Comments on: Cake Wrecks

Cake Wrecks

kolophon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:57:07 -0800

Cake Wrecks. "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong." [via]

By: desuetude

desuetude — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:03:10 -0800

I giggled. I admit it.

By: jbickers

jbickers — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:06:44 -0800

All they need is for some woman to fart on them.

By: martinX's bellbottoms

martinX's bellbottoms — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:15:52 -0800

I'm sure they all still tasted fine.

By: kolophon

kolophon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:16:16 -0800

I wasn't sure if I should post it here. Not the best of the web, but I think it's on par with the awsome tattoos, so... "All they need is for some woman to fart on them." erm, is this a reference to a film that i'm missing?

By: DU

DU — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:19:13 -0800

I'm sure they all still tasted fine. They are professional cakes. They tasted like ass. With frosting.

By: maurice

maurice — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:20:01 -0800

I didn't see this one (discussed here.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:22:30 -0800

"All they need is for some woman to fart on them." erm, is this a reference to a film that i'm missing? He's refering to this.

By: sonic meat machine

sonic meat machine — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:24:55 -0800

The best cakes I have ever had were hideously ugly homemade cakes with unevenly applied icing and a deliciously moist interior.

By: elfgirl

elfgirl — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:26:16 -0800

The poo cake, complete with flies, disturbs me.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:26:52 -0800

They are professional cakes. They tasted like ass. With frosting. Homemade cakes taste so much better than bakery cakes. Indeed, it's the rare professional cake that doesn't taste like frosting and gypsum board. What happened to bakeries that they can continue to put out this kind of awful crap?

By: nudar

nudar — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:32:24 -0800

Marie-Antoinette shoulda clicked on these before she opened her mouth

By: xchmp

xchmp — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:35:39 -0800

There's a bizarre exchange on this post on the blog, in which the author and a commenter both seem to be under the impression that a graphic (if cartoony) image of a woman giving birth (depicted in fondant) is something that would cause "an unprecedented spike in cake orders from teenage males the following week". Which means that we share this world with people who believe that teenage boys like nothing better than to have the idea of sex linked to disturbingly anatomical details of birth and then mixed up with the sugary deliciousness of cake.

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:38:58 -0800

This one's great. Reminds me of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "Beloved Aunt"

By: kolophon

kolophon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:40:31 -0800

"He's refering to this. posted by homunculus at 1:22 AM on July 23 " oh good grace. Well, one reason not to go through all the deleted fpp's despite the tempting greasemonkey script. "I didn't see this one (discussed here. posted by maurice at 1:20 AM on July 23" You can see it by clicking on "older posts" on the bottom of the page. I think the best ones are hiding there.

By: aerotive

aerotive — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:42:14 -0800

How is ultracreepy babbycake formed?

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:44:32 -0800

Usually I'm all for mocking failure and inadequacy, but there's a certain quality, which I can't quite put my finger on, to the writing here that makes me feel like the author is an unpleasant person. That commenters are told to write 'sh*t' rather than 'shit' in their discussion of the shit-cake doesn't help.

By: shokod

shokod — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:46:06 -0800

Not that I could do better, but this one made me giggle all over.

By: DU

DU — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:51:53 -0800

...it's the rare professional cake that doesn't taste like frosting and gypsum board. Even the frosting on some of these store-bought cakes can be pretty awful. I'm not a food snob, but even I shudder when I see one of these show up in the kitchenette at work. They taste like failure, served on a tiny, paper plate.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:52:53 -0800

Hey, that fart-cake is Ray's fetish.

By: MsCoco@6:58

MsCoco@6:58 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:53:03 -0800

where can i get a blowfish cake? it's incredible! it's like someone was actually on blow when they created it. it's genius! i wonder if it actually tastes like fish too? and the steak cake...wow...

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:55:42 -0800

Damn. I really want cake now.

By: tinkertown

tinkertown — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:56:03 -0800

I'm no health nut but we always make cakes at home since most of the retail bakeries seem hell-bent on adding hydrogenated oils and 75 different emulsifiers, preservatives, and additives. This is true even of the small-town bakeries / cake shops in the last town I lived in. I actually would be curious to know how common it is to find cakes with SUGAR, EGGS, FLOUR, BUTTER (or non-hydrog. veg. oil for economy) and not much else.

By: bibliowench

bibliowench — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:03:43 -0800

Oh, I am so copying this idea . My sons' birthdays are 5 months apart, but supermarket cakes keep, right? Maybe in the freezer?

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:08:37 -0800

The Black and White Cake is amazing.

By: matty

matty — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:20:33 -0800

A little off topic, but thinking about cakes reminds me of Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego. I'd move back there in a moment for their cakes...

