We take food pretty darn seriously, and nothing quite as seriously as dessert. It’s the tasty sweet treat at the end of a meal and can entirely change your mood. That said, when you’re in charge of the cake-cutting knife, some people are overcome with anxiety so strong it almost, almost, makes them not want to eat the spongey, icing-covered goodness. So what is the best way to cut a cake?
Cake-based anxiety
How do you please everyone when cutting a cake?! What on earth is “just a sliver” of cake?! Is it possible to do it without making a gosh darn mess?! It’s my birthday, and I cannot take this pressure!
Instragrammable cakes = awful to cut!
The absolute worst is when you are faced with something fancier than a simple Victoria sponge made by your Grandma, and with the rise of overly complicated, beautiful cake creations (thanks, Instagram!), this is becoming more common.
Mommy issues
Imagine you are a mother, tasked with cutting equal sizes of cake for 20 hyperactive children and you are faced with an incredible (but also very expensive!) unicorn cake, full of e-numbers and edible glitter. How on earth are you to cut this cakey monstrosity into responsible pieces that small hands can enjoy, without creating a drama?!
Cake cutting hack
Thankfully, there is a cake cutting hack that is designed to save you embarrassment and awkwardness. In fact, more than that it is going to have you hailed as a cake cutting hero! You will be seen as some sort of dessert distribution genius who should be rewarded with an extra slice (or two!) of aforementioned cake!
Give it a go!
The trick to this method is to throw everything you know about cake cutting out of the window. Instead of starting by cutting little uneven triangle sliced from the middle, or even going straight across the cake to attempt equal slices, you start by making a slice, close to the edge of the cake horizontally across the top. (Bare with us here!). If you make this around an inch thick, and then lay it down on a board (the best way is to hold a chopping board or cake board against the piece you are about to cut, so that once you have sliced it, it will gently lay against the board and you can place it down gracefully like the cake-pro you are!). Once it is on the board and the crowd around you are in suitable awe, you can then go ahead and cut that strip into several equal-sized pieces.
Sliced perfection
This will leave you with beautiful pieces of cake, perfect for party bags, children’s hands (and all over their faces too of course!) and your stomach! It’s a great way to create equal slices without the cake turning into a crumbly mess, and is especially effective for cutting those incredible whopper cake masterpieces without ending up in tears!
Turn them into believers!
At first, your guests will be confused, perhaps even a little concerned that they won’t get a decent cake slice, however, once they see the magic that you are about to bestow upon them, not only will they be asking for seconds, but also your autograph (probably).
But seriously
We love how simple this is to do. It’s a perfect excuse to bake or buy a cake just to have a practice before you next big cake-cutting event. And if you want, you don’t even have to cut the giant length of cake into slices, just tuck into that slab yourself as a reward for being so gosh darn smart!
