Fear Factor, CW Style
April 3, 2009 Eons ago when the show Fear Factor first came out, I discovered something about myself: I have an extremely sympathetic gag reflex. Yep. Show me a video of someone eating yak brains, and I want to...well, yak.
Imagine how much better the show would have been, though, if they'd substituted the following cakes for the gross foods challenge. It wouldn't have been that much easier on the contestants, and seeing their expressions when they got a pleasant surprise as opposed to a sticky/wriggly one would have been awesome.
Oh, and in case this intro hasn't been warning enough, guys, here's a tip: PUT THE FOOD DOWN. AND THE COFFEE. AND THAT PRICELESS MING DYNASTY VASE. (Dude, what are you doing carrying that around, anyway?)
First up, here's looking at ewe, kid.
Step right up! No need to be sheepish; this cake is a shear delight!Eva G., for some reason the phrase "bubblegum tongue" from that John Mayer song keeps coming to mind. (And now every time you hear that song, you will think of this cake. That is my gift to you. [bowing])
Or if you'd prefer to live high on the hog, you can always pig out on this guy:
Looks like someone brought home the bacon. Hey Cattie P., way to ham it up!
Hey, where are you all going? I'm not done yet! Ok, ok, no more puns - promise.
This one looks kinda crunchy:
Stephanie N., I don't care how artistically done this sucker is - I'd still stomp on him in a pinch. (Assuming he was less than an inch long, of course. Otherwise, Jooooohhn!!!)
And lastly, let's finish up with a little seafood. (Although for some of you, this will mean seeing all the food you ate for breakfast.)
[lower lip trembling] Must. Keep. Swallowing.
From the short bursts of eye contact I was able to make with this guy before the dry heaving began, I think I decided it was a catfish. And as for those green things - well, it helps me to keep the bile at bay if I tell myself they're grapes. So we're going with that, ok, Joanna B.? Don't bother telling me they're fish eggs, or catfish brains, or the prepubescent larvae of a water-dwelling grindylow: honestly, I don't want to hear it.
Reader Comments (165)
Personally, I love the catfish cake! What a pretty purpley grey. Down here in Florida we like our fingerlings fried and our cake, well... shaped in honor of our fingerlings.
Rock on catfish cake.
Word Verification: "reeko" as in what Racheal Ray might say about these cakes. What does SHE know.
The eyes on the first one are kind of creepy. I'd still eat it, though.
None of these are wrecks! They're amazing.
And don't you think it's rather philanthropic that someone is using his artistic skills to make a cake sheep's head instead of making his guests eat the actual sheep's head that Scots actually eat?
I am trully stunned by what some people come up with! I would not only pass on eating the cake at these parties, I don't think I would trust any of the food being served! Gross!
I'm another one who isn't grossed out by these. The sheep is hilarious, the piggy looks good and is perfect for a luau/Hawaii theme party, and the catfish is just silly, but cute.
The scorpion is amazing and hardly what I'd call a wreck! I'm an arachnophobe (spiders and scorps freak me out big time) but I would totally have a piece of that cake.
Oh, and in response to one of the commentors, yes, scorpions are edible. You can buy scorpion lolipops and candy at gift stores here in AZ.
Luckily, I'll never think of that cake because I won't force myself to listen to John Mayer.
To all you gaggers... OH DEAR GOD! It's just cake! :) Artistic and well done sculpted cakes. If you're gagging, it's cus the artists are awesome.
Actually, sheep's head is a delicacy in the western parts of Norway. Imagine the horror of finding them vacuum packed in the supermarket...
Ha! I don't know who Cattie P. is, but hey, if she's going to send you a flickr pic, might as well send you a pix of the whole cake as well (just for some context)... http://www.flickr.com/photos/schmish/2689410112/
Cake was done for a friend's birthday after a BBQ meat-fest. It was funny to have more "meat" for dessert after the real meat we already chowed down on. For the final presentation, the tomatoe was removed and the piggy was surrounded with strawberries.
grindylow. Ha! I love HP!
I'm guessing that the scorpion cake is for a Scorpio. Or someone who really likes them for some other reason. Wow, though. Still made my skin crawl.