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:42:20 -0800

The baby cakes are fucking awesome. WANT BABY IN MOUTH NOW!

By: davejay

davejay — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:45:00 -0800

The bakery was so proud of this masterpiece that they refused to refund the birthday girl's family any money - even though she cried at the sight of it. Notes to self: don't bring your kids along when you pick up the cake, if my kids want a specific style of cake do it my damn self, and don't raise kids who cry when their cake isn't cheerful enough.

By: kimdog

kimdog — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:54:50 -0800

Incompetence never ceases to be amusing.

By: DU

DU — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:02:48 -0800

if my kids want a specific style of cake do it my damn self Yeah, my wife does this. Even without special equipment it isn't that hard. Put some frosting in a plastic baggie and cut a corner off to make an applicator. Then just draw/write whatever you want. We've had Maisy, people's names, math equations, acorns and other themes.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:05:53 -0800

I've been nibbling on various Hostess products for close to 72 hours now AND IFEEL FINE GIANT ANTs GIANT ANTS GIANT ANTS

By: orange swan

orange swan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:07:23 -0800

Dear God. I can bake, but am not good with icing, so I just sort of slather/drizzle some on, in a vaguely Jackson Pollock sort of way, and leave it at that. Conversely, other people with my lack of talent decided to go professional. I never realized just how far-reaching a little self-awareness can be.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:09:18 -0800

maurice: the problem is MS Word's poor suport for 'Save As Cake'.

By: FritoKAL

FritoKAL — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:20:56 -0800

Wow. I don't think I've ever actually read a blog before and gone "Huh. I KNOW I can do better than that..." Maybe it really IS time to look into this baking-as-career thing people keep suggesting to me.

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:27:18 -0800

Apparently I don't know shit about cakes because I thought most of those were fucking awesome.

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:40:27 -0800

This one just killed me. 'Scuse me. I'm dead. Could some one resurrect me with some cake? And a blow job?

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:05:44 -0800

Hey. I thought the puffer fish were cute.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:06:16 -0800

Aw, at least give the amateurs a break. At least there's really cake under the icing and fondant. Cool though they may be, half of the cakes I see on Ace of Cakes hardly have any actual cake in them. Styrofoam, wire, pipe, and wood, yes. But cake? Maybe sometimes.

By: ThePinkSuperhero

ThePinkSuperhero — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:17:31 -0800

Haa, these are funny.

By: ZakDaddy

ZakDaddy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:39:20 -0800

My favorite was the mohawk baby carrot clone army cake. And I rather like the writing. Maybe I'm just mean-spirited.

By: medeine

medeine — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:43:18 -0800

I would like to unsee that "Push, Olivia!" cake. One year I had a Thriller-era Michael Jackson face on my cake. I was pretty impressed with the execution of it.

By: rivenwanderer

rivenwanderer — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:00:16 -0800

I <3 the puffer fish cakes! You can buy cakes like that at the Bao Bao Bakery in Boston's Chinatown area (self-link to photographic evidence)... I keep meaning to get one, and probably will for my next big-ish party. A friend of a friend took it upon him/herself to make their own puffer fish cake after someone showed them my picture! Yay puffer fish cakes! The babies on the carrots, on the other hand, make me doubt my sanity.

By: sugarfish

sugarfish — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:08:23 -0800

What, no love for Sorry I'm so stupid? It's my favorite by far. You just know there's a sad, sad story there.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:41:01 -0800

I would like to unsee that "Push, Olivia!" cake. Are you kidding? That's awesome. Likewise the pufferfish cakes. There's general badness, which many of the cakes display, but a few of the cakes just push boundaries a little bit. The blogger sounds like a priss who can't deal with anything out of the ordinary.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:58:53 -0800

The second page ("older posts") is much, much funnier than the first page. Ye godz, and to think people were paid to make those abominations.

By: tits mcgee

tits mcgee — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:00:56 -0800

Also by the baker who made the baby cake: Gollum, pirate, Millenium Falcon, boobs. Oh, and, OM NOM NOM BABY.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:12:05 -0800

