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The reason why South Aussies are so happy, the frog cake.

Hey there, remember me? Brown girl, cute, a bit too interested in food? Yup, I’m still alive, but just barely. In 13 days, my 15,000 word dissertation on food blogs is due. In 17 days, I move back to Chicago from Adelaide, South Australia. I also happen to have less focus than a meer cat on meth. But hey, at least I still have an appetite.

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With little time to take in these last few weeks in Australia, I’ve been trying to take in as much as possible. By that, I mean eat as much as possible. And maybe bake a little too much, which of course means I have to eat that too. My jeans hate me right now. It feels like they are trying to rebel against my body when I wear them. It hurts, but its either my sanity or my waistline.

What better way to save my sanity than a pie floater? This is a South Australian specialty for drunks that my pal Andrew insisted we try. In Chicago, my late night drinking snack of choice was a Chicago-style hot dog, or a taco, which are both tasty, cheap, and open crazy late. For South Australians, they prefer a meat-filled pie floating in pea soup, topped with some tomato sauce (fancy Aussie slang for ketchup). It sounds gross, but with enough beers in you, it tastes oddly comforting.

Nothing like eating meat and pastry on a beer-filled Friday night.

We got these pie floaters from a truck that parks on the corner of King Willaim and Franklin in Victoria Square in Adelaide. This truck is parked there every day of the week, 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays and Sunday, 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. This nice man grabbed our pies of choice (one beef and one lamb pie) from the warmer, set it in a bowl, and ladled steaming hot pea soup on top, which he said was a homemade recipe used by this pie cart for years. Look at all those condiments in the bottom corner of the last picture. Aussies love their condiments.

Pie mecca in Adelaide

The pie man. Respect him, and he will reward you.

With a nice squirt of tomato sauce and the four glasses of wine from earlier, this tasted really good. The warm, meaty pie and the savory soup went well with the sweet tomato sauce. It was oddly addicting. I didn’t want to like it, but I did.

A fair dinkum South Aussie pie floater, mate.

Andrew was wearing a scarf that night. It was 60 degrees out (15 C). I'm just saying.

Look at the size of that tomato sauce. It was nearly empty, and it was only 11 p,m, Hot damn.

Would you like some pie with that sauce, sir?

But I still needed dessert. I’m one of those people who needs a sweet thing the second she finishes a meal and this was no exception. My pal Mel told me nothing is more South Australian than a frog cake, so I went to hunt one down. In my mind, they are the equivalent to an American twinkie in that they are made with sponge cake and cream and are way too sweet and yet strangely addicting (much like the pie floater).

le cakes de froggy

They are made by Balfours (a local meat pie company), and were originally created in the 1920s for tearooms, which were popular at the time (at least according to government of South Australia). They are delivered fresh to convenience stores and bakeries a few times a week. Freshness is key, Mel warned me. Eating a four day old frog cake is not the same blissful experience as a fresh one, apparently. So I guess the American twinkie has one up on the frog cake right there, considering it could survive a nuclear war and still taste good. But in Australia, they are all about their fresh baked goods, meat pies and frog cakes to name a few.

Where have you been all my life, frog cake?

So what the heck is a frog cake? Well, it has layers of sponge cake spread with jam (I think ours had pineapple) for the body, cream for the head (they said it was cream, but it tasted like a buttercream frosting), and then it is covered in fondant that comes in pink, brown, and a green so bright you wonder if it is safe to eat (it is). And man, is it good. Rich, but delicious. It takes some effort to bite through all those layers, and it took me two days to finish the thing because it was so sweet, it hurt my stomach (this from the girl who lives on Moscato).

Stretchy pants, here I come. Man, I love South Australia.

~LTG!