Cast Cake

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If you have a sweet tooth, this will be a good one for you. Hanayama's latest offering is a sweet beauty, the Cast Cake. Designed by Bram Cohen, who also designed two of the most beautiful puzzles in the Cast series, the Cast Marble and the Cast Galaxy, the Cast Cake may not be as impressive-looking as its predecessors, but its concept is just as ingenious.

With a quarter of its circumference "eaten", the Cast Cake is comprised of three identical layers. These layers can rotate independently from each other, although rotating them may prove to be a difficult task for someone with sausage fingers, since the puzzle is very small (4.1cm in diameter = 1.6"). The whole puzzle is made of a metal that looks like bronze, but aesthetically I reckon it would have been nicer to see some contrasting colors, like we've seen before with other Hanayama puzzles. Other than that, the puzzle looks pretty enough.

As you may suspect, the goal in the Cast Cake is to remove its three layers from the outer frame. You won't be able to remove them all at once, so you have to find a way to do it in a sequence. I couldn't come up with a strategy other than using simple trial and error while rotating the discs back and forth. It may not be an optimal solution, but it does get the job done.

Hanayama rates the Cast Cake as a level 4/6, and while having a hard time with it, I do think it's an appropriate rating, which is not without surprise, since Hanayama does tend to miss the mark when it comes to properly classify their puzzles in terms of difficulty level. Putting it back to its original position is way easier, since you can see the grooves on the pieces and how they fit together.

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Solution: If you get stuck, you download a solution guide here.

Closing Comments:

Being designed by Bram Cohen, my expectations towards the Cast Cake were completely fulfilled and I wasn't disappointed. Sure, the design could've used a couple of different colors, but that's merely a matter of taste and opinion. I can easily recommend this one to anyone interested in Hanayama puzzles.

Availability: You can find the Cast Cake along with the whole Hanayama collection at PuzzleMaster.