Anyone who's been to a birthday party knows how most people cut a cake — in v-shaped
wedges, kind of like a pizza. Although this method is tried and true, it has its drawbacks:
sticky crumbs can get all over the place, making clean cuts difficult. Plus, if someone
only wants a small piece, they're probably getting either too much frosting or not enough.
Talk about a party foul.
So how should you really be cutting your cake?
Food & Wine was tipped off to Australian baker Katherine Sabbath's method via her Instagram
account, and it's pretty ingenious. Sabbath's friend Julie begins by gently pressing a large
cutting board against the cake and then slicing it across horizontally before moving the long
piece onto the cutting board. From there, it's as simple as cutting the one big slice
into numerous smaller slices for the guests, giving them the freedom to have exactly as
much or as little cake as they desire. Then repeat the process as many times as you need
to in order to ensure that all your guests are served.
As creative as this method is already, it can be made even better by combining it with
another cake slicing hack: ditching the knife in favor of dental floss. According to Delish,
a simple piece of unflavored dental floss held tight will glide through that cake with
ease while also keeping the icing perfectly intact.
As new and revolutionary as ideas like this one might seem to the art of cake cutting,
dessert enthusiasts have been theorizing the perfect slicing pattern since long before
the Internet age. Why these methods have been largely ignored is a topic for another time,
but it's undeniable that there's more than one way to cut a cake.
"What am I doing? I'm eating cake!"
"No, no, no!"
"Cake! Cake! Cake!"
While Sabbath's method does provide the freedom to cut small slices of cake with minimal mess,
it has one big downside: a cake cut the way Sabbath suggests has a lot of its moist insides
left exposed to air, turning it dry and crumbly over time even when it's kept in the fridge.
So what's the best way to keep a cake fresh for days after you've already sliced into
it? The answer has been around for longer than you might think.
Way back in 1906, British mathematician Francis Galton decided that the rest of the world
needed to know the exact best way to cut a cake to maximize its potential freshness.
Writing in the science journal Nature, Galton, who had presumably eaten one slice of stale
cake too many, asserted that the traditional wedge method of cake cutting was, quote, "very
faulty." So what superior technique did Galton have in mind?
The first step of the Galton method is to cut a big slice right through the middle of
your cake. Galton then advised cutting across the big slice horizontally to your desired
thickness, much like the technique employed by Sabbath. Easy enough, right?
Once you're done with your big slice and ready to put the rest of the cake in the fridge,
simply push the two remaining halves together. Doing this prevents the air from drying out
the cake, keeping it just as moist and soft as when you took your first bite. If you want
to cut a second slice that isn't quite as long, just cut across the cake again, this
time perpendicular to your first slice in an x-shape, separating the cake into four
pieces of roughly the same size. Then, once you're finished eating, push the remaining
pieces back together until you're ready to slice again. You can even use a large rubber
band to hold the pieces together if you want to be extra sure.
So there you have it, not only can you now slice a cake more efficiently, allowing for
the perfect ratio of cake to frosting, but you can also use dental floss to make those
cuts as clean as possible. Easier cleanup and perfectly sliced pieces of cake in any
size that are always fresh? That sure sounds like a sweet deal to us.
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