It’s Father’s Day, and again even though I’m not able to be with my dad this year, I still wanted to figure out how to make a treat that he would really love. This is quite a challenge since my dad is not really a fan of sweets. As I was wracking my brain for something suitable, my inner-usually-unhelpful-sarcastic side piped up and said, “If you want to make something that he will actually like, throw out the sweets”. After scoffing at myself for a moment, the lightbulb went off.
But what would happen if I threw out the sweets?
Basically I thought, “is it time to make a savory cake?!” I’ve had the idea for a savory foods cake on the back burner for quite some time, so the plan for this cake was mostly developed by the time I decided to do this. I’m actually pretty impressed with how this “cake” turned out, because from an ingredients standpoint, it is basically a loaded baked potato with hamburger steaks. In cake form.
Allow me to explain: I started by making a ton of mashed potatoes along with 4 hamburger patties with cheese. Then I awkwardly waited around my kitchen while they cooled. I feel like I have the timing down for cakes - put the cakes in the oven and clean my mixer while they bake. Take the cakes out of the oven and make the frosting while they cool. But for this “cake”, I cooked the hamburgers while the potatoes boiled, and let the burgers cool while I mashed the potatoes. But the potatoes took forever to cool, so I cooked a few pieces of bacon while I waited. The potatoes still didn’t want to cool all the way, so I did something that is a big no-no when stacking and frosting an actual cake: I used warm ingredients 😱 Fortunately it worked out quite nicely for this non-cake.
To add some flavor to the stack of hamburger, I spread a small amount of A-1 steak sauce on top of each layer before smearing mashed potatoes between each patty. I covered the stack in more mashed potatoes, then added some shredded cheddar cheese on top. I torched the cheese lightly enough to melt it into looking like a cake drip, but not enough to burn it.
I decorated the top with more mashed potato piping, and added chopped green onions and crumbled bacon as the topping. I used the leftover green onions as a border around the bottom and voila! I made a cake that my dad could actually enjoy.
Believe it or not, this has been my dinner for the last two days. And will be my dinner tonight, too. (A 4” round hamburger cake serves a surprising amount of meals!) And one day I’m going to make this for dad when he’s in close enough proximity to eat it, because he would definitely love this. I’ll be sure to serve it with a Bloody Mary (which to me is basically a hamburger in a glass. Minus the burger.)
I kind of went out on a limb here and am truly curious: what do you think about this cake? Would you want to eat a “cake” like this? If you saw this in a bakery display case next to all the cakes and cookies, would it freak you out? Comment below to let me know your thoughts!
If you tried this dessert or any other desserts in my blog, please share my Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram posts about them and let people know what you think! Mahalo!
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