Watch Me Pull a Magic Cake Out Of My Hat

Anyone else out there remember Saturday morning cartoons and the gang from Rocky and Bullwinkle?

One of the running gags was that Bullwinkle was forever trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat…

Rocky & Bullwinkle

And failing miserably…

Rocky & Bullwinkle Magic Trick

Maybe Rocky’s disdain was hardwired into me at an early age as I have never been a fan of magic tricks…although, having just said I really liked the movie The Prestige.  Then again, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla?  What’s not to like?

And that dorky kid from Harry Potter growing up to be handsome as hell?

Now that’s the kind of magic I can get behind.

But in general, my David Copperfield tends to be more of the Dickens rather than the disappearing Statue of Liberty variety.

However, recently a thing called the Magic Cake has been  haunting my Pinterest feed and, it had me intrigued.  The blurb promised  that the Magic Cake would “come out of the oven with three distinct layers…a dense layer on bottom, custard-like layer in the middle, and a fluffy cake layer on top”.

WTF?  No…this can’t possibly work.

And yet…

There are photos…

And Lemon Delicious Pudding somehow manages to make itself into awesome pudding and sauce…so there is some sort of precedent.

But three layers?

No way.

Mind you, last time I went into a recipe with a “that trick never works” mindset I was proved semi wrong…(see here for my icecream muffins.)

Still, it was the so-called beloved’s birthday and…I feel terrible for all you people born in the first week of January because…oh boy…I love to cook, I love to entertain…but by the time his birthday rolls around I’m usually kind of over it.  Not to mention broke.

Which is another reason why the Magic Cake seemed too good to be true.

i thought it may be one of those things where  the magic would only occur if you added the blood of seven virgins harvested  on the 29 of February under a full moon.

But quelle surprise, there was just normal stuff…flour, butter, sugar, eggs…not a drop of virgin’s blood to be found.  Good thing really, I don’t recall seeing a line of it at the local supermarket.  Although I didn’t look too closely at the Heston Blumenthal range.  Funny thing is, it doesn’t even seem too outrageous anymore does it?  Browsing the shelves and seeing Heinz Tomato Ketchup, McIlhenney’s Tabasco Sauce, Blumenthal’s Virgin Blood…

But does it work?

Best answer I can give based on a sample size of one is… kinda, sorta, maybe.

There was a definite top layer but it was more meringue-y than cakey.

There was definitely a custardy middle.  This was delicious by the way, sweet and creamy.

And, you can’t see this in any of the photo’s but there was a thicker layer of…..custardy type  stuff on the bottom. The third layer was definitely discernible to the tooth if not the eye.

Hmm…if you notice, even in the original description the bottom layer is left  bit vague…

To call this a cake is a stretch there was nothing cake-y about it.  The thick later at the bottom was a little rubbery and not altogether pleasant.  It tasted ok, it was just an odd texture which I didn’t really care for.

So, on a scale of magic, how does the Magic Cake rate?

Better than Bullwinkle, nowhere near as good as Neville Longbottom.

Hope your week is magic, whatever you get up to!