Cooking

Keep birthday cake moist with this mathemagical method

The secret is the first slice

Everyone knows how to cut a birthday cake, right? Surprise! Turns out, we’ve been going about it all wrong. The traditional ‘wedge’ method leaves the rest of the cake to dry out, like a sad PacMan who fell asleep with his mouth open.

But fear not! Here’s a clever little trick to keep the remainder of the cake fresh, moist and delicious. Just follow the instructions below and you too can achieve moist cake mastery.

Print tutorial

You will need:

a delicious cake
a knife
an insatiable desire for moist cake

Let’s do this

Step 1

Deep breath and… cut a stripe down the middle, enough for a good bite of cake. Remove this long slice carefully and distribute to your famished guests.

Step 2

Now you’ve got a gap in the cake. This will all make sense in the next step…

Step 3

Mathemagical! Push the sides together and the cake is once again sealed.

Step 4

Now cut the cake at a 90 degree angle to your first cut. Remove the two pieces and distribute to waiting plates (or fingers).

Step 5

You’ve probably figured out what’s next. You look the clever sort…

Step 6

Huzzah! The cake is secure once more. Eat the next slices safe in the knowledge the rest of the cake will remain moist and delicious. Heck, take a vacation – this cake’s good for storage.

Time to repeat those steps…

Keep cutting and pushing, alternating between the two perpendicular angles. The cake will get smaller and smaller as you go. Continue cutting and sealing until all of the cake has disappeared.

And there you have it – a mathemagical method for cutting cake. We’ve designed our cake so it still looks good as it gets smaller — you just have to make it fairly symmetrical (leaving non-symmetrical elements in the corners).

Ours is a frog, but you can pick any character you like. It’s a simple trick that’s certain to delight any birthday girl or boy.

Who made this?

We’re Wonderbly. When we’re not revolutionising cake cutting we make very special, personalized children’s books. And if your child has an F in their name, they might just meet a clever, hopping friend in their story.