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This is the best way to cut cake for a big party

You will never cut a cake the same way again after checking out this ingenious method.
Cake-cutting cake
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/ Source: TODAY

Anyone who's ever been in the unlucky position of being the person to cut up a cake at a party, listen up: There's a simple new technique out there that you need to commit to memory, now.

Cutting up a cake in front of a hungry horde is stressful: It just never seems that you can slice thing thing quickly or evenly enough.

Enter this method, demonstrated by Australian self-taught baker and blogger Katherine Sabbath: Using no more than a knife and a cutting board, she is able to deftly slice a cake into basically 10 even servings at once.

I know, we can't stop watching it either, which is probably why the mesmerizing video has racked up more than 1.5 million views on Instagram. (Sabbath, by the way, is a former high school teacher who left the profession a few years back, after her social media account took off, thanks to the large following behind her cheerful, insanely creative desserts.)

It's a method that's been around for decades, Sabbath told TODAY Food, and pros frequently use it to serve wedding cakes.

She showed the technique on a round layer cake — you know, the kind that the rest of usually try to turn into triangle-sliced wedges, like a wheel of Swiss? Well, apparently, we were doing it all wrong: The key is to make rectangular slices out of a round cake. (Gasp!)

In the video, her friend is actually doing the slicing, and she is filming, which picks up about three slices into the cake's midsection (though you can cut that first rounded-edge slice the same way, she told us.)

Here's how it works:

  1. Hold a cutting board upright at at 90˚angle, against the side of the cake.
  2. Using a chef's knife, cut length-wise, parallel to the edge of the cake, so that you get one long rectangular piece.
  3. Guiding the slice with your knife, let it fall onto the cutting board, lowering the board as you finish slicing.
  4. Cut the long rectangular slice into even portions.

A bonus is that the portions you get from the cake are reasonable — though "you can always go back for seconds or thirds," she writes.

The person slicing even seems to be managing to carry on a conversation while doing the honors — and easily serves up cake for 10 in matter of seconds.

"This is how I've always cut all of my tall or wider-sized cakes," Sabbath told TODAY. "It's adaptable for any size serving and any type of cake."

As for placating a dozen five-year-olds who all want "a piece with Elsa's face on it," well, sorry, but good luck with that.

This post was originally published on June 27, 2017. It has since been updated.