And according to the fish-cake site, they aren't grapes -- but don't panic! It's another edible item, green tea tapioca pearls. (They're like gummy candy, and quite good.)
WV: mingthe - what I said when I dropped that priceless Ming vase....what? I was just looking at it for a second...
Speaking of gross cakes, here's the one I made my boyfriend for his birthday just last week (warning - incredibly gross):
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/106/l_deaa67d962a24228a2bbb6827b231e16.jpg" REL="nofollow">carcass cake
Hehe, the cake selection begs for Andrew Zimmern! But seriously, somehow I didn't get too grossed out by any of these cakes. Even the pig - well, wouldn't be my choice of a cake, it's kind of ugly, but artistically ugly. The really creepy thing was the deadly pale sheep staring at me with its black alien eyes.
Yay to all the Scorpios, wouldn't it be fun to get a cake like that for our birthdays? Yes, we're weird like that!
Wow, none of those grossed me out that much. Maybe because I remember how gross the ribcage with bleeding organs cake looked or something...
I think the last one should've used glace cherries rather than grapes, that'd be more realistic.
And the strawberry instead of the apple - who knows, obviously commonsense isn't so common anymore.
Ew. The last one is the worst.
I think taxidermy is really creepy, so that sheep is high on the "NO" list.
Well, all of them are, really. Although the scorpion one is rather exquisite. It reminds me of "The Scorpion King." =)
Catfish=NO. I HATE tapioca pudding (my mom calls it 'fish-eye pudding', blargh!) but I like boba (bubble) tea with those huge tapioca pearls. Maybe because boba reminds me of mochi, a Japanese treat--a sweet gelatinous cake made with rice flour. Almost like a non-sugary version of Turkish Delight...my favorite is 'an mochi', filled with sweet red bean paste. Mmmmmmm...
However I think it's the clammy purple look to the fish that makes me want to gag. And I thought its tail looked like a chicken too!! 0_0
WV: Matip. Matip for the day: Don't eat taxidermy cakes!
I actually did a full body shudder for the cake one.
The sheep's head is awesome! Even the catfish one isn't too bad.
I'd probably have a much easier time eating that than the nose cakes from yesterday. They made me want to vomit.
"From the short bursts of eye contact I was able to make with this guy before the dry heaving began"
That is so right on. I didn't start dry-heaving, though. I started convulsing.
When I was a kid, I found a small skull in the cow pasture that we kids hiked around in. I wondered what it had been in. Cow? Deer?
That sheep cake reminded me of that! Somehow! =^??^=
And, I made me sort of wonder what the fondant had been draped OVER to give the head such a realistic look of having, well, a bone structure!
Hmmm.
I wish the creature had realistic eyes, too, as others have said. Goat and sheep eyes are so fascinating, don't you think? Slitty, horizontal rectangles that look like little mail slots...cool.
I don't feel repelled by these--besides, I'm assuming that they smell and taste like cakes, and not like fish or sheep or scorpions (if scorpions have a smell...and a taste...which they must, but...eewww).
THOSE LAST TWO ARE CAKES? They are very convincing.
You know, I've been reading Cake Wrecks for months now. The crazy baby shower cakes didn't bother me. The morgue cake didn't bother me. The cakes that were covered in icing resembling slime or bodily excretions didn't bother me. The nose cakes yesterday? No biggie.
But that SCORPION CAKE?
I almost threw my laptop. Ergh. :/
At first, I thought that hog was supposed to be Admiral Akbar from Star Wars.
...and another thing:
That pig looks entirely too happy for something lying there beheaded. Look at that grin, and the mirthful, squinty-looking eyes. Something's essentially wrong with that. He looks more like the third pig of "The Three Little-" fame --the one who made his house out of bricks. HE had something to be happy about.
This one?
Head cut off, baked, and on a serving platter. Doesn't sound like a Kodak Moment to me.
You mam, are the worst arachnophobic i know. You would crush even a cake of a scorpion? No way.
sick and demented
All these cakes still look better than all the nose cakes and body part cakes.
I really like(d) that John Mayer song! Now I really will think of that stupid sheep head and it's crazy tongue when I hear that song.
