Sandwich Monday: The Pizza Cake

By Peter Sagal / NPR

Published September 29, 2014 at 9:05 AM PDT

This story was published more than 10 years ago.

Pizza Cake is great for parents who want to get the birthday party they're hosting overwith as soon as possible.

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Before taking his first bite, Ian once again experiences "pregret."

Mike realizes he's discovered the true meaning of cheesecake.

Pizza Cake broke Kelsie's fork. Unfortunately, the NPR Internship Program gives one plastic fork to each participant, to last the entirety of their internship.

I generally don't like cake, because it is too sweet, too bland in texture, and doesn't have enough pork products. So I was excited to see this recipe pop up on Buzzfeed.

I happened to have the main ingredients at hand — dough, sauce, pepperoni, cheese and existential despair, so I set to work. Turns out, it's a little more complicated than Buzzfeed made it seem. (And they call themselves journalists?) I couldn't find the right pan, and I didn't have enough dough to make the side crust, which I couldn't figure out how to line the pan with anyway. ... Well, the final result is below. It's less a cake than it is a bunch of pizzas that decided to stack together so as to be less of a target.

Miles: I'll take mine with a scoop of garlic bread ice cream.

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Eva: I like that I'm able to eat six slices of pizza while still technically only eating one slice.

Peter: What do we have for dessert? Salad pie?

Ian: I like the concept of just stacking up food till it gets to my face, so I don't have to use utensils or move.

Eva: In the classic tale, the princess and the pizza, the princess couldn't feel the pepperoni under all the layers of pizza because she ate it.

Miles: The middle is so soft, I imagine this is what eating pizza is like for a baby bird.

Ian: It's nice, because the top layer burns the roof of your mouth, and then the next layer comes up and burns it some more --

Miles: And then the next layer cauterizes the wound!

Eva: You can see all the layers of pizza time here — pizsaurassic, pizzozoic, etc. Turns out my degree in pizzarchaeology wasn't a waste after all.

Miles: I'm excited to see Buzzfeed's newest list: 39 Outdoor Activities You Can't Partake In Because You Ate PizzaCake.

[The verdict: It's not exactly (how much you like pizza) x (number of layers), but it's pretty fun. As Miles pointed out, you lose any crispiness of crust that you'd get in a conventional pizza, but the obscene amount of cheese you're eating makes you forget about that pretty quick.]

Sandwich Monday is a satirical feature from the humorists at Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!