If you've been a part of the online community during the last year or so then you know what it means to be Rick Rolled. Someone sends you a link, but when you click on it, instead of being directed to the site you thought you'd see, you are treated to Rick Astley singing his hit, Never Gonna Give You Up. It's a trend that has touched every corner of the internet, including our foodie world. Case in point, the "Rick Rolls" we brought you a few months ago.
Now the infamous Rick Roll has arrived in the form of a birthday cake. Papersatan over at Instructables made one for her boyfriend's birthday recently, and she has given us all step-by-step instructions on how to make one at home.
The cake is pretty simple, but you will need some icing colors and piping tubes to make it happen. For the most part, all the necessary ingredients are simple and inexpensive. Happy Birthday!
P-tooey! Watermelon would be perfect if not for those pesky seeds.
Luckily, Instructables provides a great tutorial on how to remove most (key word: most) of the seeds from your average watermelon. It's easy and quick, with no fancy tools needed.
Or, if you're feeling ca-razy, you could inject your watermelon with a pre-mixed martini (yes, you'll need a syringe - it's a little creepy, but worth it), let it chill for an hour, and indulge in some alcoholic fruit. Just keep it away from the kids.
When I clicked on this Instructable for bacon placemats, I imagined the poster, Trebuchet03, singing an alternate version of Sammy Davis Jr.'s The Candy Man while creating this edible tabletop accessory."Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with cracklin'? The meaty man can cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good. Forget those nasty transfats; you can even eat the placemats."
Enough of my lame attempts at songwriting. As you've probably figured out by now, these are no mere scratch-and-sniff bacon placemats. They're actually made out of 100 percent porcine goodness. The bacon is woven together in a six-by-six lattice and baked for about 20 minutes. The poster was sure to include "hunger for bacon" on the list of ingredients. The folks over at Instructables seem to have a bit of a thing for bacon. A while back someone posted on how to make bacon soap. [via Serious Eats]
Thanks to an Instructable I now remember why and how Han Solo was encased in carbonite. I should also presumably know how to make a dark chocolate bar that resembles the smuggler after Jabba the Hutt encased him in carbonite. I say should because I'm not sure whether I'm handy enough to make the mold.
That said, Chris Koehne provides three relatively simple steps. The first is creating the mold itself using food-grade silicone, the second is melting and pouring the chocolate and obviously the last is removing it from the mold. Koehne made the chocolate bar as a gift for his brother. He's yet to announce any plans to make a chocolate Jabba the Hutt. [via Neatorama]
I don't know how I missed this wonderful geeky Thanksgiving project over at Instructables. I'd like to think that Martha Stewart is jealous of Turkey tek's 20-sided pecan pie, but I'm not so sure. Last time, I checked she doesn't use metal shears or high-strength magnets in any of her domestic projects.
Given that I'm a geek at heart (yes, this thing reminds me of the dice from Dungeons & Dragons) and that I didn't have any pecan pie for Thanksgiving I'm certainly jealous. The fascinating step-by-step instructions include photos of a schematic, a paper model and the details of the construction of the polyhedral pastry. Sadly they do not include a recipe, but my impression is that constructing the icosagonicosahedron was more of a challenge than baking the 20 triangular pecan pies.
No this isn't a picture of some freaky '80s inspired outsider art, but it could be. It's from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories' step-by-step tutorial on how to cook your own papadum with pictures over at Instructables.
Apparently making the crispy Indian wafers at home is a breeze. Just pick up some at your friendly neighborhood Indian grocery store. The store these folks go to offers two choices, scary bunny and plain package. Oddly enough, the ones in the plain package are spicy.
Before they're cooked, papads are thin and crunchy. When I was in college I didn't know you had to cook them so my buddies and would use them like tortilla chips whenever we had our lime pickle eating contests. Had I only known how easy they are to cook, just place them right over your gas burner and be prepared to quickly flip.
Continuing with the industrious, DIY-style posts of a few days ago, here's a Make post with instructions for a meat dehydrator made from a milk crate. Of course, there are a few other components, like a PC fan, t-shirts, some bicycle inner tubes, and some sleeping pad foam. Amazingly enough, I think I have all of that stuff around my house. Not all of it is technically mine, but who would care about their useless bike and an overheated computer when they've got fresh jerky? Coincidentally enough, the Make page links back to the culinary commandos at Instructables. Thankfully, they're still using their skills for the forces of good, or at least jerky.
After I found the cooking with your car engine photo-tutorial on Instructables, I did a little more browsing around and found something even more, um, impressive. Yes, this is a recirculating fountain brimming with "a gushing torrent of delicious, piping hot gravy." Roughly 10 gallons of it. What's more, the fountain uses peristaltic action to move the gravy, just like us. Yep, a series of moving rollers pushed that gravy from a stockpot in the base, through a rubber hose and up to a tasteful silver bowl. There's even a video clip of the fountain in action. It's surprisingly loud. Gravy and plywood: always a winning combination.
If you've been a part of the online community during the last year or so then you know what it means to be Rick Rolled. Someone sends you a link, but when you click on it, instead of being directed to the site you thought you'd see, you are treated to Rick Astley singing his hit, Never Gonna Give You Up. It's a trend that has touched every corner of the internet, including our foodie world. Case in point, the "Rick Rolls" we brought you a few months ago. 
When I clicked on this 
Thanks to an 
I don't know how I missed this wonderful geeky Thanksgiving project over at 
No this isn't a picture of some freaky '80s inspired outsider art, but it could be. It's from 
Continuing with the industrious, DIY-style 
What Can I Get You Folks? - Eating Out for Thanksgiving
In Defense of Guy Fieri
'Top Chef Vegas' - And Then There Were Five
