How to Make a Cake in Minecraft

Guide Java Bedrock

Quick answer: Craft a cake from milk buckets, sugar, any egg and wheat. Place it on a solid block and use it to eat its 7 slices: 2 hunger and 0.4 saturation each, 14 hunger and 2.8 saturation for the whole cake. Once placed it cannot be picked up, even with Silk Touch.

What you need

3 milk buckets
2 sugar
1 egg (any type)
3 wheat

Step by step

Craft the cake: 3 milk buckets across the top row, sugar-egg-sugar in the middle row and 3 wheat across the bottom row (any egg works). The empty buckets stay in the crafting grid in Java and go to your inventory in Bedrock.
Place the cake on a solid block (a slab also works). Unlike most food, you cannot eat it from your hotbar.
Use it to eat one slice at a time, from the west side. A slice restores 2 hunger and 0.4 saturation.
There is no eating animation, so you can eat a slice per tick, and several players can eat from one cake. In Java it makes no sound.
Put any candle on an uneaten cake to make a cake with candle, then light it with flint and steel. It always drops its candle when broken.
Redstone: a comparator reads a whole cake as signal strength 14, which drops by 2 for each slice eaten.

Java vs Bedrock

Cake stacks to 64 in Bedrock but not in Java. Empty buckets stay in the crafting grid in Java and move to the first free inventory slot in Bedrock. A cake pushed by a piston breaks and drops nothing.

Versions: Describes the current Java and Bedrock releases. See the edition note above for differences.

Frequently asked questions

How much hunger does a cake restore?

2 hunger per slice, 14 for all 7 slices, but saturation is low (0.4 per slice, 2.8 total).

Can I pick a cake up after placing it?

No. It cannot be recollected, even with Silk Touch.

Can I eat cake from my hotbar?

No. You must place it on a solid block first.

Does cake breed pandas?

No. Some pandas move toward a dropped cake and eat it, but cake cannot be used to breed them.