It’s happened to all of us: You get an email from a coworker, click the link that says “Cutest video of cats dressed as humans ever!” then those hauntingly cheerful drums start up. You’ve been Rick Roll’d. At our office, my partner in Calendar crime, John Linn, is a key offender of such acts. When his birthday came around it was time to get even. I Googled some key words and found this article on Craft.zine about a Rick Roll birthday cake. Awesomeness. It was so on.
Real Cake
I baked a standard, double-layer, yellow round cake and frosted everything but the top with chocolate frosting. Since the top is really a canvass for the majesty of Rick Astley, I used a vanilla frosting and white-washed it. My buddy sketched out a cartoon Rick Astley from a You Tube freeze frame; my other friend and I cut it out and used it as a stencil/pattern for His Astley’s icing likeness.
Fake Cake
I was going to use a sturdy cardboard to construct the frame of the fake cake, but the craft store had hat boxes, that with my trusty 50% off coupon, were only three bucks – so hat box won out. Yes! It’s giant and oddly suspect, but nobody really believes that cake would ever lie to them. You should be fine.
I frosted it on-site. I did the sides with super gloppy German chocolate frosting; it was very forgiving texturally for hiding the secret agenda of Giant Cake. I did the top up like a regular cake and stuck candles in dollops of icing. We started singing, the music came on from my laptop, and I scrambled to get the lid off – that’s where things got sticky. I was grabbing so haphazardly that my hands were sliding all over the fiery fake cake. I had to blow out most of John Linn’s candles to avoid third degree burns before people put the music together with the odd cake grappling. But when it was removed and Rick Astley’s soulful frosting eyes were staring at us, it was well worth the slippery struggle. I made a keepsake B-day card out of the Rick Astley stencil. --Jamie Laughlin
Note from the Linn: As you might know, we here at the NT love us some Rick Rolling. But I was thoroughly caught off guard by this cake within a cake. When I first saw the monstrosity I thought, "My God! That thing's huge!" Little did I know its largest was simply the housing for my undoing. I'll never top this Roll - ever. Thanks to Jamie and the entire New Times crew who made it happen.
