Birthday Cakes

## About

Jotaroesler's second cake, representing what all future cakes would become.

Birthday cakes are baked every year by the gang for their lucky friends! A lot of love and effort goes into baking the cakes, and for the most part the gang has been consistent at providing a cake for every birthday for the last several years. Every cake is might be different, but they all contain a proprietary amount of love.

## The First Cake

The first official birthday cake to ever be baked was done by the Spooky Skeleton Crew for Jotaroesler's birthday. While the intentions were good, our heroes refused to Google any instructions for baking and instead chose to dive in blindly, which resulted in a rather interesting concoction. Jotaroesler's cake was made in less-than-ideal conditions, one of which being the floor (as there was no table in the house). There were many cats in the house, and a few of their hairs accidentally made their way into the cake. The crew attempted to add various candies into the cake as well, but they learned the hard way that most candies simply burn to a crisp and sink to the bottom of the cake during the baking process.

The cake was delivered to Jotaroesler's classroom where the masses consumed it, and despite its few flaws it was generally well-received. The cake was also accompanied by allergen warnings, confetti, party hats, and balloons, including a handmade balloon dog by Troy.

## A Tradition is Born

The following year, the gang decided to make Jotaroesler another cake. They once again went all-out, wanting to make Jotaroesler's birthday extra special. The frosting for this cake was handmade by [REDACTED], including strands of her hair that got caught in it during the construction process. The cake was decorated with this purple frosting, which Erich arranged in the pattern of an "X." Once again the gang learned the difficulty of incorporating candies into the cake, and this time a few egg shells were added purposefully for comedic effect. While this cake was generally well-made, it again suffered from flaws due to the gang's lack of baking knowledge. This, combined with their purposeful addition of eggshells, would set a dangerous precedent for generations to come.

Another tradition that was born with this cake was the addition of cookie dough. Jacob is a big fan, so when they had to deal with a cake that was falling apart the obvious solution was to patch it together with cookie dough, which would then be covered by frosting.

## Skyway Birthday Bash

After baking several cakes for Jotaroesler, Drew and Jacob decided to bake a cake for their old pal James. Traditionally, a James birthday bash was guaranteed to go awry, but this time the gang wanted to do something special. Drew and Jacob got to work on the cake, and the malevolent energy that had been slowly seeping into the first two cakes finally began to crack through, as the two thought it would be funny to add caramel to the cake. The joke was that James does not actually like caramel. Got 'eem.

The cake was generally well-made, however the addition of caramel due to malevolent energy made it less than ideal. The cake was made with far too many layers, which caused it to collapse into a crumble. Drew and Jacob tried to hold it up with food spikes, but it wasn't enough against the sheer weight of the cake. The cake was good, but it was poisoned as James hated the caramel. This cake is what would truly begin the tradition of absolutely desecrating the sanctity of cake baking.

## Cupcakes

For Cale's birthday, the gang decided to prepare him some cupcakes rather than a traditional cake. Keeping with the theme of adding fun ingredients, the gang decided to add a few pickles to some of the cupcakes. It was a pretty innocent gag devoid of malevolency, however the reaction of Cale and several others made them chuckle. Adding pickles set the bar to add other non-traditional cake ingredients, and this would lead to disaster later on.

## Shrimp Cake

After a few years of making borderline-unacceptable cakes, the gang decided to adopt a new rule; if someone specifically asked for a birthday cake it would be rancid, but if not it would be made to the best of their abilities. The reasoning for this decision was because, like many of their scams, people began to think that they were owed a cake and began demanding them. Many people outside of the friend group asked why they didn't receive birthday cakes, and many people felt personally insulted that the gang did not go out of their way to provide them with one. Making a cake is labor intensive and financially expensive, so this was annoying to the gang. That said, rather than apply this rule to only outsiders, the gang decided to implement the policy across the board. That meant that when the Ringmaster requested a cake for a certain shrimp's birthday bash, the gang knew what they had to do.

The goal of this cake was to make it as gross as possible while still maintaining its edibility. Drew and Jacob became the masterminds behind this operation, deciding that they would make a cake that tasted "normal," but was actually made out of the most ludicrous ingredients. The duo enlisted the help of Daniel for this task, and together they took a trip to Publix. They purchased many ingredients, including a platter of shrimp and cocktail sauce. In the parking lot they also found a few dried and squished peppers, which they added to their grab bag.

While the true ingredients to this cake are recorded in a 20 minute long documentary (cut from hours of archival footage), the gang has sworn themselves to secrecy. They believe that revealing these ingredients will cause untold social damage, so they have vowed to never reveal them. That being said, a few of the ingredients have been made public, including the shrimp.

The shrimp were added, with Mountain Dew Code Red, into a blender and blended into a paste. This paste was used as a substitute for water with the cake mix for one layer of the cake. The Devil's Chocolate layer used cocktail sauce instead of water, and the funfetti layer used Sprite instead of water. Various other secret ingredients were added to each layer, and halfway through the night Joseph arrived to replace Daniel as he had to get home.

When this cake was finished it was delivered to the birthday bash, where it was consumed by a wide variety of people. Despite its absolutely rancid ingredients, the cake itself tasted fine; if anything it tasted like maybe the gang just wasn't good at baking. Some layers had a little bit of spice to them, but beyond that most people found it edible, eating it not to seem rude.

The cake was then given to some random people on the beach who were having a smoke circle. The evil drugs clogged their mind and when they questioned the spiciness of the cake the gang gaslighted them into thinking they were imagining it, and they consumed the rest of the cake.