A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.
Now, don't you have a photo you want to send me? ;)
October 12, 2012 What They Wanted:
What They Got:
;)
What They Wanted:
;)
What They Got:
;)
Wanted:
Got:
;)
(I hear this one also came with cookies.)
Wanted:
Got:
;)
And last, but certainly least:
Wanted: 
Got:
;)
Thanks to Amanda B., Tara J., Dani N., Sue H., & Tiffany B. for sharing their Bridal Sweets turned Bridal Tiers.
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Reader Comments (77)
Is it just me, but I really don't like the look of what the groom in the top hat is holding ;0) No wonder his bride looks a bit scared.
*Spit take at the fetuses*
Again, I can pretty much guarantee that the brides who ordered their cakes didn't pay the price that those type of cakes garner. Cakes of the quality that were wanted are expensive, but most people can't or don't want to pay those kind of prices. So the old saying still rings true: "You get what you pay for." (Can you tell that I am decorator! LOL)
That groom in front of the topsy turvy cake... Is he holding a big pink penis???
Note to self: If I ever get married, do NOT order a wedding cake... Waaayyy too stressful!
Urm...well, it is nice that the topsy turvy cake follows the angle of the groom's head tilt.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! That "cookies" link could have used a warning. I'm glad I already ate breakfast or I would have lost my appetite. Sheesh. The cakes are awful, though I think the first one wasn't so bad, at least not as bad as the others. I love the wedding misses! Always fun, and it makes me glad my wedding cake looked nice :) Happy Friday!
Aren't those salt and pepper shakers on the top of the third cake? lol
Sung to “Love and Marriage”
Cake and conflict, cake and conflict
When you just don’t get the cake that you picked
It’s extraordinary
How much a wedding cake can vary
Wanted cake with pearls and speckles
Got a cake with big albino freckles
Showed the local gentry
And they couldn’t be complimentary
Tried, tried, tried for white with black pearls
It was delusion
When the time came to create it
There was confusion
Bought white cake with a black pattern
But my baker’s as mad as a hatter
Her pink swirls were ooky
At least she tried to give me cookies
Topsy turvy, topsy turvy
God, my wreckerator is so nervy
It looks like its sinking
What was that wreckerator thinking?
Tried, tried, tried for for Christmas presents
They'd have been festive
Had to give my mother Valium
(She was getting restive…)
Cake and conflict, cake and conflict
When you just don’t get the cake that you picked
It’s extraordinary
How much a wedding cake can vary
That third cake was done with Wilton things. I can't remember the name of them, but I have that exact set! You can see on the bottom tier where they didn't cover the design completely. All these wedding wrecks make me glad that I didn't have a wedding.
Yep, I agree with debbyrose. I work in a small bakery & people bring in pictures all the time of these really expensive extravagant cakes & expect to have the exact same cake made for a 1/10 of the price with only a few days notice. Can't count the number of times I've had people throw fits because we said it wasn't possible.
I agree with debbyrose completely. If you want those cakes you will be pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars if not a thousand. Cakes like that don't get made in grocery store bakeries anyways so you can't even blame it on them. No big chains will make cakes like that because we don't have the resources.
Awww those poor brides ;) oh well, we get some laughsout of it ;) Sharyn, you have done it again XD
Nothing says, "I give up," quite like that last cake. What a way to start off a marriage!
I suddenly don't feel so bad about my wedding cakes.
Well at least those cakes gave them realistic idea that with marriage, things are just going to sag.
I totally agree with the points about 'you get what you pay for' and not being able to deliver that kind of quality with only a few days' notice. The key point here, though, is that however misguided these brides might have been, they went to see a so-called professional baker who said: 'yeah, sure, we'll give that a try!' rather than 'no, sorry, that's totally impossible / unreasonable / outwith my ability' or 'lady, you're gonna get the loooooooow-budget version of this cake, in fact you might be better attempting to make it yourself.' Brides, generally speaking, aren't experienced at ordering wedding cakes. Bakers, on the other hand, should be experienced enough to know when to say 'yes' and when to say 'you're gonna need a bigger budget'. Just sayin'.
Did that third cake fall over in the delivery vehicle? Gadzooks! Compared with that mess, the first cake is darned beautiful.
Sad. Just... sad.
Even though I still feel sorry for the brides, these are my favorite wrecks. Just so wrong.
