#and for giving me the opportunity to go hog wild with my baking stuff

[nitedulalaruata]

oKay, so I might be only slightly insane, but there's enough unmedicated ADHD in me to make this a reality. Enjoy?

This is an edit of @hareofhrair's Cake Song video, which was based on a post by @reliqvia. please forgive me for some jankiness in the editing I had so many technical issues and ended up doing this on my laptop with 4GB RAM ._.

More info on how I made this under the cut:

So first of all I grabbed the lyrics from OPs video (slightly altered to fit the actual audio):

Beautiful women will be like "I baked a cake!" And you'll ask "Oh? What flavor is it?" And they'll say, well…

It's a honey lemon fig persimmon orange blossom sponge cake soaked in elder flower mint reduction champagne lipgloss in conjunction with an almond anise chocolate lattice saffron soufflé earl grey syrup balanced by scallions simmered in a coffee carob spear mint julep swiftly snipped and shipped round trip and kissed by only kosher lips and whipped with rich amalfi lemon foraged from the fields of heaven just a hint of limoncello parsnip poppy and tangelo arsenic olive steeped in aloe sous vide in a vegan jack fruit tallow lemon thyme lemon balm matcha wine hearts of palm fetta and nettle petal fresh with a fennel frond beurre blanc and beurre monté served burning on blancmange ensconced in: cream cheese goat cheese blue cheese brie cheese head cheese soil swimmin in a ribbon of my liminally limited extra virgin olive oil

(GET SCONED?)

Whipped chantilly meringue frosting please stop me if this gets exhausting bergamot and apricot and almond anise cardamom And seven swans! A golden ring! Lords are leaping! Here's the thing! It's topped with poppies picked in Oz~* Sugar gauze and puppy paws all sourced sustainably because it was a gift from Santa Claus

I juiced the moon for blue moon goo! And killed a cop for mountain dew! I fucked with space time yeah it's true And found out what those photons do I stole Schrödinger's cat so you could have this cake and eat! it! too!

And you're like Ok. I want to spend the rest of my afternoons walking around inside your beautiful mind like a garden.

Cake break down

Then I broke the lyrics down into the different cake parts, which was difficult as the lack of punctuation allows for multiple different readings on how exactly the ingredients are combined. After a bit of rearranging I ended up with this list and constructed a rough sketch from it (for the final product I again shuffled some of the planned stuff in the picture, but this is the gist):

Some of the ingredients are inedible or have an ambigous meaning (this is complicated by English being my second language and some words can be translated in multiple ways) or are .. uh .. hard to source (side eye to difficult trade relations with Heaven and Oz), so I swapped them out for ingredients that are safe for consumption and available to me.

Recipes

Some things I've made before and already had working recipes for - for most things though I had to look up recipes. I think it goes without saying that I had to alter the recipes HEAVILY, but the base recipes were:

Sponge Cake: https://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/sponge-cake-recipe/

Soufflé: https://eggs.ca/recipes/basic-souffle/

Mint Julep: https://iba-world.com/iba-cocktail/mint-julep/

Blancmange: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018142-blancmange

Beurre blanc: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246931/chef-johns-beurre-blanc/

Beurre monté: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/7939-how-to-make-beurre-mont%C3%A9-

Meringue Frosting: https://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/best-frosting-recipes/

(only used recipes in English for reader's convenience and reader's convenience only)

From the lyrics and the recipes I gathered the strangest (and most expensive) shopping list I ever made.

Figuring out the Fire Situation

As noted in the cake break down, the burning beurre on blancmange would be swimming in olive oil. Which - as I'm sure you can imagine - is not ideal for fire safety. First I thought about separating the blancmange from the oil underneath by some aluminum foil, but there's still the fact that I'd have a burning liquid on the tippy top of a cake. I'm not even sure if the beurre has a high enough percentage of fat to catch flame, but burning butter on a cake decorated with flammable things like fondant, flowers and almond flakes is uh … not great. And I'm not prepared to burn down my kitchen for a shitpost, so kiddie version it is: boring old cake candles far away from flammable stuff but actually they're cool because they glitter

(My kitchen has a fire blanket, just in case anything would go wrong. QUICK PSA: If you don't have some kind of fire safety stuff in your kitchen, please get at least a fire blanket. They're cheap and can save your life (and your kitchen) in case you get flames.)

Preparations

After the planning phase I grabbed the biggest bags I have and went to the biggest store in my area, fingers crossed that I'd be able to get every ingredient on my list.

Well. It's a scroll.

🫠 (honestly my estimate was around 180€, so yay?)

BUt at least I got almost everything!

*cough cough* if you wanna throw a Euro or two at me to help compensate for this grocery bill you can do so via my kofi

Baked the sponge cakes and prepared the "lipgloss", horrible syrup™️, scallions in julep, and blancmange, before calling it a day and falling into bed exhaustedly.

Assembly

Next day I sous vide'd the olive for the "tallow", made the swans and the chantilly and assembled the various remaining parts. Then meringue frosting and decorating, while beurre blanc and buerre monté simmered along. Multitasking babyy!

