The folks over at Gizmodo brought our attention to something that sounds altogether strange today, even after pondering the concept for a moment. A student at Harvard has apparently become the first person to invent a cake batter that is available via aerosol can.
The 20-year-old discovered that the accelerant in aerosol cans could replace the baking soda and powder in the equation of what makes cakes rise. Now, with bubbles serving in place of those baking staples, we’re able to simply spray out our next baked good the next time we’re in the mood.
John McCallum in the process of patenting his Spray Cake so we one day will see it on dairy section shelves, but there are a few kinks to work through. Honestly, the product seems interesting and it will be great to have a professional get on board with his idea and do it justice, because right now his marketing pitch video (which features a man pulling a cake pan out of an oven with a thin paper towel -COME ON-) explains:
“Spray Cake is a novel innovation in cuisine that brings baking into the twenty-first century, allowing students, families, and anyone who wants to enjoy fresh-baked good to do so at home without the hassle and expense of traditional preparation.”
By traditional preparation, do you mean people making cakes from box mixes? Because that’s where the majority of Americans stand on the “homemade” baked goods debate. For people who actually do make their cakes from scratch, they do that by choice, with little or no regard for “hassle or expense” because that experience is far more valuable to them than the unemotional act of spraying food into a container and microwaving it for others to consume. Yes, you can microwave your aerosol can cake.
The batter-to-pan ratio also likely needs work. The demonstration video also highlighted a few “after” shots of the product once it came out of the oven. The cake batter that had been cooked in a ramekin looked pretty passable, but the one that was in a 9”x9” pan had the color and density of an undercooked pancake.
The product hasn’t made it out of his dorm room demonstrations yet, so the ingredient list isn’t readily available, but the method of delivery absolutely lends itself to people spraying entire cakes into their mouths at once, so we’re hoping eggs don’t play too heavily into the equation.
In a world that is increasingly health-conscious, do you think this product will still succeed perhaps if only by novelty alone? Would you bake yourself (or perhaps consume straight from the cake) a Spray Cake?