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A very Cubitts cake

At Cubitts, we hold ourselves to lofty principles of design simplicity. But who doesn’t break the rules on their birthday?

Written by

Henry Whaley

For our tenth year, a cake was in order, and having no ovens, eggs or piping bags to hand (only the contents of a spectacle makers’ workshop) we played to our strengths. Here is a recipe for the Cubitts cake, though it may prove tricky to follow along at home.

Take a handful of colourful cellulose acetate sheets, and CNC cut them into shapes governed by your unbounded imagination. These are your ingredients.

Meticulously hand carve every piece to give the appearance of thrown-together cake decoration. Icing that appears to drip down the side, in fact the product of lengthy hours of meticulous filing.

Superheat sheets of recycled offcut acetate (the temperature is your best guess) and fold in a concertina pattern over the surface of the frame for piped details.

Use liquid acetone to laminate your acetate maraschino cherries.

Serve with candles. Do not consume. Do not start a fire. Simply enjoy its needless splendour.

Dripping in icing, the Cubitts acetate proudly celebrated a decade of spectacle making