A titanic riff on the classic Maine treat; friends, I give you Whoopie Pie Cake. I have never understood the whoopie pie thing here; I tried a bite of one once, and it was such a confectioners-sugar fiesta inside my face that I nearly went cross-eyed. So I’d make yuck noises to myself every time I saw one in a bakery display case, and wrote them off as a kitschy when-in-Rome thing that you never actually enjoy (Michiganders, see also: the pasty). But then, this. Is it not shocking, and beautiful in all its icing-sandwiched glory? Thank you to waitress Tina who saw me ogling a half-gone version of this monstrosity sitting out under a cake dome on the counter at the Miss Portland diner this morning, and insisted she bring me a whole one from the fridge for a proper portrait. When Tina lifted the frosty dome up and away from the cake pedestal, it’s like the cake exhaled a little, and I caught a whiff of its explosive sweetness. Someone sitting in a nearby booth said, “Woah.” And suddenly I got it. I understood. I might never like the whoopie pie, not even in cake form, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate its place in the Maine experience. Something this big deserves to be respected.
