Update: On July 14th, two days after posting I received an email from Ernő Rubik himself saying that he liked my cake. I guess the world is really a very small place.
‘ Thanks for the nice birthday surprise which sweetens the bitterness of passing time.’
Hungarian Ernő Rubik invented the Rubik’s cube in 1974. He was born on the 13th of July, 1944. Myself and my other half set about making a birthday cake, worthy of the great man himself. Battenberg cakes are constructed of rectangular pieces of alternatively coloured Victoria sponge cake, sandwiched together by jam and held together with walls of marzipan. We decided that the different pieces of cake could by dyed the traditional six colours of the Rubik’s cube – white, red, blue, orange, green and yellow. Then to make the cake a little more Rubik’s like, we decided to have each slice of the cake reveal a different combination of coloured squares, just like a Rubik’s cube. To achieve this, we cut the coloured rectangles of sponge into different lengths. This was definitely a case where I needed the engineering mind of my other half to figure out the maths of this cake. It took a little planning to get it right, however I think it might just be a worthy birthday treat. I’m not sure if Ernő has a sweet tooth but hopefully he might enjoy this puzzling cake.
