Cake

Cake is a solid block used as food, and appears as a sponge base topped with white frosting and glazed cherries. It is the only edible block - all other food items must be held in the hand and right-clicked to consume them. Cake cannot be eaten while being held - it must be placed on a suitable block first.

Cake consists of six slices in total, and a slice is removed each time the cake is used (by right-clicking). More than one person can eat parts of the same cake. Breaking the cake block or the block underneath it will destroy the cake and not return anything.

Each use of a cake restores, and it may be used up to six times for a total of.

Crafting
After the cake is crafted, the three milk buckets are replaced with empty buckets, allowing the player to reuse the buckets. The Achievement "The Lie" is also rewarded the first time cake is crafted.

Since Minecraft 1.2, the empty buckets go straight into the player's inventory rather than in the same slot as the buckets of milk were in the crafting table.

History
Notch stated if Minecraft won the 2010 Indie of the Year Awards, he would add cake to Minecraft. When he earned the title it was added on 13 January 2011, in the Beta 1.2 update.

Cake used to heal before the Adventure Update, but now it fills.

Advantages

 * Since cakes can be used repeatedly in SMP, they can be shared by several players.
 * Despite its complexity, cake is technically a renewable resource.
 * Cake can be eaten instantly without any eating animation and without switching the currently selected item.
 * Cake restores six units of the hunger bars.

Disadvantages

 * Cake requires several different items to craft - sugar, wheat, chicken eggs, and three buckets of milk. As such, it takes some time to make a cake.
 * Once cake is placed it cannot be retrieved.
 * If you only eat part of a cake, you'll have to come back to that exact spot to eat the rest of it later on.
 * Cake does not stack, so you will be unable to carry much of it without sacrificing a large amount of inventory space.

Achievements
A cake must be made in order to complete "The Lie" achievement. The name is a reference to the internet meme "The Cake is a Lie", which originated from Valve's game, Portal.

Bugs

 * Placing a cake on a piston's wooden surface and then extending or retracting the said piston will make the cake disappear.

Trivia

 * Placing a cake makes the same sound as placing wool.
 * When placed on pistons (piston must be redstone-repeatered) it can move items that the player drops or fired from a dispenser.
 * Cake makes no sound when eaten.
 * When cake is placed on ice, walking on the cake will let you slip and slide as if you were standing on the ice, like other half-blocks.
 * Cake, like all transparent blocks, will not prevent chests from opening beneath it.
 * It is possible to place cake on top of cake by placing a cake on the ground, then placing another cake on the side of a block above and to the side of the first cake, similar to placing torches on a chest. Eating the lower cake completely will cause the upper cake to disappear, same as mining out the block of cake it is sitting on.
 * Placing cake on a half-block will cause it to 'levitate' as if it had been placed on a normal block.
 * Since cake is only 7/8 blocks wide, it is possible to stand on the edge of a block beneath a cake. It is possible to perform this using a cactus as well, but it is not recommended since physical contact with cacti causes the player to take damage.
 * Cake cannot be destroyed by Lava or Water.
 * Cake can destroy falling sand if placed under the sand, similar to a torch.
 * Cake exists in two instances: as a block, and as an item. The item is what you receive when crafting, and does not stack. The block can be obtained through inventory editing or using the pick block tool in creative and 64 can be stacked, like all other blocks.
 * Cake is rectangular but in the inventory looks circular.
 * Cake currently holds the record with Pistons for having the most complex crafting chain and recipe in game, requiring 9 separate items to be crafted in order to make it, as well as 4 different items to make the cake itself.
 * Cake vanishes when a piston extends into the block where the cake is.
 * Cake has a damage value range of 0-15, but the only way to obtain 7-15 is via a map editor.
 * When the damage values of 7-15 are placed in a map, the cake becomes negative in appearance.
 * It is impossible to stand on a cake block with a damage value of 12 or above. This is because the 'negative' cake block requires the player to be in contact with both edges of the block simultaneously.
 * Cake with damage values of 7-15 can still be eaten, but will only fill one hunger icon before disappearing.
 * You can place cake on top of a bed, and while sleeping, the cake shows on your screen as if it were on top of your head.
 * Cake is thinner than a slab, and thus is usable with fences and a piston loop to make a walkway.
 * If the player presses the Pick Block key in creative mode and selects a cake that is already placed, the player will have the actual cake block in their hotbar. It appears like the cake the player places on the ground, rather than the round cake when the player crafts one. The cake block will still act like normal cake when placed.