The concept of a ball of sweet cake is actually not new. Donut holes, though the cake itself is only one or two basic flavors, come in yummy round balls glazed or coated with sweet toppings like chocolate glaze or cinnamon and sugar crumb. These, however, have pretty much stayed in the "breakfast pastry" realm of desserts with only a basic, but perfectly acceptable, quality of presentation and have never really moved beyond that category. But this is why a donut hole is a donut hole, and we love them just the way they are. This brings us to cake balls. Again, cake balls, like donut holes, are actually not a new concept, though the purpose of the cake ball then and now has changed. There is little to define the exact when and where of the cake ball's origin, but there is one thing that is clear: the original purpose of the cake ball was to use leftover cake. The leftover, and potentially stale, cake would be crumbed and rolled into balls with icing or some other binding ingredient, which makes it denser and typically sweeter than normal cake, and then coated with chocolate or other sweet exterior. Then, voilà! You saved the original cake by making it into something new! Ravensburger HistoryRavensburger Spieleverlag GmbH is a German game company and market leader in the European jigsaw puzzle market.
The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier with seat in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract. He started publishing instruction folders for craftsmen and architects, which soon acquired him a solid financial basis. His first board game appeared in 1884, named "Journey around the world".
At the turn of the 20th century, his product line broadened to include picture books, books, children’s activity books, Art Instruction manuals, non-fiction books, and reference books as well as children’s games, Happy Families and activity kits. In 1900, the Ravensburger blue triangle trademark was registered with the Imperial Patent office. As of 1912, many board and activity games had an export version that was distributed to Western Europe, the countries of the Danube Monarchy as well as Russia.
Before the First World War, Ravensburger had around 800 products. The publishing house was damaged during the Second World War and continued to produce games in the years of the reconstruction. The company focused on children's games and books and specialized books for art, architecture and hobbies, and from 1962 grew strongly. The company started to produce jigsaw puzzle games in 1964, and in the same year opened subsidiaries in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In 1977 the company split into a book publishing arm and a game publishing arm.
Today there are approximately 1,800 available books and 850 games as well as puzzles, hobby products and CD-ROM titles at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries, which include Alea for "hobby and ardent game players" and FX Schmid for games and children's books. Ravensburger products are exported to more than fifty countries.
In September 2010, Ravensburger broke Educa's record for the world's largest jigsaw puzzle of 24,000 pieces. Ravensburger's new puzzle design by late pop artist Keith Haring titled, 'Keith Haring: Double Retrospect' breaks the Guinness Book of World Records measuring 17' × 6' built from 32,256 pieces and comes with its own dolly cart for toting. |