Monday
Aug082011
D'OH!
August 8, 2011
It took me forever to realize this wedding cake was supposed to have a Simpsons theme:
;)
Mmmmm. Paaaaaper.
And yes, you read that right: this was a WEDDING CAKE.
And yes, you read that right: this was a WEDDING CAKE.
I especially like the way the sides transition seamlessly from edible paper to airbrushed fondant:
;)
SEAMLESS.
Oh, and Bart's chalkboard reads, "I will not lick the wedding cake."
I guess there wasn't room for "...not if you paid me a million dollars."
Posted by a justifiably irate bride here, and spotted by Meredith, who thinks we should RELEASE THE HOUNDS!!
New site update from john: From about 6:30 to 7:00 tonight, we were trying to speed up the website a bit. This ended up making everything wonky. Sorry about that. It's back to normal. Isn't this fun? [banging head against wall]
Reader Comments (85)
O-o
What a shame. 'Cause that's an awesome idea for a cake, and it could have been so good if it had been done by one of the Sunday Sweets regulars!
I looked at the picture before the text and thought, "Oh, how cute, little pillows stacked to look like a cake!" I was thinking someone's kid had done this in their living room.
Oh, my. Guess not.
That is a crying shame. It's scary to think these people consider themselves professional bakers.
"Simpson's"? Jen, are you okay? (Concerned.)
Wow! I went and looked at the photos posted by the bride. How awful! After that I did a Google search on the wedding vendor. Yikes! Looks like she was actually one of the few that actually got a cake at all.
I guess there wasn't room for "...not if you paid me a million dollars."
This made me laugh out loud. :-)
A very cute idea. It looked like fabric, though… and rather good. Until I realized it was supposed to be cake. Wow. They thought that looked good? The layers aren't even centred, although that's not the worst of it. And they even messed up the mini-cakes?! I hope the wedding cake tasted better.
That bride was much more polite than I would have been!
How very sad. How would one go about "releasing the hounds"? I can't even find their website anymore.
Some of my cousins are Woodalls. If that's the cake, though, I'm not the least bit offended they didn't invite me.
Do you think the letters were hand-made, or peeled off of a store-bought sheet?
'Totally Caked Up'??
That's *close* to what this cake is.
*Close*.
I checked the yelp reviews for Totally Caked Up. They are unanimous and not in the good way.
That is horrible. Apparently this "cake company" was a huge scam, and conned MANY brides to be and other customers out of their money. They have filed for bankruptcy. What a shame.
Heyyyyyy! Congrats on the new digs for your blog! I hope the movers didn't break anything along the way.
The irate bride's posts were classic! Never, ever, ever irritate a songwriter or a bride...
Wow...what "fine craftsmanship" indeed....
O.o
Awww I'll miss the WVs! (It's OK, I understand.) Maybe you guys could drop a Nerf ball on your keyboard to make a word we can all try to define...LOL! Ooooo better yet we all could do that ourselves! Only if I had a Nerf here at work.... ]:-)
I love how poor Bart has been face-planted into the board. It's never important to show a character's face. No, not at all. And what a clever way to avoid having to render the awkward not-quite-translatable-to-3D-ness of Simpsons characters. Yes, I think henceforth all Simpsons cakes should involve faces smashed into solid objects as opposed to exercising any sort of sculpting skills. Genius.
I'm thinking if you hire a company that's name is so close to being "Totally F*****d Up" you should have known what you were in for.
I found an article on them also where they refer to themselves as "like the Ace of Cakes" and how they are currently looking to team up with a film crew. They say in the article as well that they are making "free cakes for charity" to raise money. These people are disgusting.
Forgot the link: http://www.i-newswire.com/totally-caked-up-a-new-and-unique/a268128
Hounds have been released!
This a Springfield cake?
Better to just serve doughnuts.
Lisa plays sad sax.
Apparently the shop that made this cake now has gone out of business. I can't imagine why...
After looking around, it seems she was lucky to get a cake at all; all the other comments (AKA Complaints) left about the company on the internet say that their wedding cake order was a no show. They also refused to refund all about the most tenacious bride who pursued legal action with various government entities.
Just a hunch (and obviously the least of worrisome points about this creation); but, I bet given the reputable nature of this company they also didn't have proper licensing permissions to be using Simpsons images on a product for which they were charging someone else money.