Most disturbing cake I ever saw in person was the first time I ever saw a "novelty cake"... it was for a guy who worked in the office next to me almost exactly 20 years ago. He was a celebrity assistant, the first really flamboyantly, unapologetically gay person I had ever met. I was pretty young and naive at the time, and he invited me into his office for his birthday party. (We had become fast friends because he thought my taste in skirts was faaaabulous.) Anyhow, his friends had gotten him a novelty cake from some specialty shop in Hollywood... I'd never even known such things existed at the time. Basically the cake was a woman's torso from the neck to the thighs, legs spread, with a freakishly dead-on likeness of him coming out of the womb, his icing hands leading the way as his painted sugar face looked into the sunlight for the first time. Let's just say there was a great deal of detail in the execution (and leave it at that). Below his likeness, "Is that you, Ron?" was iced in cursive. As he feasted his eyes upon it, he squealed with giddy delight at how offensive it was. I remember he had a great time threatening to give me a slice of X rated body part and daring me to eat it. (I think he took pity on sweet little me and I ended up just getting a piece of tummy or thigh, though.) That cake was really the beginning of the end of my youthful innocence and the whole scene is permanently etched into my brain. Still makes me shake my head and laugh to myself. Amazing, the quality shock value of a truly disturbing cake.

By: jrochest

jrochest — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:04:28 -0800

The "Michelle" cakes are remarkable pieces of art, but I'm pretty sure they don't taste great. And while most crapola slab-o-stale vanilla supermarket bakery cakes do taste awful, I've never met an amateur baker who could produce real layercakes. Mummm, buttercream.

By: amyms

amyms — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:43:48 -0800

Thanks for the fun post, kolophon. At my first job, there was a tradition of making horrendously hideous cakes on purpose for office parties. I don't know how it got started (it had been going on way before I arrived) but it was a hoot!

By: honeydew

honeydew — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:33:20 -0800

Sugarfish: I once got my ex a cookie cake that said, "I'm sorry for being stupid." (I was forgiven on the spot.) I'm equal parts thrilled and pissed off to see that I'm not the only person who's done this.

By: minifigs

minifigs — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:45:49 -0800

I'm pretty sure I've seen this guy on Futurama

By: davemee

davemee — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:58:17 -0800

I stumbled on this cake, which I have uploaded for the singular purpose of this thread. I hope it reflects the skill of the baker as much as they intended it to. It's been there since the place opened, which is at least a few months, and no-one seems to have either told the shop owner or taken action. Brilliant stuff.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:04:36 -0800

I wonder how much a cake like this one costs?

By: Marie Mon Dieu

Marie Mon Dieu — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:29:50 -0800

I think the parents of the recipient of the Chuck Norris cake should be spending money on therapy instead of cakes.

By: sonascope

sonascope — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:29:09 -0800

I want to blame Ace of Cakes for the increasing slide into overdecorated pasty nothingness, the genuine niceness of Duff Goldman notwithstanding. The museum where I work hosts an endless, endless parade of hideous wedding rentals and, being poor (I work at a museum), I always raid the kitchen on the day after for leftovers, but when I recognize the glassy, beautiful slickness of a Charm City cake or one of the countless imitators of the style, it goes straight into the trash. Gorgeous to look at, but lousy to choke down, in large part because they apparently have to bake them extra dry to hold up all the buttercream and other gee-gaws and gimcracks required to make a cake look like a giant Nike sneaker or a replica of the skyline of Singapore. Actually, I can't even blame Charm City, either, as it's really a symptom of the larger cultural disaster of living on a planet that desperately wants to be a global theme park, populated by a wealthy minority of whiny crybabies that feel like they deserve spa bathrooms and fantasy weddings and everyday luxury because they just work so hard down at the cubicle farm and they're just so stressed and because there's just no time to treat yourself right anymore and...well, never mind. Great link.

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:29:26 -0800

I made my wife a carrot cake for her birthday. The frosting was not smooth - clearly visible swirls from spreading it around. Hand-lettered "Happy Birthday" on the top. In lieu of frosting carrots I added several paper-thin slices of actual carrot. My attempt to coat the sides with crushed walnuts was admirable but in no way professional. But you know what? That cake was the bomb. It rocked because (a) I made it myself, for my wife; (b) the frosting was home-made with real butter; (c) it had a full pound of carrots shaved up into it with a Microplane grater; and (b) all cake ingredients were organic (Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour + fair trade raw unbleached cane sugar). It isn't about how the cake looks, really. It's about how it tastes. A decent attempt at a nice-looking cake, with good ingredients, wins any day over a picture-perfect cake that tastes like it was made out of plaster and styrofoam.

