I have many fond memories of playing The 7th Guest, while conveniently forgetting all the reasons why this game drove me crazy (looking at you bishop puzzle). Originally released in 1993, this was peak CD-ROM horror game technology of the day. Complete with puzzles that were both challenging, infuriating and…delicious? The cake puzzle is one of the easier puzzles from the early stages of the game.
If you want to know how to solve the “impossible” cake puzzle AND witness some fantastic acting, this clip is highly recommended. If you don’t feel like watching the clip, the puzzle solution is that each cake slice must include two headstones, two skulls and one blank cake piece and those pieces must touch on at least one side.
While I never had trouble solving this puzzle, I ran into a few issues when making this cake. First, I couldn’t find gravestone candies anywhere. Second, I wanted to make the cake long enough to fit all the toppers, but not nearly as thick as the cake appears in the game. Why? Look, there was a time when I could take my terrible baking to the office and people would eat it. “Oh, weird random Halloween cake!” But I can’t do that right now and I really don’t need to eat an entire giant sheet cake by myself.
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup freshly hot coffee
Buttercream Frosting
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
- 5 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Green food coloring
- 12 Skull and 12 Gravestone Candies
Directions
Preheat oven to 350º F and line a 13 x 9 cake pan with butter. Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda to a stand mixer. Next, add softened butter, milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to the flour mixture and mix together on a medium setting until well combined. Reduce speed to low and add hot coffee to the batter until everything is mixed well. Pour batter into greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 10-15 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely before frosting.
In a stand mixer whip softened, room temperature butter for about 5 minutes. Then slowly, and on lower speed, add the powdered sugar. Continue adding until all the powdered sugar is well incorporated. Then add the vanilla extract. Finally add the green food coloring, a few drops at a time, until desired green color is achieved. Top cake with 12 skull candies and 12 “grave” candies.
Look, I know the cake looks kind of derpy. It’s not one of my best and really, as history has shown, my cake making is pretty hit or miss to begin with. If you’re wondering, the “gravestones” are actually gummy witch heads. Also, I couldn’t get any of these candies to stand upright without destroying the cake…so I settled for placing them flat. It’s weird, the whole time I was making this I heard this flamboyant male voice in my head “bet you thought this was going to be a cake walk, mwahahaha”. I’m sure it’s nothing.
Cromulence: 8 I Was Tad The Whole Times out of 10
Cake Puzzle from: The 7th Guest