Inspiration vs Perspiration
July 10, 2008 I know this post is going to test the limits of my credibility with you, faithful Cake Wrecks readers, so here is the originating site, provided by Summer from TX, to prove I am not making this up.
First, the inspiration:
Which isn't bad, I guess, if you've got a Brave Heart kind of vibe going for your wedding. Certainly it's executed well.
Anyway, here is what the paid, "professional" baker provided:
Erm.
[glancing between the two photos]
It’s like seeing double, isn’t it? I mean, sure, the second one is collapsed in on itself, slumped over to one side, and channeling a bit more Bob Marley than William Wallace, but besides all that I’d say the decorator was bang on, wouldn’t you? Ok, ok, if you wanted to get picky about it, I guess that crack in the bottom – the one you can see the cake through? – that probably should have been iced over. Oh, and the red stripe might look a little nicer if it were one continuous line – or for that matter, if the line were straight. (Perhaps a little too much Red Stripe was consumed before icing the red stripe, eh? Eh? Come on, that was freakin’ hilarious, people: Bob Marley? Jamaican beer? Booya!)
Come to think of it, maybe that mass of squiggles in the mid section isn’t the best example of plaid I’ve ever seen, either. [tilting head to one side] Huh. Yeah. Ok, Summer, you got me: I can sort of see why the bride sued.
Reader Comments (205)
She actually had to sue the baker? They didn't just give them their $ back at the reception???!!!
I can't stop staring at it! It defies belief!!!!
I concur with the above comment! She had to actually sue over that monstrosity? Unbelievable. I have no words.
WOW!!!!! This is why cake wrecks was invented! Job security, some might say.
lol...I'd sue too!!
Oh...wow....umm...yeah...
I can understand that she had to sue the baker. If the person was shady enough to promise cake A and deliver that...thing...then she's shady enough to try and keep the money.
I think I'm still in shock.
somehow when I saw "Summer" and "Texas" and then seeing that the reception was outdoors, it's not surprising that it looked like a melting mountain of icing.
Good writing, Jen. Keep it up.
As a professional cake decorator I can NOT believe that someone actually delivered this cake!!! I understand having bad cake days, but this is why there is always a plan b!
Your writing skill is the work of angels, you have the tone of derided sarcasm perfectly! Keep up the good work!
Also, thanks for introducing uglydress.com to me through this post - more to laugh at HURRAH!
This was one of my all time favorite cake disaster stories-I am so glad it made it on here!
The shell borders are nice, right?
I find it hard to believe this was a " professional baker". didn't the bride look at samples of her work? or at least pictures?
Oh, come on, now, at least the baker added that classy plastic lace border around the bottom...
*That* is the ugliest freakin' cake ever. EVER! *I* could do better than that and my crafty talent is sewing, not cake decorating.
There are at least three more CW specials where that came from! (Ugly Weddings.)
maybe she was super busy and let her three year old decorate it for her. No, no, there is no way anyone sober could have done that cake.
I feel sorry for the baker, believe it or not. I mean, they had to have been mortified to deliver this cake...right? RIGHT?
I literally just fell off of my chair laughing.
I mean... seriously? Someone saw the inspiration photo and then put together the actual cake and thought, "You know, I've really done some good work here. I think the bride will think this is great."
Even if they didn't think it was going to work out, wouldn't it have been better not to have brought that other cake to the reception at all?
WOW. This might be my favorite of all the posts. As Kate said, it's like a car accident. It's so horrible and yet I can't keep myself from looking!
This is just incredible.
I make two cakes a year (one for each kid), and while I'm always proud of them at the end (despite the fact that I sew, I write, I sing - I don't bake....) I don't pretend they are anything other than an act of love. But there are so many cakes on this site where even I would be deeply embarrassed by the sheer quality of the work.
I'm so sorry this poor woman had to sue. That is so wrong.
Oh my goodness!
I was glancing down the page a post/pic at a time going "yeah, pretty funny i suppose" and then i saw this post and i am *CRYING*.
This is too funny! I need medical assistance here! Wheeeeeeeezzzzzze!!!!!!!!!
Wow. That trim icing looks like to crud you get out of the squirt can with the "fancy" plastic tips.
I've made plenty of cakes in my day. I've made a few ugly cakes. I'd sooner feign a stroke than actually hand over that monstrosity to someone.
I'd be willing to bet that the bride chose the bakery in question because they offered to make the cake on the cheap. I have seen people wait til the last minute on the cake, then realize they are low on cash, having spent it all on other items. They then head over to the discount supermarket because the cakes there are 'just as good' as the fancy wedding cake bakeries. The cake really looks like the product of a supermarket bakery.
Hideous...........beyond belief....
I'm with Bec. I got caught laughing to tears in my office over this. Then at home, went to show my husband, who hadn't understood that the top one was inspiration for the bottom one. I was bent over laughing... again.
