We smell a rat!

Another day of student cake month competition and we were presented a tray covered with aluminum foil.  This seemed odd. We smell a rat!  It turns out we were right because upon revealing under the aluminum foil we found a big mother fr**** rat......rat cake that is!  Yes indeed the cute little critter is actually a strawberry red velvet cake with a cream cheese frosting that was skillfully shaped into a rat! Why a rat?  This is a research lab so technically it would be a lab rat.  In this case the model would be a Sprague Dawley or Fisher albino rat. These are the ones that are inbred so they are syngeneic.  If you don't know what that means google it.

Odd way to bring in a cake.

We knew we smelled a rat..thanks to our student baker!

Quite a cute looking thing!

A lab rat never looked so good...

...or so tasty!

The creator of this really did a great job and paid attention to detail.  In addition to the body that was primarily the cake, she used a mixture of marshmallow, sugar and red dye to make a candy like substance to form the extremities, ears, nose, and eyes. The tail was particularly authentic looking and a little disconcerting to those who get creeped out by rat tails anyway.  Anyone who has worked with these animals - or had them in their homes - knows they have a tendency to leave little droppings everywhere.  Well this guy was no exception except for the fact that the droppings were represented by chocolate chips.  Most thought it was clever and funny though a few were grossed out.

A real cutie!

The tail was a hit..

...and had the striations that make rat tails creepy!

The feet can be eaten too!

So can the droppings!

The last ingenious touch was in deference to the type of neonatal research that is done which involves expectant mother ratti. So this was actually a female rat and a pregnant one at that.  Inside the rat cake belly was a rat pup made of the same candy material as the tail attached to a placenta made out of a fresh strawberry. ( This may have been taking it a bit too far.)  Unfortunately the cake proved a bit too moist and stuck to the rat pup so it was difficult to see but kudos for creativity for sure!

Rat fetus and placenta in situ

Looks like a stillbirth to me!

Once we decapitated and chopped up the body it was time to consume. The cake was very good and strawberries with red velvet was a good idea. Whether this was supposed to represent the inside of the rat body we don't know but it was fresh, moist and delish!  The candy body parts were also fun to eat and it wasn't too long before there wasn't much left.

Three tiered body of strawberry red velvet!

Getting into the meat of the cake...as it were!

Body parts everywhere!

That's all she wrote!

To say the cake caused a sensation would be a bit of an understatement. The creator said she was going for five stars and there was no argument in giving out that award!  Congratulations to her for the effort and the superior cake artistry.  Now to anyone who thinks it might be a little unsettling cutting up a rat cake, during the discussion of this cake we came across the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1niqKEK465E

It turns out there are not just rat cakes out there!