Then, finally, the cake is done and I can light the candles to bring everything together:

Video

During all of this ordeal I took a bajillion progress shots and some extra photos. I never used a video editor or made an animation in my life before AND MY COMPUTER DECIDED TO RANDOMLY FORCE ME TO RESET IT BECAUSE APPARANTLY MY 15 YEAR OLD PHOTOSHOP VERSION CAUSED IT TO CRASH REALLY BADLY (curse be upon ye, Windows 11 and Adobe!), so my learning curve was steep, but I had the combined power of great stubbornness and multiple energy drinks on my side.

Every picture that is not otherwise credited to someone else was made by me. The background for the "space and time" part is a crochet work I made, following the Arcanoweave pattern by Julia Hart of Draiguna.

The final product took a total of 10 days to make: one for planning, two for shopping and baking and making the damn thing, one for extra shots, and six for editing the video (including two whole days of troubleshooting the tech issue).

Taste Test

Bottom half: Sponge cake and cream were fine (not surprising as those are the most regular cake ingredients in this abomination), but I got a cardamom pod in the same bite, which was not as pleasant. Next bite: the parsnip-poppy-grapefruit jello is a bit unusal but ok. Next bite: jackfruit and olive. I actually spit that one out. Bwah.

Top half: Sponge cake and cream again, fine. Next bite: blancmange - grainy (as detailed below), the milky almond taste is okay, but I think I've overdone it with the cardamom. The beurres were okay with it too (I mean it's just butter, what can go wrong with that?). Next bite: The cheeses were an unexpected savory flavor, but the cream cheese with a bit of blancmange and sponge cake was actually nice (no surprise again, as cream cheese is also a normal cake ingredient).

Decoration: Did not eat the flowers (obviously). Cotton candy and chocolate were tasty (obviously), the apricots were fine I guess? I'm not a big fan of (dried) apricots, so *shrug*

Overall: Some great things in there - but also some truly horrible stuff. Looks very pretty though, 5/10

Detailed version of the individual parts

Honey lemon fig persimmon orange blossom sponge cake

Easy peasy: base recipe for sponge cake, add some honey and lemon peel and figs (and no persimmon as SOMEHOW the store didn't have any? (usually they do), also no orange blossom) to the batter, be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of batter and scramble to find enough cake tins for it all, then have a minor meltdown as you realise mid-baking you've set the oven to the wrong temperature and try to save your 7 eggs worth of cake by encasing it in foil, while cursing heavily because you just burned your arm on the oven door, and be glad that in the end the cakes came out only slightly over- and undercooked simultaneously.

Elder flower mint reduction champagne lipgloss

Uh elder flowers are not available on their own, so elder flower tea it is. Throw in some mint and reduce. Then mix the elder flower mint reduction and champagne (I'm not rich, so sparkling white wine it is) and make lipgloss out of that. Well, edible lipgloss is not a thing (or you know, there are dubious listings on various websites that claim otherwise but usually lipgloss contains stuff you shouldn't ingest in great quantities), but oils are a big part of their base, so we'll just throw in some coconut oil to give it a more creamy consistency.

Almond anise chocolate lattice saffron soufflé earl grey syrup

First I made saffron soufflé (first time I made soufflé and I feel lied to by all the people saying soufflés are hard to make - it was really easy). Then I tempered dark chocolate to make some chocolate lattices (free hand - I had already cleaned so many dirty bowls and tools just to use them again right away, I really was not in the mood to clean more chocolate tools than neccessary). While soufflé and chocolate were cooling, I threw some almonds and anis into a pan to toast. Added some water and an earl grey tea bag and let it steep. Removed the tea bag after a couple of minutes, cut out a cute shape from the soufflé to marry to its chocolate lattice …aaand ruined it immediately by putting it into the horrible abomination in the pan. Stir stir stir and shred in a mixer, strain the mixture through a sieve while trying not to puke from the smell. Reduce this liquid down and add sugar to make the worst sirup in history.

Scallions simmered in a coffee carob spear mint julep

Another easy thing: Pour hot water over some instant coffee and carob powder in a cup. Crush some mint with sugar and a little bit of water, fill with bourbon. Mix both drinks in a pot and add chopped scallions. Let simmer for a couple minutes, done.

(The scallions were super fresh so I assume they were swiftly snipped and shipped round trip. But I don't know anything about kosher etiquette, so I did not kiss the scallions just to be sure)

Whipped with rich amalfi lemon foraged from the fields of heaven

The lyrics say: "… [horrible] syrup, balanced by scallions … whipped with … [lemon]", so I made lemon sirup (from counterfeit lemons as I'm a dirty atheist) and combined those three things into a creamy sauce. (Had to add some whipped cream or it would have been too runny)

Just a hint of limoncello parsnip poppy and tangelo

There's no specific serving form given for those ingredients so I took it to mean those things can be present in any form. I chose to finely chop the parsnip and put it together with poppy seeds into a sheet made of a gelatinized mix of limoncello and grapefruit juice (no tangelo available to me - but it's a hybrid of grapefruit and mandarin orange, so that's close enough).

