Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A post about cake that is not on my cake blog?

Okay, backstory. Long time ago, I learned about a cake called torta tre monti, a cake from the Most Serene Republic of San Marino. From the Wikipedia article on the cake: "It is similar to other layered desserts common to San Marino, this one being representative of The Three Towers of San Marino."

I misinterpreted this sentence. You see, I thought it meant the torta tre monti actually resembled a geographical formation, like a topo map. That is an exciting prospect, because San Marino is a jagged, mountainous land, and a cake that looks like this would be pretty badass:

Source: http://brianakira.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/september-3rd-will-mark-the-1707th-anniversary-of-the-worlds-first-christian-state/

Tragically, that is not the case! The cake actually looks like this:

Source: http://www.laserenissima.sm/torta_tre_monti_caffe.asp

That is not a cool looking cake! It's probably tasty, but it's not topographical at all! Something had to be done. Something...excessive.





That is my torta tre monti, the result of four days of labor. It covers all of San Marino and a chunk of Italy that surrounds it. Each gradation is 20 meters higher than the one before it, with the highest one being 700 meters. I didn't get the lines from a geological survey or anything; I stitched together screenshots from Google Maps (terrain mode) and traced them by hand using my trackpoint mouse.

(That's a point of pride. I did all this with a trackpoint. You are not allowed to complain about my trackpoint use.)

Trouble is, I don't know what to do from here. If I want an actual topographical cake, how should I do it? I can make a negative image and mill that, to use as a cake pan; I could do the whole thing with a RepRap and a Frostruder; I could cut out wafers in the shape of each layer, and glue them together with chocolate, like in the original! I could also change what area I use for the actual cake! I could use the whole rectangle there, or just the boundaries of the nation of San Marino, or just Monte Titano. I could make so many cakes.

I'll supply the files to anyone who asks, by the way.