Purely Coastal Creations
Where every recipe has a story
The 313 Sunshine Ridge Cake
How a school field trip in 1984 became a cake on the Treasure Coast.
October 18, 1984. I was eleven years old, on a school field trip to the Sanders bakery on Oakman Street in Highland Park, Michigan. I watched the entire process by hand — no machinery, buttercream piped by hand, one cake at a time. I walked out that day holding a copy of the recipe.
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Sanders is a Detroit institution. If you grew up in Michigan, you already know. The 313 is Detroit's area code — and it's the number I carry with me every time I make this cake.
Forty-two years later, I'm baking that same cake in a home kitchen on the Treasure Coast of Florida. My husband Peter is a Jersey guy. Zero Michigan loyalty. He has had both Sanders' original and my version. His verdict: dead-on match. That's the only review that matters to me.
Devil's food cake. Deep fudge ganache. Hand-piped buttercream ridges on top. Made entirely by hand, the way I learned it that day.