie while they were cooked? That was one of the fun parts to these meals, breaking that skin to get to the creamy potatoes underneath.

 

[Fading Fast]

Love it.

Do you remember that thin skin that formed over the whipped potatoes and the crust over the pie while they were cooked? That was one of the fun parts to these meals, breaking that skin to get to the creamy potatoes underneath.

Oh God yes, and I loved the crust on the pie. Not kidding - must have consumed hundreds of those growing up.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My mother's answer to TV Dinners was the Banquet Bag: a pouch full of frozen sliced beef or chicken and gravy that you'd boil in a saucepan for ten minutes and then pour over a bed of tepid Minute Rice. We ate far more of these than the Geneva Convention permits. They had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, other than the fact that they were, at the time, available at the First National four for a dollar.

 

[Fading Fast]

My mother's answer to TV Dinners was the Banquet Bag: a pouch full of frozen sliced beef or chicken and gravy that you'd boil in a saucepan for ten minutes and then pour over a bed of tepid Minute Rice. We ate far more of these than the Geneva Convention permits. They had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, other than the fact that they were, at the time, available at the First National four for a dollar.

Your mother was willing to do more work in the kitchen than mine was (to be fair, my mom did sometimes kick out a meal, but not often). The TV dinner was - pre-microwave - her solution for me. Cheap and incredibly easy, especially since, once old enough, I made them for myself.

While it seems a little less "cheesy," to be honest, today, we have Stouffer's frozen this or that not infrequently, with a homemade salad (or not), which is probably not that much different but feels a bit better. (Remember this is NYC - my guess, they're cheaper in the burbs as most things are), but three for nine bucks (so six buck for the two of us for a night) is a good price for a decent tasting and easy to prep meal.