Bumpy Cake appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Bumpy cake · Detroit
Bumpy cake is a Detroit chocolate cake with parallel ridges of buttercream piped on top, then covered in a dark chocolate ganache that flows around the bumps.
Sanders Confectionery on Woodward and Gratiot in downtown Detroit made the first bumpy cake in 1913, when bakery owner Fred Sanders piped buttercream stripes onto a devil's food cake and topped them with ganache. The shape comes from how the ganache flows around the buttercream ridges. Sanders sold at 57 retail stores at peak in the 1950s, and is now part of Morley Candy Makers in Clinton Township. Bumpy cake is the canonical Michigan birthday cake.