Let There Be Cake

Of all the memes birthed by Portal, those involving the cake are easily the most infamous. “The cake is a lie,” has become a password to an elite club of sorts – a sign of kinship amongst those who enjoyed Valve’s critical darling.

When chatting with Portal 2’s writing team it became obvious that they won’t be resting on their comedic laurels – meaning, don’t expect the same jokes to be recycled. We’re sure you're ready for some new one-liners, anyway. So despite the fact that the cake may, in fact, be a lie, we couldn’t resist the chance to pay tribute to it as our month of Portal 2 coverage draws to a close.

Valve didn't go through any kind of rigorous cake tasting process or hold a cake survivor contest in order to determine which delicacy would make it into the game, it merely picked the best looking confection from a café near the company's headquarters.

(The infamous cake. Confirmed as delicious and moist.)

Since we were already in Redmond we took the opportunity to visit the nondescript bakery/Chinese café responsible for inspiring the team. While there, we tried a piece of the cake for ourselves and interviewed an unsuspecting employee to see if they were aware that their establishment had played an important role in creating the iconic meme. You can read her conversation with GI's own Ben Reeves below.

Ben Reeves: First of all what's the name of this restaurant?

Jane: The Regent Bakery & Café

Reeves : And what do you guys specialize in?

Jane: Cakes, buns, food – we serve food. And we have bubble tea.

Reeves: Bubble tea like–

Jane: Yeah, we have bubble tea, like with the little black things.

Reeves: So this is the official cake from Portal. How do you guys feel having a cake in a game?

Jane: We were surprised. We didn't know we had a cake in a game and then people came in and told us, “Did you guys know your cake is in a game?” and we were like, “What are you talking about?” So then Steve [the manager] and some of the other guys started to look online and saw what was going on. But we didn't know until people told us.

Reeves: What kind of cake is this?

Jane: This is a Black Forest cake.

Reeves: How would you describe it?

Jane: A layer of chocolate cake with cherry cream inside, then another layer of chocolate cake.

Reeves: So you would say it's delicious and moist?

Jane: Yes, again it's one of our more popular cakes

Reeves: So then is the cake a lie?

Jane: Huh?

Reeves: Is the cake a lie?

Jane: (confused) No.

Since the bulk of you probably aren’t able to make the pilgrimage out to Redmond to try a slice for yourself, we’ve dug up a recipe that you can prepare at your leisure. True, you can use the Easter Egg version hidden in lines of binary code, but that recipe calls for extra garnishes such as dirt, solid waste, ethyl benzene, and an assortment of fish-shaped artifacts. Click on the image below for the full sized version, which you can print and share as desired. Now you’ve got the perfect treat next time you have cause for celebration. Enjoy!

(Recipe provided by allrecipes.com)