I've actually wondered this about a lot of the cakes we see on here, though (both wrecks and sweets). Is that a problem in the baking world? I know that kits are properly licensed but if a baker makes Winnie the Pooh or Mario (or Bart) out of fondant on their own (and then makes money off of said image by selling their creation), does Disney or Nintendo (or Fox) care?
I hope she didn't pay for that!
And here I thought Bart was headplanting on the board at the thought of someone actually PAYING for that piece of garbage.
Only NYCGirl seems to see the problem here! And not with the cake!
So, whose pajamas were cut not so carefully to enrobe this, er, ah... mess.
If this was at all recent someone desperately needs to read online reviews. I googled this 'bakery' and found a ton of negative remarks. If this happened back int 2009, which is where the first reviews starts... ouch. Sorry man.
It took me forever to realize it was supposed to be a cake and not stacked cushions. Simpsons theme, indeed.
@NYCGirl: LOL
Smooshing characters into objects so that the face is not visible = copyright infringement avoidance. Probably 'unrecognizable character' avoidance as well.
Never mind releasing the hounds; they would just fall over each other, laughing. I would go directly to DEFCON 1 and call the Pentagon.
Why was this 'organization' looking to hook up with a film crew -- to produce a series of instructional videos about how not to decorate cakes?
In the baker's defense, it looks like a cake that Homer would make... but I don't think that's what the bride wanted.
As frustrating as it is for people who paid money to this company, I'm very happy to see that they're declaring bankruptcy. They obviously needed to be stopped if they think that's an acceptable cake to deliever to a wedding!
To M. Dale: some derivative works are protected, especially if they can be considered parody. Some are copyright infringements. Sometimes a fee has actually been paid by a shop to be allowed to use copyrighted characters, or if a licensed product is purchased it can be used without the end user having to pay a fee (ie if you buy Sesame Street licensed edible images, toppers, cutters, etc. then you're allowed to make stuff with those for sale).
Generally speaking, most of the cakes you see with copyrighted images are probably in breach, but you can't assume that. I noticed in the recent issue of American Cake Decorating magazine that they were featuring show cakes with copyrighted characters only because they'd been at a show, whereas they apparently can't do that regularly. So I guess being in a show has some kind of copyright magic?
It's a murky business to be sure.
In the case of this cake, it's also just crappy.
Does anyone else remember this episode of Married with Children? Anyone? Bueller? Well, the Darcys want to have a wedding on a $2,000 budget so the Bundys volunteer to take over the planning by getting the lowest value product possible so they could pocket the wedding money.
Yeah. I'm getting that vibe from the bakery after reading some of these reviews.
Forget the hounds. Release the robotic Richard Simmons!
Bart looks like an afterthought...like the "artist" decided it needed more cowbell and added a Playdoh™ Bart. As if the paper maché hack job wasn't bad enough...meh.
Great...now I want some pastry pillows.
Thanks, Kimberly!
The most frightening thing about this cake is that I can see that with a little more work they could have pulled it off.
The cakes themselves don't look that badly fondanted (is that a word) but the paper work is awful. A little decoupage of images or onto fondant and layered and there could have been a prettier themed cake. That may not have been a wreck.
And yeah, Bart was a complete afterthought. His feet aren't even on the cake board!
I'm not even touching the copyright issue though. I do know that Disney will sue even the "little guys" over it.
It's now more official then ever. I can do a better job then a good portion of these professionals! I went and look at the page by the bride and had to roll my eyes on the comments about how the cake "tasted like glue." This is why I can't stand fondant especially the premanufactured kind!
When anyone has ever asked me why I refuse to use fondant my reply away is: "If you can't eat the stuff in the amounts it is going to end up on the side of the piece of cake it's not worth the sugar it's made out of!" What's worse is more and more bakeries are using it not because it can give them the results that they want but because using it is easy and quick. It's not about quality as we can plainly see with this very cake, it being white fondant airbrushed blue, it's about making a cake fast. You see is takes up to 25 - 30 mins to carefully frost and smooth buttercreme to the finish that fondant can get you in a matter of minutes.
The bride wrote a review for the baker on Yelp.
