h a l f b a k e r yStrap *this* to the back of your cat.
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, best, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
The traditional victoria sponge cake is limited in its capacity to take the yummy jam and whipped cream. These limits are imposed by the size of the human mouth and the physical properties of the filling. Too much filling makes the cake too big to fit into the mouth and also makes it fall apart when
it's cut or carried.
How can we maximise the amount of filling without straining the eater's jaws whilst maintaining cake integrity?
The answer is the cake router.
During final assembly of a traditional two layer cake, use the router to grind a flat-bottomed circular hollow from the top of the lower layer. Next, remove a thin annulus of cake from the outside of the underside of the upper layer making sure to leave a rim at the top. The diameter of the lower hollow must match the diameter of the ground part of the upper layer. Crucially, the depth of the lower hollow must be greater than the extent of the upper part which fits into it.
The end result is that the top part of the cake fits snugly into the bottom part with a gratifyingly secret hidden air gap between the two layers. The air gap gives enhanced filling opportunities without overstretching the mouth. Furthermore, the presence of a rim around the filling increases the structural integrity of the cake.
For those needing additional structural integrity, a spiral guide is fitted around the cake to constrain the router to cut a thread into the top and bottom. The top may now be screwed into the bottom to give a munition like sturdiness to the cake.
No more cake on the floor, much more in the mouth.
Please log in.
If you're not logged in,
you can see what this page
looks like, but you will
not be able to add anything.
Annotation:
|
| |
I recently made a treasure chest (two, in fact) cake for my little girl's birthday. I could have used a cake planer, router, nails and clamps. |
|
| |
Last year I made a cake to look like "Jack Skellington"'s head. It was dome-shaped and had red-dyed vanilla pudding inside (so when you cut it, blood oozed out - my kids have a weird dad). |
|
| |
I used a mould for the dome shape that included a second part (essentially a smaller dome that fit into the larger one) to form the hollow, and a third part to form the base. This sounds a lot like what you're after and I wonder if it wouldn't be easier. |
|
| |
[+] Could it be combined with a CNC machine for producing novelty cake designs? |
|
| |
Maybe the cake router should come in a case, paired with a biscuit jointer ...... |
|
| |
But would this give a greater filling/substrate ratio than the "Swiss Roll" design? Anyway, this is innovative, so [+] and an award from the Society of Farinaceous Engineering for you. |
|
| |
The cake router could also allow radial compartments to be ground into the hollow to further add to strength as well as present opportunities for multiple fillings in the same cake. |
|
| |
The "never the same twice cake". |
|
| |
+ bun for //without overstretching the mouth//!! |
|
| |
Never been so proud of such crumby workmanship. |
|
| |
I was expecting some sort of multi-user cake access point, but this is much better |
|
| |
"multi-user" and "cake" are not compatible. An essential tenet of efficient cake-access architecture is the ability to lock out all other users while you are accessing the cake. |
|
| |
A chair wedged under the door handle usually does the job. |
|
| |
...I don't know - I've seen very large cakes multiplexed into discrete, uniformly-sized packets, called 'slices'. |
|
| |
<starts handing out cake>
<eats>
<blames packet loss> |
|
| |
The problem with the Space-division-multiplexing (slicing) approach is ensuring that each user gets the same bandwidth (siz of slice). Uneven allocation - or worse, getting a slice with extra jam or icing - can lead to contention, and sometimes fisticuffs .... |
|
| |
//Too much filling makes the cake too big to fit into the mouth and also makes it fall apart when it's cut or carried//
I liked the use of the words 'cake', 'yummy', 'jam' and 'cream' in this idea but the above sentence is where you lost me, I'm afraid. For me, cakes are as much about making a mess as they are about scrumminess. Cakes should always be too big to fit easily into the normal human mouth and should always have fillings that squirt out of the sides when you bite into them or should fall apart at inconvenient moments.
Your safety-first approach to cake eating can only result in a much duller world, possibly ruled by celebrity chefs and the editors of fashion magazines. For the sake of humanity, I am forced to unobtrusively slip a fishbone into your cake mix.
Hungry now... |
|
| |
If that's the case, DrBob, if that is your real height, then how can future historial naturalists accurately divide and conquer all natural types into unnatural species as we do today, in science? The descriptive differentiation you give above then causes sandwiches to fall into the same species as cake. Obviously they share the same genus at the same time, but it wouldn't be true to consider one as descended from the other. More likely is the creationist stance, that posits all cake and sandwiches were in fact created, not evolved, and in extreme examples of this philosophy put forward by our future histerical naturists, they would claim that their creation was in fact quite recent - that mankind roamed the earth with sandwiches and cake! Ludicrous. |
|
| |
[DrBob] - good points; the law of unintended consequences has struck. Would it help if we filled the cake with something unexpectedly runny and sticky? |
|
| |
// something unexpectedly runny and sticky? // |
|
| |
[Ian], you've got a little fleck of foam at the corner of your mouth. |
|
| |
Umm... Ian, a "naturist" is someone who enjoys running around naked. Not quite what you intended. |
|
| |
OK. I assumed you were being less sarcastic. My bad. |
|
| |
//Would it help if we filled the cake with something unexpectedly runny and sticky?//
Might do. Or something unexpectedly and fantastically hot.
