The Iconic Michigan Cake With A Signature Bumpy Look

The Midwest is sometimes overlooked in discussions of the American food scene, but the region is full of hidden culinary gems. There are so many iconic Midwestern dishes, both savory and sweet, but the constant highlight is dessert. There's gooey butter cake, magic bars, and scotcheroos, dishes that are now reaching an audience beyond the Midwest through social media. However, there's one regional specialty that hasn't generated as much buzz, continuing to fly under the radar when it has all the makings of a global hit. It's a Michigan original bearing the unusual name of bumpy cake. It's rich, chocolatey, and creamy, but its most famous trait is its one-of-a-kind appearance.

The name "bumpy cake" has nothing to do with the dessert's texture, but rather its unusual look. Instead of the tiered structure we typically expect from cakes, bumpy cake consists of a single, square layer of devil's food cake. It's essentially a superpowered chocolate cake (in fact, devil's food cake was invented as a foil to angel food cake, with the intent of making a darker, richer dessert). Once the base layer of devil's food cake is down, it's time to add bumpy cake's namesake touch. The baker pipes rows of vanilla buttercream across the top of the cake, then coats the whole thing in fudge frosting. This creates the visual effect of ridges on top of the cake, which is what the name bumpy cake refers to.

The story of Michigan's beloved bumpy cake begins at Sanders Confectionary in Detroit. Its owner, Fred Sanders, started the business as a candy company in 1875, but his ambitious nature led him to expand to become a bakery, luncheonette, and soda fountain. A popular legend says that Sanders invented the ice cream float while working at the soda fountain, but there is little evidence to support this. Whatever the case may be, Sanders' legacy in culinary history is ensured by the bumpy cake, which he invented in 1912. To this day, the Sanders brand is the standard for bumpy cake.

Sanders distributes bumpy cakes to grocery stores all around the state of Michigan, making fans of the confection dependent on this one beloved brand. That can be an issue, as was proven in early 2024. Sanders' parent company, Second Nature Brands, contracted a bakery in Livonia, Michigan to produce bumpy cakes. When the bakery closed at the end of 2023, Sanders lost its producer, and bumpy cakes disappeared from grocery stores. For a moment, it looked like bumpy cake might be gone for good. Thankfully, after six long months of waiting, the cake returned to stores, though it never left Michiganders' hearts.