I went to the Plainsman Museum in Aurora, Nebraska on Sunday to check out the Ethnic Food Festival and to also to check out the museum. I was hoping to be enlightened by the different varieties of food they might have from what doesn’t seem like a ethnically diverse region of the country. If anything, I was just curious, expectations aside.

Here is what they had to offer:

Salad Dressing Coffee Cake
Hot German Potato Salad
Swedish Potato Bologna
A German Cold Soup
Scottish Carrot Cake
Irish Mashed Potatoes with Cabbage
French Dessert
Mexican Chile Verde
Swedish Meatballs
Fried Rice from Laos
German Sausage
Frikadeller-Danish Meatballs
German Peppernuts
Chocolate

The Laotion lady serving the fried rice was really funny. She saw me eyeing her fried rice (sorry to say, this was a very boring dish, lady) and was all like, “I know YOU want some fried rice.”

And I was like, “Hell yeah!” (to be polite.) She seemed really excited to see an Asian.

The highlight of the “festival” (this took place in the front room of the museum, fluorescent lighting and all), was actually the SALAD DRESSING COFFEE CAKE.

Here is the recipe. The chef of this recipe was nice enough to write it on a poster and taped it behind her table:

Here she is:

I would make this cake at home. (This is a big deal.) It was wonderfully moist (Miracle Whip), and had good deep chocolate flavor (brought out by the cold coffee). The only thing I would change is to use real mayonnaise instead of the Miracle Whip, cut about a third of the sugar out, use espresso instead of coffee, and use dark chocolate instead of cocoa powder. That would make it more boojy and luxurious. The mayo element negates having to use eggs and oil, and gave it a real creamy “melt in you mouth” element. This cake was seriously moist. Try it!

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