"STAY FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR AWAY from this vendor!!! I wish I could give it zero stars...I had had awesome experiences with Natalie from Totally Caked Up, until 2 weeks before my wedding, when my coordinator heard some stories that Natalie does not show to weddings some times. After scoping out many sources, I saw what confirmed this allegation. My own wedding came June 7th, and when I heard Natalie was there setting up the cake, I was over joyed! Thank God! The rumors aren't true! WRONG.... When my husband and I walked into the reception to see that only 1 of the cakes had been delivered we were VERY UPSET. NO GROOM'S CAKE, and the Bridal cake was very very substandard. I am sure any student in a high school homemaking class could make the same, if not better cake, than I received. The fondant work was on patchy pieces that had been printed out, they did not reach all the way around the cake, there were puckers and visible edges everywhere! the "mini-cakes" we got were cupcake muffin tops with fondant slapped on the top, and sub-par air brushing work. Later we found out that they had "subbed out" to another bakery. Wouldn't you think the baker would notify the client of this? I talked to Natalie the Tuesday before the wedding with no mention of subbing out to another bakery.
My honeymoon was spent trying to contact "Totally Caked Up" and we received a phone call from Joe. We informed him of the situation, and sent photos to him (which I have also uploaded-- see Mrs.JMW on http://www.projectwedd...), and have not heard back anything since to rectify the situation. We tried calling back again, and no one answered the phone! We called from a different number to reach someone named "Stacy" at a "law firm" that sounded exactly like Natalie. When we told her who we were and who we were trying to get a hold of, she hung up on us. Later we received an email stating that Totally Caked up was going bankrupt, and we would be notified of how to get money from the company..... RIGHT. I also received an email after the wedding stating that my desire to cancel my check voided my contract and they would not deliver my cake... AFTER THE WEDDING... Too bad they were paid for way before the wedding! How could I cancel a check that had been cashed months before? None of this adds up... I saw the very NASTY response from "Joe" on this review, and it just goes to prove the unprofessionalism this company stands up to. I don't understand why someone would want to ruin a couple's most perfect day, with a product that causes extreme embarrassment and shame to have to serve to guests... PLEASE SEE THE PICTURES POSTED ABOUT THIS CATASTROPHE! (http://www.projectwedd... see the post from Mrs.JMW) The proof is in the pudding, these photos don't lie..."
Definitely release the hounds. Or the bees. Or the hounds with bees in their mouths so everytime they bark at you they shoot bees at you!
Poor brides when the weddings have been ruined by wreckorators. I mean, birthday wrecks, whatever, there's another one coming in a year. But hopefully, they're only going to have one wedding.
I remember when this happened, caused quite the brouhaha. Those faker-cakers are hopefully nowhere near brides now, and I am happy the planet is rid of them. Gives us all a bad name. Idiots.
OH MY!!!! How sad. My friends pick on me because I am so aware of the little details and fret over them. Sounds like this shop doesn't care.
This was a big scandal in Austin when it happened back in 2009. The "bakery" was really a "fakery" and the two "owners" were really criminals. Many brides were either disappointed or defrauded. This is definitely a Wreck, but not the kind you normally think of. http://www.yelp.com/biz/totally-caked-up-austin?rpp=40&sort_by=relevance_desc
I thought it was going to be a really bad THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE cake. Bummer.
This is so awful! I guess the sheets of printable fondant did not come in custom lengths. Does anyone know where her real review is? I would love to read "Joe's" response.
I thought this was a vinyl 'blow-up' cake but then I realized even THAT would have better results. Someone needs to be punched for that travesty of a cake.
Oh Boy!! Found the reviews!!
http://www.projectwedding.com/vendor/show/totally-caked-up
If you told me that these are 3 round pillows that someone hand stitched together, I would give it a A for effort. Being cake gets it s F for fugly.
Nobody posted about all the "quotations" that the bride used on her "photos" of the "cake" when she was "commenting" on the "fine craftmanship" of "Totally Caked Up". I was "snickering" the whole time, because of the "excessive use" of "quotations" on her "comments."
I would like to say, HAIKU JOY, that your comment as well as these photos...well, let's just say, "Day Made".
Which, as unfortunate as it was for the bride, groom, and their guests: at least the bakers made ONE day a little better.
Now...off with their heads (in a Queen of Hearts-type voice)! Or maybe we should just force feed them their own cakes until they hurl.