Here’s the deal: Mario is a beautiful thing. Cake is also a beautiful thing. Let’s come up with a way to combine them… actually, we don’t have to, since YouTube cakestress Rosanna Pansino has already done that with her very fun Mario question block surprise cake (via ViralViralVideos).
Not only does it look exactly like you’d expect a question block cake to look, but there’s an interactive element to it. Pansino calls this a “piñata cake” because it’s hollow in the middle, so you can put whatever you want into it. She went with gold coins, which is fun and great, but we’re thinking a bit more devilishly: Throw some bitter mushrooms in there, in reference to the poison mushroom introduced in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Or, if you’re not a mean person, go with gold coins.The recipe for the cake itself is pretty standard: flour, cake flour, sugar, eggs, and all that jazz (find the recipe here). Pansino decided to make a lemon cake to match the flavor with the color, but you could do whatever you want with it; Maybe double down on evilness we alluded to above and bake some sort of mushroom cake, like a Chopped desert round from hell.
Structurally, the cake is made from six layers stacked on top of each other, the middle four being hollowed out to make room for whatever tricks/treats you decide to put inside. Watch the video yourself above and follow along, or if you’d rather have the recipe written out in front of you, find the detailed instructions here.
Featured image: Rosanna Pansino/YouTube