The Game.

OK, so 10 nerd points to whomever recognizes this cake design.

Anyone?

Well, if you still haven't figured it out, here is my inspiration:

Ta-Da!

I realize that not everyone play Portal (for example: me) but feel free to check out the Wikipedia page if you'd like to brush up on your nerd culture references. Or just read this little Urban Dictionary explanation about the phrase "the cake is a lie:"

Roughly translates to "your promised reward is merely a fictitious motivator". Popularized by the game "Portal" (found on Half-Life 2's "Orange Box" game release for PC, X-Box 360, and PS3). During the game, an electronic voice encourages you to solve intricate puzzles using cake as a motivating perk. When you have "broken out" of the game's initial testing phase (from threat of death), you find scrawls on walls of the innards of the testing center warning you that "the cake is a lie".

So now you know. But my theory is that the cake (at least, my cake) is not a lie, but you can tell people that it is, in order not to share your delicious dessert.

In case you were wondering, the "cherries" on top of the cake are actually cherry-flavored candies I found at Publix. Basically, they are like Blow Pops, but without the stick. Joy and Haley and I wandered all over 2 groceries stores before we found them. (We could've used real cherries, but the juice would've gotten all over the cake and it was just very messy.)

And just so you know, the chocolate shavings on the outside of the cake? They are a labor of love. But I found out if you melt your Hershey's bars (just a little bit; don't over-melt) and then freeze them all together in a big lump, everything suddenly becomes a lot easier. Otherwise, the candy bar (which is really thin) just sorta falls apart in your hands and that makes a huge mess. Also, wrap the chocolate in wax paper because your hands will melt it otherwise. If you're interested in learning how to shave your own chocolate, here's an article. (I used 6 Hershey bars, the kind you can get in the checkout lane, for this cake.)

The cake itself was that ultra awesome amazing pound cake that I made for Maggie's birthday. It's still super awesome the second time around. :)

Finally, I made a variation of Wilton's chocolate buttercream. First of all, I doubled the recipe, because I had a lot of cake to cover. Secondly, I heated up the cocoa powder & melt over the stove, which means that I basically doubled the amount of milk the recipe called for, because otherwise there wasn't enough liquid to mix the powder with. Of course, adding more liquid did make the icing thinner, but because I was just using it to ice the cake, and not do any crazy piping, it worked out. The reason that I heated up the cocoa was because I read somewhere that it makes the flavor intensify, which I seriously believe to be true. There is one thing that I would do differently next time, is to let the cocoa/milk cool down before adding to the Crisco/butter, because it ended up all melted in my mixer, and you can't have fluffy icing if all your fat is melted. My solution? Just stick it in the freezer until it hardens back up, then keep mixing until everything is beautiful and incorporated! :)

So that's it for this week's baking adventures! Stay tuned next week for more! :-)