By: spamguy

spamguy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:10:20 -0800

I'm glad to see unnecessary quotation marks have entered every market, bakeries included. There's so much passive-aggressive doubt left unsaid in a cake that says '20th Happy Birthday "Dad"'. This blog is going in my daily rounds.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:25:45 -0800

Homemade cakes taste so much better than bakery cakes. Indeed, it's the rare professional cake that doesn't taste like frosting and gypsum board. What happened to bakeries that they can continue to put out this kind of awful crap? I hear you, but I also happen to have some fucking outstanding bakeries near me that blow home mades out of the water. In my experience, those awful bakery cakes are made by one of two types of baker: 1. The "Ace of Cakes" variety, where they want it to look like a ferrari or some shit and what's inside is really not the point. These types of bakers should not be able to make a living, imho, but then again neither should Dolce & Gabana or Ambercrombie & Fitch so there you go. 2. Really old dudes. They don't work the counters any more, but they're ancient men who once crafted masterpieces in the days before fat and sugar became the law of the land. And therein lies the rub. Cakes have always been fatty sugary delights, but never like today. Your typical Entenman's can run you an entire day's worth of calories with virtually no nutrition. And hey, that's fine, but it's what people have come to expect from cakes. Professional baking has always been about decadence, but it was the decadence of a solid, quality fudge layer or a liqeur flavoring and things like that. The homemades we all grew up on, the boxed mixes and such (if your mom made from scratch that's another story and good on your mom for being a kick ass baker) substituted that quality of material and richness of flavor with an overabundance of fat and sugar, even by cake standards. That's what we've come to expect. So when you see that kind of cake that tastes like pasteboard with sand on top (and I hate it, too) it's largely because these guys are from a by gone era. Modern bakers, trained well by people younger than 80, have come to make better cakes than the cake mixes with better ingredients and less of a sugar and fat orgy, but to satisfy a palette that loves that cake mix flavor. If you get a molten chocolate flourless cake from someone who knows how to make it, or something with delicate hazelnut flavoring on a moist light cake, it'll blow your mind. You just have to know where to find it. disclosure: my brother is a pastry chef, and he rocks, so I'm biased.

By: quin

quin — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:31:08 -0800

medeine : I would like to unsee that "Push, Olivia!" cake. We've been having a lot of semi-impromptu baby showers at my office the last couple of months, and I can't stop thinking about what kind of reaction someone would have, walking into the office where the cake and presents were, and seeing that cake... Well, I'm sure it would be really bad.

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:42:04 -0800

The blogger is entirely mistaken, almost all of those cakes are entirely freakin' awesome.

By: solipsophistocracy

solipsophistocracy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:55:09 -0800

Anybody know what the poo cake says?

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:58:34 -0800

Basically the cake was a woman's torso from the neck to the thighs, legs spread, with a freakishly dead-on likeness of him coming out of the womb... One thing I forgot to mention. Ron was probably in his mid, maybe late 30s at the time. And so was his likeness. Yep, a full-grown, balding, clearly gay cake-man coming out of a cake-womb. I'm simultaneously sad and very, very relieved I didn't take a photo of it. Sad because I wish I could scan it in and post it. Relieved that I don't have to see it twice.

By: gorgor_balabala

gorgor_balabala — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:25:40 -0800

good blog. i will point out however that in an older post about a spelling error (IT A GRIL), she misused the contraction it's, which sort of undermined her commentary. I suppose she'd have corrected it to "ITS A GIRL"?

By: mindless progress

mindless progress — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:45:14 -0800

This cake is totally awesome.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:37:20 -0800

If you get a molten chocolate flourless cake from someone who knows how to make it, or something with delicate hazelnut flavoring on a moist light cake, it'll blow your mind. Nah, this (NSFW) will blow your mind.

By: wintersweet

wintersweet — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:54:15 -0800

solipsophistocracy, the poo cake just says "shengri kuaile" (happy birthday). It seems to be in traditional Chinese characters, so it's probably from Taiwan. Maybe it's for the owner of that toilet-themed cafe in Taipei. And thanks to kolophon, a lot of my friends have laughed themselves silly over this blog. Much appreciated. Sometimes lowbrow humor is just what you need.

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:17:15 -0800

Some friends and I got a cake once to celebrate the day of the week. Apparently, that day was "Thrusday".

By: danb

danb — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:46:18 -0800

Some friends and I got a cake once to celebrate the day of the week. Apparently, that day was "Thrusday". It was probably the same Thrusday as my friend Sarha's birthday.

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:50:35 -0800

When I was in university I lived with a guy who had a part-time job at a bakery. One afternoon he helped to bake a cake for somebody's 25th wedding anniversary, but a little while before they closed the customer called and, in a voice as cold as ice, told them they wouldn't be needing the cake after all.

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:33:22 -0800

When I was a kid ( from 7-11), I got--by request--exactly the same birthday cake at my dad's every year. Cookies'n'Cream Ice Cream Cake from Baskin Robbins. Sounds normal. But it was this crazy monster head with only one ear (with a gummy worm crawling out of it, natch), flies climbing out of the nose, etc etc. That was the best goddamn cake ever. Well.. except for this. Dufflet Rosenberg is a goddess amongst women.