Adventure of the Wonderbake sugar packets and Heather’s Zambian Funny Cake

In one of our very first emails last summer starting to get to know each other in preparation for our year together in Zambia, Heather mentioned one of her favorite treats: Funny Cake. She was appalled to learn I had never heard of such a food, and was clueless about its scientific composure.

Funny Cake (for all my non-Pennsylvania readers) is a vanilla cake lined with an amazing chocolate layer and baked in a pie crust. Heather tells me you eat it for breakfast! Who doesn't like a bit of dessert for breakfast?

Ever since that day last July when Heather discovered I had never eaten Funny Cake, she promised me she’d introduce me to this indulgence.

 

please note that our sugar is fortified with
vitamin A for a healthy body and good eyesight!

It didn't take long for us to notice that sugar here in Zambia isn't quite the same as sugar back in the States. The sugar here is processed locally from the sugar cane fields of Mazabuka. Zambian white sugar is a bit coarser and browner than the refined white beet sugar we buy in the States. For most purposes, sugar is sugar and what does the texture and color matter anyway?

For Funny Cake, it’s a different story. I have learned that to make a real Funny Cake one must have the true ingredients.

Enter the sugar packets from Wonderbake.

Heather’s been collecting sugar packets for months each time she enjoys a cappuccino at Wonderbake. She was a bit disappointed when the cappuccino man started giving her only two sugars instead of three, because these little packets are filled with precious white (actually white) sugar (which is unavailable- as far as we know- anywhere else in Choma).

Heather saved and saved the blue and white packets. Some friends even learned of Heather’s white sugar stash, and donated some sugar packets to her cause.

It was a special day when Heather mixed all the treasured ingredients for the Funny Cake (thanks again to Heather’s mom for shipping unavailable ingredients all the way to Zambia!). Heather had nearly ½ cup of white sugar from her Wonderbake packets!

Heather measured and mixed and poured. Then, we put the cake in the oven, set the timer, and gloried in the delicious smells. All of a sudden I heard an exclamation and a moan. I hardly knew what was happening. There was an emergency Skype call to Pennsylvania, and Heather was almost in tears.

The Funny Cake ran over the pie plate in the oven.

As a Funny Cake novice, I didn't know what was so tragic. So, it ran over. So, good thing there’s a cookie sheet in there to catch the spill…

I knew it was serious when Heather’s mom said, “Oh, honey… I’m sooo sorry.”

They tell me a Funny Cake is never the same—never as good—after it runs over. And to think this might be our sole stab at producing an authentic Funny Cake here in Zambia. If Shakespeare were sharing this story, it might be categorized as a tragedy-??

Thankfully, though Heather’s Zambian Funny Cake ran over, it was, well, I’ll let the pictures speak:

Not quite as tasty as it should have been (I’m told), but how can you complain when eating vanilla cake lined with dark chocolate and wrapped in a pie shell for breakfast?! 

And that, friends, is the tale about Wonderbake sugar packets and the Zambian Funny Cake. If the electricity stays on and the tea pot doesn't boil over and no one knocks at the door in the next five minutes, I might be able to gather my thoughts and tell you another Zambian adventure soon, right after I pepper my Isuzu’s tyres (increases speed, you know)…

[Did anyone else love Uncle Wiggily as a child, or was that just me?]