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Zbrush, Blender, CSP, more hours than intended. This was just supposed to be a little one-off spot illustration for the sake of my mental health and... well... oops? ^___^; Yes froge but good luck tryna find him. >8D

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The Cakeberry

The cakeberry, also known as the melonberry or meloncake, is a paraplant in the Sophyto Similytes clade known for its chewy, somewhat gummy, cake-like texture and strong watermelon flavor. Most parts of the plant are edible including the flowers, stems, bark, roots, seeds, and rinds. Cakeberries can be eaten fresh off the branch and their nutritive profile is quite robust, offering protein, fiber, essential fatty acids, and a number of other vital nutrients.

Shown here are several common preparations of the cakeberry.

Upper left corner: Fried cakeberries topped in choclamel with cream dip. This preparation is very sweet, a little tangy, and necessarily less nutritive as per the frying process, rind-stripping, and inclusion of extra sugar. Jerkied or sun-dried cakeberry flesh are much healthier, if less sweet, alternatives.

Top right: Pink-standard Cakeberry Tea. An immense variety of cakeberry teas can be brewed by using different parts of the paraplant in different combinations and ratios. The most commonly brewed are the pink-standard, green-standard, white-standard, standard-mix, white-moon, pink-moon, mallowflower, and summer day. The most popular tea is the flower-moon which is particularly tedious to prepare but results in an exquisite elixir with mild, non-addictive sedative, muscle-relaxant, and pain relief properties.

Right-middle: Cakeberry rind jelly. Cakeberry rind jelly is difficult to prepare and easy to botch but when done correctly, efforts yield a tangy, sweet, savory jelly thick enough to stand a spoon up in. Many other kinds of jelly can be prepared by using various other parts of the cakeberry plant in combination. Powderized cakeberry bark adds a mellowing and opacifying quality, the petals add a lovely aesthetic and a bittersweet tang, the flesh makes for a very sweet, strong flavored jelly, and stems, depending upon preparation, may add gumminess.

Right-bottom: Pink Swan. Cakeberry creams are easy and quick to make, delicious, nutritious, and require very few other ingredients with minimal prep-work. Pink Swan is the most popular cakeberry cream and requiring inner and outer bark layers, flesh, root, and flowers.

Bottom-middle: Cakeberry fruit patties with powdered sugar. When skinned and left to dry, cakeberry fruit flesh shrinks, gummifies, and will eventually raisin. The raisining process is often stopped midway to create thin patties which can be eaten plain, used as a dessert topping, fried, frozen, and more.

Left-center: Cakeberry rind crisps. The rinds can be baked or fried into thin, chewy disks that are very tart and often topped with frosting or dipped in cream.

Center: Cakeberries fresh off the branch. Cakeberries grow round but it is traditional to sculpt or mold them into little cake-shapes which is easy to do with one’s fingers as the flesh and rinds are pliant. Unripe cakeberries tend to be bluer in hue and have a markedly tart taste. The flowers are tangy, slightly bitter, and sweet while the leaves are mellow, dry, and papery. The stems are extremely chewy, bittersweet, and spicy with a strong presence of cinnamon-related compounds such as cinnamyl alcohol, cinnamyl acetate, and cinnamaldehyde.

Not pictured: Cakeberry bark. The outer layers of the cakeberry tree are a dark, plummy purple with white flecks and black craquelure. Inner layers are soft, white, fatty, and oily protecting the paraplant’s white organs. Outer bark layers are bland, earthy, and fibrous but have stomach-settling compounds that aid with heartburn and nausea. The soft inner layers and viscera are the only part of the plant not recommended for consumption.

Not pictured: Cakeberry root. Roots consist of a flakey, purple-black outer layer, a fatty white inner layer, and a core, all of which are highly nutritious and edible if not necessarily especially palatable. More commonly, compounds extracted from the roots are used in medicines, dyes, and lotions.

Not pictured: Cakeberry seeds. The seeds are large, white, and not especially tasty when eaten raw. However, much like tofu, cakeberry can be prepared and seasoned to produce a variety of dishes. A favorite use of the seeds is cakeberry milk which tastes much like strawberry milk but with a more watermelony bent.

Cultivars: There are several cultivars of the cakeberry which include:
- Spicecake: Cinnamony and gingery with a slightly drier texture.
- Mallowcake: Standard flavor but with a more marshmallowy mouthfeel.
- Bigboys: A much larger variety.
- Lilguys: A smaller variety.
- Bloodmoon: A variety notable for its abundance of deep ruby red juice.
- Tart Princess: A variety that is very tart and known for its lovely iridescent light blue sheen.
- Tart Queen: A variety so tart that various components can be used as an effective pest repellent.

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