I'm a cake fiend and love to laugh at other people. If I wasn't so PO'd that Jen beat me to this concept, I would be in love. Thank you one million times for this brilliant work.
I started laughing so hard when I saw this and read this story that I cried.
I couldn't catch my breath for like 5 minutes. Thank you for making my day!
OMG i haven't laughed so hard in so long!
that is the funniest story on here! I canNOT believe that cake was actually delivered to the wedding!
tears...streaming...down face! can't...stop....laughing!
Okay, since I've come here, I've been sympathetic to the bakers, but this cake makes me worry about radioactive mutations. Someone put it out of its misery. There is no god.
I can't belief a baker tried to give that to them. Wow!!!
I love your blog. The baby cake...hmm not sure I could cut or eat that either.
Holy crap, that's terrible.
Wow...seeing this I suddenly don't feel so bad about the first cake I decorated ten or so years ago. Then again it's sort of sad thinking that the work of a professional baker is on par with that of a ninteen year old wielding a ziplock bag with a hole punched in it. (hey I didn't have a piping bag)
This is astoundingly bad. I was a pretty laid back bride but I probably would have had a bridezilla moment if I'd been given this cake.
i can not sop laughing! help!
I have just spent the better part of an hour laughing so hard that I cried. Thank you, thank you, thank you for a good belly laugh. (I decided to post my comment on this one because the Jabba the Hutt-esqueness of that cake is what really caused me to lose it. I'm sorry for the person who it was delivered to, but thankful that it has served a comedic secondary purpose.)
No matter how hard they tried, the blancmanges couldn't pull one over on Angus Padgorny.
Oh my gosh! I almost fell off the couch when I saw this post! I actually work with the Groom who had this cake at his wedding. He had shown us this pic when me and my husband were planning our wedding and we were just as incredulous as everyone on here.
To clear up a few points - they didn't pick this baker at the last minute... They actually picked her 6 months ahead of the wedding and, based on pictures she showed them of other cakes she had made, trusted that she could get the job done.
Needless to say, that trust was misplaced. The baker evidently had some personal issues a few days before the wedding and tried to throw (and I use this term loosely) the cake together at the last minute. She claimed that it had "melted" some due to the temperature (what, did she take a fire torch to it?) If I remember correctly, it arrived without the ugly red stripe. She tried to "fix" it after delivery and that was the outcome.
Truly a "cake wreck"...I'll have to show this to my co-worker - he laughs about it now (great sense of humor) and he'll be pleased to see it bring joy and pain to others as well!
I don't know why the baker didn't simply admit that she didn't have the skill to make this cake. I've been in that position; there are times when you just have to face the music and say, "I'm sorry, but I don't have the supplies or expertise to make that particular cake".
The colors don't even match...she should have trimmed the cakes to the proper size and shape before stacking them, but frankly, having made some awfully nice cakes (and stringwork was my passion) I would be scared to death of trying to replicate that plaid. Keeping those lines parallell and perpendicular would be a nightmare.
Was this an actual bakery? & if you can't decorate better than that then why are you trying? It isn't easy to re-create somebodyelse's creation, but close would have been nice!
I do cakes & I would have given them their money back & gotten a cake elsewhere or something if my life was sooo bad that I couldn't even put a cake together...I don't know there's no excuse....
Was she drunk??? I've seen many nonprofessionals do "better' (that's not saying much though
Okay...and spend her FIRST YEAR of marriage in court?!?!?!? You mean it actually took a YEAR for a judge to get her money back?!!??!!?
This is the most tragic cake I've ever seen.
My wife sent me this link, and I do believe you just made it onto my Google Reader
It looks like it fell from the sky and landed on a poor little flower girl and her ruffled dress is sticking out the bottom! yikes!!
I sure hope that cake was stuffed with refund money.
I think people would have had to hold me back from actually doing physical harm to this person if they delivered that to my wedding. Not only would I be embarrassed, no mortified, to deliver a cake like that, I don't think my conscious would let me.
So glad to hear that the groom can laugh about it now though!
Time to quit baking cakes and take up pouring concrete instead.
Wow that's horrendous! I can'r believe any baker would have the nerve to actually put that cake out! All I can say is Wow!!!
This is like the cake equivalent of the Titanic Dress Disaster on www.ettiquettehell.com !
I'm curious as to whether they still ate it.
funniest.post.ever LOL
I give the baker points for audacity.
The sheer brazenness of waltzing into a wedding and delivering this platter of crap -- and then defending it ... the dude has balls.
I think the second cake's maker must have been channeling Salvador Dali's spirit in creating that work of art. As Surrealism, it wins. As a Scots-themed wedding cake... not so much.
If this cake had been at my wedding, I would have clearly displayed the name of the baker responsible. Then I would have submitted a picture to the local newspaper, again with the name of the baker.