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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The laziness and/or genius of humans rose to a whole new level after two Harvard students invented a cake that sprays from a can.
John McCallum and Utah native Brooke Nowakowski were both students at Harvard when they created their fast-and-ready dessert. McCallum came up with the idea as his final project during his freshman-year Science and Cooking class, according to Time magazine.
McCallum turned to the concept of how a can of whipped cream works — he used an accelerant mechanism that releases air bubbles inside the batter, so baking soda and baking powder aren't needed. Once the batter is sprayed into a cupcake tin or cake pan, the dessert can be cooked in the microwave for 30 seconds to one minute and — voila! — ready-to-eat cake.
Now, McCallum and Nowakowski are hoping to patent “Spray Cake.” They also recently released a YouTube video to help market their product.
McCallum was excited to have a creative idea for his lab project, but his now-girlfriend, Nowakowski, said she thought the idea had a lot of potential.
“He was just like, ‘Cool. Lab project,’ ” Nowakowski told the Boston Globe. “But I thought it could go somewhere.”
The students won $10,000 for their invention in the Harvard College Innovation Challenge on April 7, according to The Harvard Crimson. McCallum told the school newspaper that the money enabled their product to become “a solid and prepared business.”