In Portal, This Cake is a Lie
For Annie’s cooking lesson this week, she decided to bake this cake. I could tell you how the whole experience went for her, and what a delicious cake it was, but Annie asked if she could write this week’s post to explain why she chose this recipe, and how it all went. So here it is in Annie’s own words.
The cake is a lie…
The cake is a lie…
The cake is a lie…
This phrase is from the video game Portal, a puzzle-style game which is available for the X-box, PS3 and for Microsoft Windows. In this game, you are playing as a woman named Chell who finds herself in a research facility called the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. As Chell, you meet your “guide” GLaDOS, who is an artificial intelligence operating system. She informs you that you are in the enrichment center to do tests with the help of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center portal gun. Simply, the portal gun works like this; you can shoot a blue and an orange portal. You go in the orange portal and exit out the blue.
Using these mechanics and the momentum from portal-to-portal transfer, you have to skillfully maneuver your way through the test chamber to the end gate. She promises you that after you are done with the about 40 test chambers, you will get cake. However, towards the end, you discover a secret room and in that room, written three times is “The cake is a lie.” You discover this statement is true when it is revealed that GLaDOS intends to kill you and there is no cake, hence the cake is a lie. The game graphics are good, the concept is really cool, and the test chambers are challenging. Now, I have actually never played Portal before, but I have seen a game play of the game by vlogbrother Hank Green on YouTube (hankgames.) He also did a play through of Portal 2, as well as iJustine (ijustinegaming) and Toby Turner. (TobyGames) I plan to play the game because I think it looks really cool.
To make the Portal cake, I went on YouTube and found a recipe. I looked at the recipe and saw that they used a devil’s food cake mix and bought chocolate frosting. I decided I was going to go above and beyond and make both from scratch. I got both a devil’s food cake and a really yummy chocolate butter cream frosting recipe from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.
I made the cake on Monday. Surprisingly, the cake was really easy to make. However, I probably should have used a bigger bowl because sometimes flour and milk flew on to the counter as I mix the cake batter with the electric mixer. I also didn’t understand why you had to butter the cake pan, cover the bottom with wax paper, butter that circle of paper and then put flour on the pan. To me, it just seemed like way too many steps.
Good tip; have something in the kitchen for you to listen to while cooking. Thank you YouTube for being that thing. I don’t care if it is music, vlogs, or in this case, game commentaries, YouTube always has something for me to listen to. I listened to YouTube through the whole recipe.
I had a small timer mishap while baking the cakes. After I baked the cake on the bottom of our Aga for 5 minutes, I switched to the rack and set the timer to 10 minutes. Now, to set our timer, you have to turn the dial past the thirty and then turn it to your time. I SWEAR that I did exactly that and set it to 10 minutes and then went upstairs to watch YouTube. However, about 15-20 minutes later, my mom called up to me and asked if I set the timer. I looked at the computer clock and rushed down stairs. Luckily, the cake didn’t burn and actually came out really well and smelled delicious. I was proud of my self for making a two layer cake that actually looked good, but there was still more to go.
I made the frosting the next day. I used the right sized bowl this time and I was drooling over the smell and taste of the frosting. One of the things in this experience I had to learn was how to spread things evenly. I am grateful to my mom for sticking through with me and showing me how to spread both cake batter around the pan and frosting onto a cake evenly. Then it was time to make the crust of this cake. Cue the Oreo cookies. I had to separate each and every one of the cookies in the Oreo package from the cream and crush the cookies afterwards. It may have taken a little while, but it was worth it because Oreo dust is TASTY. I was supposed to use a blender, but I took the ingenuity route and crushed them in a bag with a rolling pin. EPIC WIN.
Then came the WORST part of making this cake; putting on the Oreo dust on the cake. Do you know how hard it is to put Oreo dust on the sides of a cake while it’s not sticking and is falling off the serving plate and onto the table? VERY. But I believe in the long run, it trained me in patience, carefulness and in the end, I did a pretty good job. Now what am I going to do with all of that Oreo cream you ask? Form it into 8 separate disks and put them on top of the cake. For the final touch, I put a maraschino cherry (in this case, it was a cherry from a can of cherry pie filling = delicious by the way) on top of each cream disk. The cake was finally finished and I was super proud of myself for completing this.
So in conclusion, the cake is NOT a lie, the cake is DELICIOUS!
Comments
7 Responses to “In Portal, This Cake is a Lie”
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Your cake is definitely not a lie Annie and looks absolutely delicious. I’ll bet it was more satisfying to bake than successfully going through all the portals you describe in the game. Youe cake was probably even more satisfying to eat.
As for your game, did you ever think the cake was never a lie and the portal was the lie?
Annie, your epic journey thru the recipe was obviously more satisfying than your journey thru the portals as the end result was something tangible – a REAL cake, beautiful to look at and delicious to eat! You met the challenge and won the reward. Keep it up!
I’ll give her both of your comments, Mike and Zoogirl.
What a great looking cake and an interesting column!
Thanks, I’ll let Annie know.
I am very proud of #1, both as a baker and as a writer!
Me too!