Play Angry Birds on a Birthday Cake Platform

Angry Birds, a game that topped the mobile charts for quite a while and led to franchised toys, can now be played on a quite unusual platform: a birthday cake. As it has become a tradition in the family to have weird and ridiculous cakes, Mike Cooper from the Electricpig turned the Angry Birds game into an interactive cake for his son’s birthday. More accurately, Mike Cooper created a free-style level of the game, and he made a working and edible catapult which fires iced birds, and the nasty pigs. It took the creator-baker 10 hours to make the cake, and his kids managed to ravage it in about two minutes.

The video featuring the cake-game has already reached more than 1.5 million viewings. The cake caught the attention of Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, as well.

For those who want to re-create it, the cake’s “recipe” is presented in detail on the creator’s website. To start, the cake will need a solid base. The creator suggests a wooden plank, 6-8 inches wide and up to three feet long. The base should be covered in tinfoil, secured with tape.

The catapult should be placed at one end of the base, in drilled slots. Mike Cooper recommends that the slots should be drilled at a slight angle, so that the catapult leans a bit back for best firing results. After deciding how the custom-made edible Angry Birds level will look like, some Tunnocks Caramel Wafers will be used for doing the construction work.

The constructions should not be too high or too sturdy, in order to prevent them from falling over when taking aim with the catapult and also to make them easily smash-able. At the start of the construction work and designing of the level, a sketch would be useful when all the pieces need to be put together.

To make the birds and the pigs, Cooper kept a game level open on his mobile so he could refer to it. The forms were made from colored icing and powdered with flour so that they don’t get too sticky and difficult to manage. In order to glue the pieces together, the pieces will be stuck together with flour and water.

Ideally, all the pieces made of icing will be left outside overnight to harden. This way, the birds will be much more efficient ammunition, the pigs – solid targets, and the final decorative touches will be done with more ease since they will not be too squashy. When the pieces are hardened and easy to manage, the small pieces like beaks, eyes, and feathers will be easy to add. Mark Cooper suggests using marzipan for the tummy of the red bird, since it has the perfect color.

In order to make the ice and stones, white icing should be cut in small cubes and rectangles for the ice, and large squares and triangles for the stones. Stones should be painted on the edges with uncut black coloring for food, and with diluted black coloring in the middle. Blue food coloring should be used for painting the ice pieces at the edges, then with diluted blue draw diagonal lines oriented in the same direction to create the effect of ice.

The cake-maker should then bake a chocolate cake in a rectangular baking tray. Once the cake plates are baked, they should be cut according to the design and positioned on the tin foil covered base. This will help determine exactly which areas need to be covered with green icing – grass – helping to prevent waste.

The Tunnocks Caramel Wafers must be glued together with chocolate fudge Betty Crocker icing. To create the grass, Mike Cooper used Betty Crocker vanilla icing mixed with green food coloring. The green icing needs to be put in the previously marked areas with a spatula. The icing should be pulled and dabbed, so that it has the spiky look - a form that will be preserved as the icing hardens.

The cakes should be placed in their predetermined slots and covered with icing. Arches made of wafers should be wedged down as best possible, because they will topple at the smallest bump, and then placed in their positions, followed by ice and stone blocks.

Next, the pigs should be placed in fun and challenging positions, in order to keep the spirit of the game alive.All that’s left is to use the catapult in order to fire the iced birds at the pigs. The winners get a slice of chocolate cake.