In 2007, Valve Corporation released The Orange Box. It contained a bundle of three games to be played on either Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, XBox 360 or Playstation 3. Amongst them was the now legendary Portal, a puzzle and platformer game. Players had to guide the female character Chell through a series of chambers, where she had to overcome various hazards in order to proceed.
It was a darkly humorous, utterly absorbing and fun diversion, which became hugely successful; and at the heart of the game was a cake.
Portal: The Cake is a Lie
In the opening stages of the game, an electronic voice encourages Chell (and the player operating her) to solve puzzles. The prize will be a cake. More chambers are opened and the pace becomes more deadly, but there is not so much as a glimpse of the promised dessert. Finally Chell breaks out into a deeper level of rooms, where hidden messages on the wall warn her that 'the cake is a lie'.
The phrase has become an internet meme. People who have never even played Portal still smirk at the in-joke. It has entered the Urban Dictionary lexicon with the meaning of something promised, which is not delivered. Alternately, it can denote false hope.
But there was a twist! During the closing credits, the camera rushes down a metallic shaft and into a warehouse room. A flame can be glimpsed amongst the shelving. As our view encircles these walls, it becomes clear that we are seeing the fabled Portal cake. The cake wasn't a lie after all. We just couldn't easily get to it.
How to Present your Portal Cake
Knowing this background allows even the most gaming illiterate baker to stage an elaborate joke. A friend of mine once opened the closed cake box, in order to view his birthday cake. The box was empty with just a note inside. It read 'the cake is a lie'. The anticipated contents had been hidden in another room!
My nephew received a plain white cake for his 15th birthday party. His grandma had written the famous phrase on the top. It wasn't until four days later, when he wasn't expecting anything else at all, that he was surprised with another dessert. This was the Portal cake in reality. As his grandma placed it in front of him, she stated firmly, "The cake is not a lie!" The ensuing hilarity stemmed from the fact that she was not a gamer and, to the teenagers present, should not have even known the context. She gained a lot of kudos with that act.
Baking and Decorating the Cake from Portal
The decoration is the all important aspect of recreating the cake from the game Portal. It is a two-tiered chocolate cake, covered in chocolate flakes. Eight cherries, nestling in a blob of cream or icing, lie in a circle around the top, while a single candle stands alight in the centre. Fans have traditionally interpreted this as a Black Forest Cake.
An alternative is to use a simple Chocolate Layer Sponge instead. The less adventurous could buy a plain chocolate cake, while everyone else bakes their own. All that is required now is the appropriate decoration, in order to turn your plain sponge sandwich into a Portal cake.
Decorating a Chocolate Sponge Portal Cake
Ingredients:
- 8 ounces icing sugar
- 4 ounces butter or margarine
- 1 level tablespoon of cocoa powder
- Boiling water
- 8 cherries (real or glacé - you are recreating pixels here, so there's no right or wrong choice)
- Chocolate flakes (I substituted two bars of Cadbury's Flake, bashed up in their packets before use)
Utensils:
- Mixing bowl
- Small bowl
- Wooden spoon
- Teaspoon (for cocoa)
- Mug or cup
- Sieve
- Gold cake board (scissors, if it's not the right shape)
- 1 birthday cake candle and holder
Directions:
- Prepare your gold cake board. Its Portal counterpart was round with wide wavy edges. If your board is square or round, then you will have to use scissors to cut it into the exact pattern.
- Place your chocolate sponge cake onto it.
- Put one level tablespoon of cocoa powder into a mug or cup.
- Stir in a small amount of boiling water until the cocoa is a paste.
- Leave the cocoa paste to cool.
- Add 4oz of butter or margarine to a mixing bowl.
- Whisk or beat the butter until it is creamy.
- Sieve 8oz of icing sugar into the butter mix, then stir them together.
- Place a couple of spoonfuls of the mixture into another bowl. (This will be used to fix the cherries onto the top later.)
- Add the cocoa paste into the main mixing bowl.
- Mix the contents of the bowl until it's all merged into chocolate coloured, creamy butter icing.
- Paste the butter icing over the top and sides of the chocolate sponge cake.
- Sprinkle the chocolate flakes generously over the whole cake. (Covering the sides can be tricky. Just gently tilt it, using the board, then slowly turn the cake, as you sprinkle the flakes around the sides.)
- Take the plain white butter icing and place 8 splodges of it around the outer edge of the top of the cake.
- Place a cherry onto each of the blobs of white butter icing.
This effectively recreates the Portal cake. I recommend letting it stand in the refrigerator for an hour or two. The butter icing is so creamy that it would benefit from firming up before serving, but this is a matter of personal choice.
The final element is to place a birthday candle, in its holder, into the centre of the top of your Portal cake. This should be lit before your presentation is made. For true authenticity, you should then rent out an inaccessible warehouse and place the cake completely out of reach, but that might be going just a little too far.
Enjoy!
Jo Harrington - Jo has a BA (Hons) in History and Philosophy and a MA in History. She has a book published on the history of Wicca.