Thanks. :P
bubblegum tongue... love it, will forever think of Jennifer Love and sheepy here everytime I hear that song ;)
I may never eat green grapes again btw
gosh this is why i am a vegetarian, even with cakes!
Oh god lol this made me snort with laughter and delight. Haha. And yes the grindylow comment was a total win. The sheep head was honestly scary.
I'd always thought that John Mayer song was really creepy, and that sheep only confirms it. It also makes me think of "Silence of the Lambs" and the horse head in the "Godfather".
I actually like the scorpion and catfish ones, but judging from all the other comments I've read, I'm in the minority. (I should mention also that I'm a student who's had to open up rats in lab in order to get their organs, so my tolerance threshold for biologic parts is pretty high.)
JYC
Jen - you are awesome! I'm so thoroughly grossed out that I might just have to throw out all the food in my fridge because there's no way I'm going to cook any of it before it goes bad. Talk about an instant diet. You know, maybe you could patent it and sell it to the Hollywood set.... [thinks for a bit] oh, maybe not, I don't think most of them eat anyway. [shrugs] oh well, it was worth a shot....
From the page describing the creation of the catfish cake:
"I originally wanted to make the eyes out of hard candy, but I settled for some taxidermy fish eyes I had laying around the studio."
Because who doesn't have some taxidermy fish eyes lying around? :)
any cake in a ruminant's head shape is gross. I'm LOLling at "prepubescent larvae of a water-dwelling grindylow". Oversized eggs.
Thanks for the warning to put down the coffee. And food. I read this blog while eating my breakfast.
The crustacean seems to have a lobster body and a scorpion tail. . . so it's both eerily accurate (as cake goes)and monstrous.
Thank you Jen, for giving me even more reason to hate John Mayer... I don't like him much anyways, so having a sheeps head as my visual when I hear him singing is great!!!
He makes my skin crawl and so do these cakes!
Gahh!!! The scorpion cake!!
*gag*
"My 10-year-old would give up a major internal organ for the scorpion cake, so I guess I can see that *someone* would order it (and it's gorgeous from an artistic standpoint..but a scorpion?)."
being a 21 year old nerd who has been known as "The 6 foot 12 year old", I can relate, I thought the scorpion cake was great.
I think the sticks around it, by the way, are candles. And it seemed to be holding the number "60", so it seems it's a birthday cake, for a 60 year old.
that's my kind of geezer.
okay, the fish is so much worse than the foot fungus one that i thought was the most disgusting thing in the world
ugh!!!!!! i was thinking "oh those are grapes" then someone behind me goes..."ewww fish eggs!" that was rather disturbing. and just how lifelike the scorpion was, ew, i wouldn't let my mouth NEAR that even if you PAID me. oh, and the chocolate-glazed pig was rather off-putting as well.....
Grindylow!
Haha, letting my own nerdy HP side out
So, I went to the fishy website... yes, i'm that stupid.
And then i really lost my dinner... she made it have innards!
And then there are pictures of it sliced!
EEEEWWWWWWWW doesn't even begin to cover it.
i went on the website and looked at the making of the catfish cake and the piggy cakes, and i guess i have a stronger stomach than i thought, because i wasn't all that grossed out by it. the pig cakes were actually kinda cool, the catfish, ok, that was a bit odd, but not THAT gross. the only thing that i fond unappealing was the chocolate pudding pig liver, the raspberry kidneys, and the jell-o heart of the pig. but even that didn't bug me horribly. huh. :)
Scorpions are ornate, beautiful animals (a lot smoother, sleeker and prettier than their cake version seems to make them out to be) and only a couple of species are at all dangerous. Only terrible people stomp arthropods of any sort.
the cakes are disgusting yet masterfully done, imho. life sure is a rich pageant.
That scorpion cake seemed familiar. I looked through my cake links and realized I knew it from this:
http://russianfun.net/russian-fun/russian-cakes/#more-8366
After living in Arizona for 7 years, I just had my first scorpion in my new house and FREAKED - this scorpion cake is seriously and personally disturbing!! WHO would want a cake like that? (even if my boys wanted something like that I would NEVER order something edible in the shape of a scorpion, cockroach or anything of that type. I'm sure in the AZ desert i can find plenty of the real thing to send to them and then maybe, just MAYBE they will stay out of my house!!