420 All Month: Franken Cakes

Nothing helps me pinpoint exactly how I’m feeling about myself at any given time than running into an old friend who’s obviously doing great. If I’m going through a rough patch – like the times I’ve been dealing with health issues or financial struggles – then boy does that contrast with the friend who is on top of things really hit hard. But if I’m also doing well, it’s even more exciting that we can both share in each others’ successes and happiness. It may be instinct to downplay the negatives and build up the positives (there are countless movies and tv shows for which the entire premise or plot is built on this happening, where the protagonist backs themselves into a corner of exaggerations that border on actually become lies), but I imagine that other people feel as I do, that after that exchange, you have recalibrated your own view of yourself, for better or worse.

Well, when I saw my old friend Frank show back up at my place or work, I was excited to see them. It’d been maybe 6 months or so since we’d last met. Frank looked great, and I was feeling pretty good too, from some of my health issues from last fall being more under control, to feeling really good about the blog having so far been successful in my endeavor to write every single day of the month of April, and other things more personal which I’m not enumerating here. And seeing that we were both doing well, it helped me see it more clearly for myself. Sure, things are far from perfect, and as I write this I’m also preparing for another slumber party for my twin girls’ 10th birthday, where this time they’re having five friends – if I recall correctly – sleep over and not just one, so that’s a little distracting, but you know, things are looking up more or less.

And like I said, Frank looked great. Their buds are much brighter green than I remember, and softer, more fresh feeling. And oh my goodness, the trichomes. I could go on for days. I had to adjust the light in my lightbox and exposure on my camera for the photoshoot, or the thick, snowy coating of sticky crystals completely washed out the image. Under a direct light it just looked white and sparkly, with only hints of green. This may be the most abundant trichomes I’ve seen on flower in recent memory.

And damn does Frank smell even better than I remember. In my Pure Kush review from earlier in the month I mentioned that I had a half dozen strains that were my first written reviews back when I had first started budtending over two and a half years ago. Franken Cakes was a sort of first in the next generation of strains I fixated on describing perfectly. When we first started working with Stoner & Co, Franken Cakes was in the first batch of strains that we had, and it was my immediate favorite.

As an aside, we soon after also acquired Princess Magic Girl, which I’ve also reviewed, and who overtook Franken Cakes by just a bit, as I found the Princess to be a more versatile strain, whereas Franken Cakes is really an afternoon evening strain most of the time. But additionally, Stoner has also cultivated a hybrid of the two, Princess Monster Cakes, which is also stellar, but since I’ve now reviewed both of its parents, and from the same grower for all three, I’ll leave that one at “it’s a perfect combination of its parent strains.”

But back to Franken Cakes’ aroma. My original description sort of mashed the aroma and flavor together: “Imagine the taste of a tropical tree. No, not the fruit, the tree. The wood itself. It’s woody, but there’s a hint of tropical fruit, and notes of bitter but also tropical, like cacao nibs.” I stand by this as a good summation, and at the bar at work, I’ll go to this for the sake of brevity without sacrificing accuracy. But I’d like to expand it a little as not only have I evolved my notetaking for cannabis, but I think this new batch may be the best batch of Franken Cakes I’ve had, objectively speaking. There’s also a coffee note in the aroma, in addition to the cacao. The vaguely tropical overtone is still there, but is a little softer than it was before, letting the two ends of the aroma spectrum both contrast and mix more, like a tie-dye pattern, or maybe even more accurately, like a professionally dyed ombre in hair. The blended part of the aroma almost comes across as broadly herbal, but I don’t want to say that that’s a distinct aroma note, as I feel it undersells the distinct and unique sensory experience that is Franken Cakes.

The smoke was also even nicer than I remember, smooth and easy, light on the lungs, but with just a hint of spicy texture on the exhale, like a gentle tingle or sparkle. The flavors completely shifted unexpectedly. As I said above, my original quick description mashed the aroma and flavor together, but I’m reconsidering that entirely, as the flavor this time around was so different from the aroma. The one truly consistent thread from smell to taste was the coffee note, which I didn’t even include in my original take. The vague fruitiness of the aroma shifts to a light pungent tone, and leaves a musky aftertaste, that at first while I was over-analyzing things for my notes took me by surprise. I wouldn’t have described it at all as musky before, but I am confident that’s what I want to call the lingering flavor on my tongue long after I had taken my last hit. But, and all the more strange, the pungent and musky flavor wasn’t sharp or bright or sour, it was more organic and earthy, feeling like the memory of the woody aroma that I have made the cornerstone of my characterization of Franken Cakes for almost two years now.

As for the effects, Franken Cakes is super chill and mellow, both head and body. For a long time I had nursed a vape cartridge of Franken Cakes, very specifically using it in parallel with Princess Magic Girl. Where the Princess is my personal anti-anxiety strain, I’ve contrasted it with Frank in a directional sense: Princess Magic Girl calms my nerves in way that feels brain first that leads my body to calm down, and Franken Cakes calms my body first which leads to my mind calming down. Another angle for their subtle difference is that I prefer Princess Magic Girls before I am stressed, and Franken Cakes if I’m already feeling stressed. Overall, Franken Cakes feels like a more potent high, hence my preference for the evening, though at lower doses works very well as a calming and somewhat uplifting high. I found myself getting a bit giggly as well, which was a new one to add to the notes.

I love this strain, and it’s been a favorite for a long time now. I was really glad to see it come back, and at such insane quality. This is some of the best cultivation of flower I’ve seen, and while I was going to write this one up anyway, I’m so happy that it was also so impressive, given that I thought I knew it so well already. I don’t always sign off with “highly recommending” a strain, though I think it’s safe to say I’m recommending every strain I write about, but in this case I very much do highly recommend Franken Cakes. Go get it. You won’t be disappointed.