Mr Tindale's creationist theory of filled comestibles is, of course, easy to refute. Although superficially similar in appearance, cakes and sandwiches occupy completely seperate ecological niches.
Sandwiches are generally short lived - average lifespan of 2 to 3 hours is normal, although records exist of them achieving extended life spans in the buffet section of trains. Possibly due to time dilation effects. Their natural environment is in darkened containers, often plastic, and consequently they have a tendency toward savoury flavours when consumed.
Cakes, on the other hand, (particulalrly the larger sub-species) can live for several days and delight in basking in the sun throughout. The mass of energy that they absorb in this way not only results in a delicious, sweet flavour when eaten but also makes them drowsy and easy to catch.
It is true that cakes and sandwiches can interbreed but their offspring, the pie, is sterile and often tragically deformed by armour plating which, when overdeveloped results in the so-callled 'crusty pie' (which is inedible) or, if underdeveloped results in the filling weeping through the skin. Such creatures are best put out of their misery and destroyed by the close range blast of an elephant rifle. |
|
| |
I must concur with [DrBob] on pies in England... absolutely fucking ghastly. |
|
| |
Ah, but, like domestic dogs, there are considerable variations within the captive-bred species of pie. |
|
| |
What you have probably encountered is one of the unfortunate "battery-farmed" pies. As their name implies, they are largely composed of minced-up batteries, giving them an unmistakeable gritty, chewy texture and an chemical, acidic taste. Tooth erosion, loose fillings, vomiting and diahorrea are the typical outcome of consuming these genetically-engineered "Frankenpies". |
|
| |
They bear no comparison with the free-range pies which exist in the North of the UK, where they roam the heather moorland of Derbyshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire. These wild Northern breeds of pie are renowned for their flavour, texture and digestibility, especially when washed down with copious quantities of the local Real Ale. |
|
| |
Further North still, beyond the bounds of know civilisation, crustless pies known as "Haggis" have evolved, which roam the snow-capped peaks, pouncing on unwary golden eagles and wolves and tearing them limb from limb. Don't go there, it is a bad place. |
|
| |
It must be a bad place. Anything that can consume a haggis and keep it down is probably only a few generations removed from those Polar Bears that adapted to living on land and turning brown... explains a lot when you think about it. |
|
| |
<close-up on David Attenborough's face>"...and, in the far south west of the country, there lives a truly remarkable member of the pie family. Shy and secretive, yet delicious and with a rich, flakey crust, it is of course the noble Cornish Pastie" <camera pulls out to reveal David Attenborough siting on the ground in front of a Cornish Pastie> "This is a juvenile Pastie without the fully-formed crust crenellations of the adult..." |
|
| |
The debate continues to rage as to whether or not Cornish Pasties are a sub-spiecies of true Pies, or are a genus on their own. Genetic analysis has so far been inconclusive, because before the testing was complete, the pub closed for the night. |
|
| |
Actually, Cornish Pasties are not related
to pies at all - they're actually a form of
pancake that returned to the sea,
whereby its limbs developed into
flippers and its breathing apparatus
developed into a blowhole in one single
developmental step (thus saving all
those intermediate fossils from
suffocating as soon as they're born
because of the partially evolved incomplete organ suffering
from fatal irreducible complexity disease). Pasties then
hoiked themselves from their new-
found aquatic sea life to a new-found
land life on the land, in tin mines. This
should be obvious, because they
contain mitochondrial potato, which is a
product of the new-world Columbian
exchange and mart, 1492 edition. |
|
| |
Let us not forget the pygmy cousin of the cake, the biscuit. |
|
| |
For example, early Jammie Dodgers were larger and weaker than today and it is theorised they evolved from the bottom part of an unfinished and creamless victoria sponge. These feeble creatures thrived despite their shortcomings. |
|
| |
Faced however with competition from other mutant biscuit-cake hybrids such as the Jaffa Cake and generic jam tart, the Jammie Dodger evolved a twice-cooked sturdiness and longevity as well as the ability to give birth to multiple offspring. |
|
| |
The biscuits we eat today are these offspring. The location of the adults is a mystery. |
|
| |
Research suggests that they may have
been out-competed in their environment
by early larger Wagon Wheels, from which
today's smaller Wagon Wheels are
descended. |
|
| |
Did you know we share 99% of our DNA with the Cornish Pastie? |
|
| |
I've a distinct feeling I could point to a dozen or so descendants of the original fruitcake, right here in this thread. |
|
| |