The New Common Novel &Treat Yo Self Tuesday: Portal Cake Edition

Welcome  to the new and improved  Common Novel! Just kidding. It's the exact same Common Novel, except now with updated content. That's right--after almost a year long hiatus, we're back. I can't promise we're back with insightful  content, but I can promise that things will be posted.

 In particular, here are the series we plan to post regularly: 

Monday:  slightly different than our old Must Read Monday, which was just book reviews, the new Must Read Monday will (usually) announce a theme for the rest of the week's posts #MustReadMonday
Tuesday: a new weekly series on nerd cooking and baking (aka the best baking) #TreatYoSelfTuesday
Wednesday: another new weekly series  on nerd outfits #WearableCosplayWedneday

That's right, we will be posting at least three new posts a week. Since we didn't post Monday, this week is theme-less, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to read. So. With that out of the way. Let's get to our first  Treat Yo Self Tuesday  with a Portal cake!*

The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie.

In Portal, players are promised that there will be cake if they complete numerous tasks as part of an experiment. But said cake never arrives, and players later find a message from former lab worker Doug Rattman scribbled across the walls saying, "the cake is a lie," repeatedly.  So, basically, the promised reward for your hard work is non-existent.

Pretty damn deep, tbh.  Which is why the phrase "the cake is a lie" has grown far beyond Portal and well into casual internet territory. Urban  Dictionary translates the phrase to, "Your promised reward is merely a fictitious motivator." 

Now, the above cake isn't actually a true Portal cake.  The game's end credits depict a single cartoon Black Forest cake at  the bottom of the research facility. 

A Black Forest cake  is  a type of German chocolate cake with an insane amount of whipped cream icing and layers of sour cherries, and a quick google search of "Black Forest cake Portal" shows that plenty of people have already made some pretty impressive replicas.  But, not enjoying cherries put a real damper on my Portal fun. 

So what's a girl to do? Well, I do live in Texas, and if a Texan's going to make a chocolate cake, it's probably going to be a Texas sheet cake.  I started from Ree Drummond's  "Best Chocolate Sheet Cake" recipe, and  made two changes:

1. Instead of one cup of boiling water, I used six  ounces of boiling water and two ounces of espresso (meaning I still had a cup of liquid)
2. I added a tsp of cinnamon to the buttermilk mixture

And this cake, oh my god. Who cares if it's not a real Portal cake when it's this gd good? Generally, a Texas sheet cake is not decorated (because the frosting is powdered sugar heaven), but I still wanted a little bit of that Portal flair, so I added the traditional cherries around the edges. I just used a tube of store bought white decorating frosting and a star tip for the cherry beds. Then I used a small circle tip and the same frosting to write the "code" for the "The cake is a lie" message.

If, unlike me, you're not into computer code, feel free to skip this step and just scrawl real big across the top "THE CAKE IS A LIE," because why the hell not? It's your Portal cake, and you can do what you want to.   

 For those of you who might want a more traditional Portal option,  here's one from  Taste of Home  (a usually reliable recipe resource)  and here's a highly rated one from  All Recipes. Just don't forget the critical Portal decorations. Hint: cover the white frosting with chocolate shavings. 

*I guess you could say this may contain tiny spoilers for Portal.** 
**I mean, you could say it, but you'd be wrong since the  game came out almost ten years ago and almost everyone knows what "The Cake Is a Lie" means. 

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Post by Rachel Paxton. She  Tweets  and  Instagrams  sometimes, but not enough to make your effort to follow her worth it.