I need advice. It's a long story but basically I am making a birthday cake for someone's husband because they won't be around to do it. But they wanted me to use their MIL's Bumpy Cake Recipe. Reading the recipe the woman sent made me believe this wasn't a traditional bumpy cake recipe. The woman who asked me to bake this has never seen this cake before and doesn't know anything about baking. I sent her a picture of a traditional bumpy cake and apparently her MIL said that's how it's supposed to look but by the recipe she sent me, it's not even close.  This is the recipe that was sent to me: 

Okay... I am going to ask... can't help it... What in all of creation is Bumpy Cake?

I tried to google it, but all I get are pictures of a chocolate cake with strips of icing and covered in fudge... Which look good, but not too odd...

Ok we may have solved this one - I had NO idea what a bumpy cake was but a little targeted googling ascertained that there is a sanders bunny cake (chocolate cake with lines of buttercream and poured ganache) and a breakfast bumpy cake....described as a cake-crepe-pancake hybrid with an uneven surface - seems to be more like the recipe you had - very eggy with brown sugar/butter topping. Take a look - and might I say, it's the weirdest cake name I've ever heard....

Sorry that's a sanders BUMPY cake....grrr, I hate autocorrect!

Is your traditional Bumpy Cake Recipe very different to Aunty Meg's? If it is similar in any kind of way could you use your recipe & let the lady think you had used Aunty Meg's recipe? That's the only thing I can think of. I know it's hiding the truth but she wants a Bumpy Cake that not only tastes good but obviously looks good too. personally I have not heard of this type of cake but the world is full of cake recipes.  Today was

Cook for Copyright in Australia where we could use the libraries & historical societies to search for an OLD recipe to cook.  It was great. 

Good luck with your Bumpy Cake.

Yeah, this recipe is not a Sanders Bumpy cake at all. I have regular bumpy cake recipes. Not sure why the MIL would say it's supposed to look like a sanders. Thanks @winniemog  I didn't find that hybrid thing when I was looking for what this could be. This cake is "bumpy" but not bc of buttercream ribbons and chocolate ganache. I sent this recipe to my mom who is my baking "guru" and she said it was an odd recipe. I ended up making two and will have to have my husband try the 1st one sitting on my counter. I would but I'm gluten intolerant

@seamusis20  I probably should have done that. That's what my husband said to do. A part of me feels like the MIL gave me a weird recipe on purpose but who knows. My grandmother and great grandmother used to do that to my mom all the time. Yeah, I am taking it to her now. I am just going to say I don't know if it's like the way his mom makes but I did my best haha. I gave her a discount anyway. So she can't complain and she doesn't know anything about baking. Haha

I don't know why you gave her a discount. She messed you around. 

I checked bumpy cakes online & the closest I have come to it was many years ago in the country. A bakery made such cakes using a very light marshmallow in tracks on the cake and for chocoholics - a dairy milk chocolate whipped ganache or marshmallow.    Covered with a very thin coating of chocolate. I'm sure they will be delighted with your bumpy cake.,

this is exactly why i never bake for pay with someone else's recipe nev.er.

my standard line is, 'i don't do legends'

y'know every recipe i have has certain little details that i don't write down anywhere -- no body could duplicate them with accuracy -- not that they wouldn't be good but not like mine --

also thanks for the heads up on bumpy cakes -- never heard of it before

When I saw the question for this post I thought immediately of a Polish cake that's used for birthdays, introduced to me by a young man from Poland.  He baked it for me and I was amazed!  It's called Plesniak (not sure f the actual spelling, but it means "moldy" (spleśniałe)  I had the recipe in polish for a long time and had lost the English translation, but basically it was three balls of dough, kind of like a cookie dough/pie crust thing, you flavored one of the balls chocolate and the other two are just vanilla.  These go in the freezer.  Once they are hard enough to handle, you take a vanilla one and grate it into the bottom of a cake pan, then add a layer of fruit puree (prune is popular) then the chocolate ball is grated on top of that, then more fruit puree, then the last vanilla ball grated on top.  Then a mixture of egg whites and powdered sugar is dusted generously on top of it all and it's baked.  It comes out looking all lumpy-bumpy with some fruit bubbled up through the cracks and white dusty stuff looking...moldy  LOL.  It's really tasty and good with coffee for brunch or less sweet birthdays.

I'm going to look for that translated version of the recipe as now I want to make some!

I found it!

http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/polishdesserts/r/plesniak.htm

Yeah, I have learned my lesson @-K8memphis ! I will NOT be baking other peoples recipes. If for some crazy reason I decide to do that again I will be charging an "uber" premium. Thanks so much @rowantree ! I feel like I learn something new everyday. that's really interesting recipe. I may have to try just for my own curiosity. 

The crazy part of that whole experience is that they loved it! I saw the couple later that night and they were so happy they were able to have the cake and said it was awesome. To each their own I guess!

Thanks so much for everyones input!

good for you and they loved it too -- it's a win win win

<3