The Knife Technique For Perfectly Cut Cake Every Time

A piece of cake is a common colloquial phrase for a task that's incredibly easy breezy, but if you've ever been the one at a party in charge of slicing the cake, you know getting an actual piece of cake without mangling it can be anything but. Securing the ideal homemade celebratory cake or springing for a professionally decorated store-bought birthday cake from Costco or your local bakery is no small feat. The last thing you want to do is ruin the beautiful culinary creation with a jagged slicing technique that smooshes the cake, crumbling layers or causing the icing to slide off. 

Luckily, you don't need more than a basic knife and a simple trick up your sleeve to ensure you get a perfectly clean slice each time, whether you're dealing with a simple boxed mix cake or a delicate, many-layered creation. For a beautifully clean, never crumbly or smeared slice, just heat up your knife under running hot water from the sink before cutting into the cake. This is a foolproof way to ensure a clean slice each time — all it takes is a few moments to hold your knife under running water to heat the metal enough to glide through whatever type cake you're serving up. Wipe off excess water so you don't end up with a soggy cake, then cut through the cake once, and repeat as you work your way around the whole cake.

A specifically made cake knife is great if you have one, but no need to go out and buy anything specific for cake-slicing purposes — this tip is all about technique, not tool. Having said that, many find a serrated knife (the kind you'd use to slice tomatoes) the best pick for the job, but if you're like many home cooks who have one basic chef's knife you've splurged on, that will certainly do the trick as well, especially when it's heated up. 

The hot water warms the metal blade, allowing it to effortlessly glide through the cake and icing without dragging or snagging. You'll need to repeatedly heat your knife if slicing a whole cake, so you can either opt to hold the knife under running water from the kitchen sink, or you can keep a container of warm water nearby for less back and forth.

Once you've sliced through to the bottom of the piece, retract your knife gently and smoothly, and go in with a cake server to pick up the piece and deposit it on plates. Attempting to scoop the piece of cake out with the flat side of a knife can ruin all your hard work. With this tip in your toolbelt, securing the perfect piece of cake really is as easy as, well, you know the line.