What?
The Magisso Cake Server (Lazyboneuk.com, £11.99), a hollow, enclosed gripping element with semi-rigid sides that can slice, pick up and deposit uniform portions of cake.
Why?
Cutting a victoria sponge with a knife is the definition of “a piece of cake”, but it’s not particularly stylish. This elegant contender is going to take care of that.
Well?
“The idea for the cake server came to designer Maria Kivijärvi while she was sitting and drawing on the rocks of Lake Näsijärvi in Finland.” This kind of detail, printed on the inside of the box, lets you know we are dealing with un peu de pretension. In fact, the box itself is the first clue: a matt white oblong, the front face of which is a magnetised flap, opening on to a viewing window. Inside, one gets a first glimpse of the Magisso Cake Server, plushly embedded in a suede berth. In outline it is an elemental swoosh, resembling an abstract painting of a whale or a wave.
I remove it from the casing, not sure whether I need to plug it into my computer via USB or worship it as a god. In the end I plunge it into a chocolate cake. It cuts with ease, which isn’t hard; it’s cake. A gentle grip secures the wedge and releases it just as reliably, standing up on the plate. It helps that my cake is firm – a softer or stickier cross-section will be more fiddly. But it works, and washing up is a doddle. I eat my cake, thinking about Kivijärvi on Lake Näsijärvi. The names are very similar. Does she own the lake? Can you own a lake? I understand how such conditions might lead one to develop a new martial arts philosophy or commune with the transcendental. What sort of mind decides to redesign the cake slice? There is very little wrong with a cake slice. But progress progresses, I guess.
Any downsides?
You can’t vary slice size! For health reasons, I only ever eat one portion of cake, so I like to make sure it is absolutely massive. Also, it costs £11.99. The unwieldy shape of the cake server makes storage annoying, too. But you are probably meant to keep it on a velvet pillow in its own room anyway.
Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard?
In the drawer, taking up the entirety of the “miscellaneous” compartment.
[“source-theguardian”]