Arsenic olive steeped in aloe sous vide in vegan jack fruit tallow

Ah, another thing that is not advised for human consumption. Of course I'm talking about the olive (singular?), not arsenic :P (please, this is a joke, DO NOT eat arsenic). Forgot to buy aloe, so I sous vide'd the single (non arsenic) olive. Vegan tallow is an oxymoron - but "vegan [thing]" is often used to describe something made of vegan stuff that has similar properties to [thing], so no problem here. Just puree the jack fruit and place the olive in there.

Can I just say that all the websites that told me "jackfruit has a neutral taste" were lying. Jackfruit is the worst thing I ever smelled and tasted - even worse than the horrible syrup I just made - and while I am open to trying vegan alternatives any day, this can of jackfruit was the only ingredient that I just threw away after making this cake instead of using it up, because ugh. no.

Lemon thyme lemon balm matcha wine hearts of palm Fetta and nettle petal fresh with a fennel frond

Again, no specific form, though they could be served on the blancmange together with the beurres, but there's only so much that I can put onto a fragile pudding shape before it collapses. Better idea: chop what can be chopped and soak in what can soak, then sprinkle in between the cake layers. Substitutions made: Lemon thyme -> regular thyme, lemon balm -> lemon balm tea, matcha -> NOT FOUND, hearts of palm -> NOT FOUND, nettle petal fresh -> nettle petal not fresh (tea)

Beurre blanc and beurre monté served burning on blancmange

As the recipe for beurre blanc states, it can't be reheated so I saved the beurres for assembly day. Blancmange though needs fridge time, so: followed the recipe, got really frustrated with american measuring units (I have a set of measuring cups / spoons, but guys, that's extra stuff I have to CLEAN. Just use a scale, for god's sake), and it turned out grainy because I don't own a cheese cloth but that's fine with me. Beurre blanc and buerre monté were easy enough, just followed the recipe (in american units. hmpf.)

Ensconced in: cream cheese, goat cheese, blue cheese, brie cheese, head cheese, soil

It's just a list of (mostly) cheeses, nothing special here. I made the "soil" out of oreo non-denominational cocoa cookies.

Swimmin in a ribbon of my liminally limited extra virgin olive oil

Just plain old olive oil. It wasn't a limited edition, which makes it liminally limited indeed.

Whipped chantilly meringue frosting

Decided that this meant that both chantilly and meringue were used (not a combination of both). So whipped chantilly (which is just cream with sugar, but I added a stabilizer to make it more - well - stable as it is a load bearing part of the cake) for the inside, and meringue frosting for the outside it is. Number of times I made sirup in the past two days: 3 - new personal record.

Bergamot and apricot and almond anise cardamom

Another case of no specified serving form, but it comes after the frosting, so I assume these are toppings. Bergamot orange was not available, and I learned only after the fact that apparently in France (?) this can also refer to limes (?), but I did find some bergamot lemonade. Soaked the apricots in it before they went onto the cake, and sprinkled some almond flakes and the spices onto it too.

And seven swans!

Yay some sculpting! Swans are easy to make out of fondant: Just roll a ball, then squish it into a somewhat elongated scallot form with a point to form the tail. Make a snake and place it at the dull end of your scallot, then bend it into the typical swan neck pose. Now squish the end of the head to form its beak. Some food coloring for the eyes and beak and we're done! For assembly purposes I staked them - otherwise the moisture from the blancmange would dissolve the fondant.

Can you tell I did not look up how exactly swans look like before making these? Eh, geese should be fine for this cake, too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A golden ring!

Those come premade:

It's topped with poppies picked in Oz

I really tried to find poppies, but somehow you can't buy them anywhere?? Even though they are pretty flowers? After store number three I gave up looking and just bought a plant that had the most similar flowers. Obviously this means that they are not from Oz either… (I lied to you in the video- shame on me)

(also: I'm living in a city. If I had been visiting my parents' house in the countryside, I'd have plenty of wild poppies, but alas… (not driving 2h just for accurate cake decoration))

Sugar gauze and puppy paws

Sugar gauze? Not quite sure what that is, but I figured that cotton candy would be close enough? And while "puppy paws" is not a name for cookies, Bärentatzen or Katzenpfoten ("bear paws" or "cat paws") are a thing here. Unfortunately the store didn't have any (outrageous, I know), so I opted for Katzenzungen ("cat tongues") instead (no way I'd do more baking for this thing). Cat tongues are close enough to puppy paws, right?

Blue moon goo

Next blue moon is still far away, so I just used "blue" as a color descriptor for the goo - blue curaçao is the obvious choice here.

Mountain dew

While mountain dew is available here I didn't find it at the store, so for the visual I used some green Fanta. (I thiiink I tried mountain dew once and didn't like it anyway, so it was better that way)

Schrödinger's cat

Guest appearance: My precious kitty baby meow meow (she's 19)

Outtakes

My fridge has never been this full, let alone so full with useless items:

Almost everything in this picture went into the cake.

And kitty apparently wanted in on the space time fuck:

There was like one (1) frame in a whole two minute video that I could use, the rest was just kitty taking the spotlight.