Violet was taken aback. She'd never really seen anyone decorate a cake, except for house-elves, and they'd done it all with elf-magic. She didn't really remember noticing any cake that much, except for how it tasted when she ate it. Then she remembered a cake she'd seen several years ago in the window of a New York deli. "I saw this cake once. It was rather a tall cake, with chocolate frosting, rather plain on the outside, but the really unique part was the inside. The cake had had a piece cut out of it and laid to one side on a small plate, so that the onlookers could clearly see the cake's inside. It had been made of many, many thin layers--16 of them.' (Violet had stood there and counted them). "The layers were chocolate and white, alternated one after the other and with custard or red filling in between each one. It looked splendid!"