And even if the brides tried to be more economical than the design should dictate (as decorators have posted), it is just as much as the bakers' responsibility to say "We cannot make that design." For those who say, "Sure! No problem!" to these brides - I spit in your general direction!
Snobbery gets you nowhere. For my wedding I went to a local bakery, paid a modest price and got a gorgeous cake with piping that far surpasses the wrecks above. The cakes were tasty to boot (three layers - all different flavors inside).
If the baker can't do something they should be honest about it and just not do it. These travesties above show that not all bakers are as honest as you, Crissy. So yes I do blame the bakers. There's nothing forcing them to take the commission for these things.
OMG! These are always my favorite!! I love the way the groom topper has his head cocked in the topsy turvy photo - he has that "WTF?" look about him! Do these missed mark bakers not realize that a 3 tier cake doesn't mean 3 layers of cake?
Regarding debbyrose's perceptive comment . . . As my husband always says: "Fast, accurate, inexpensive--pick any two."
On the other hand, that last cake made me sputter and snort, then immediately feel bad about laughing so hard. It was just so far from the mark that you wonder what the bigger story was.
Maybe I've been here too long. Every time I begin reading one of the "you get what you pay for" themed comments my head translates all of it into Charlie Brown teacher-speak.
@ Sharyn, awesome song today!
Yes, the bakers should not have attempted those if they couldn't do them. And the last one--how did red turn into blue? Don't they know their colors? Oh, I forgot where I was for a minute.
As a bride who just ordered her cake(who reads this blog constantly ;)I have to say I am DEFINETLY bringing my camera with me to the bakery!
This cheered me up immensely.
I'm sorry, but there is NO excuse for the way these cakes turned out. As other posts have stated, if a baker can't make a certain cake due to cost or even just a lack of talent, they need to tell the customer that. Although these are bettter than some wrecks I've seen on here (scary, right?), even if I wasn't paying top dollar for a cake I would expect it to be iced properly and not falling over.
For the first set of cakes, I actually think that the 2nd one looks more appetizing than the first one. Just me, I guess.
As someone who tried to make things easy on the baker I can say that no matter what I "paid" that cake wasn't worth it. All I asked of the bakery was that it not be white! And to use the ribbon I provided as a divider between layers. And it was a small only to feed 60 people cake. Know what I got? An all white cake. With some sort of thing decorating it. No ribbon. No color. No nothing! I paid $200 for the cake and another $50 to have it delivered. After having to pick it up myself and seeing the cake I went to the grocery store and bought something and still haven't been refunded the money for the original cake. This post is in response to the individual that said "They got what they paid for". Sometimes bakeries screw up no matter what you pay or what you expect.
Why are the stick figure bride and groom in front of the topsy turvey holding giant penises? I'm guessing the wreckerator wasn't responsible for that mess.
The wedding misses are my fav cake wrecks, poor brides..
For some of those cakes the "you need a bigger budget" theory just doesn't fly. Those were totally technique fails and like other posters have said, if you can't do it, just be honest and say it's not possible. I have a girlfriend who does cakes out of her house for pennies that look like something you'd see on tv as a glamour cake or could win one of those cake showdown shows. So I'm not buying the you get what you pay for hooey scmhagooey.
Well said Joan! I agree, this is terrible! Most girls have no idea, if a bakery says, "yeah we can do that" why should she doubt them? I took a picture of a 5 tiered cake to my bakery, it was not stacked, it was on separate crystal stands, and the cakes had a basket weave all over. I asked if they could do it, they said yes, I paid $450 (this was more than 16 years ago) and on my wedding day, that was exactly what I got! I would have been devastated, mortified, and shocked out of my mind, had I not! So, good for you, those of you who work in bakeries and turn these requests away if it's not possible, but that's not the case here, they saw what they wanted, and they agreed to copy it, and didn't! The fault does, in fact, lie with the bakeries in question!
Hee. I love the WTAF/WTG posts because it inevitably results in the chicken or the egg argument that is going on above. Wheee!
Seriously, even if you only paid me $15, I think I could manage something better than that last one!
That first cake looks like the detritus from my ceiling's "popcorn" scrapings. Fortunately none of my ceiling stuff is toxic. We don't know about those cake decorations.
These types of posts is exactly why I made my own wedding and groom's cakes! I cannot imagine getting something so far from what I ordered. And as a decorator, I cannot imagine agreeing to a design that I cannot, for time, budget, or skill restrictions, deliver. Absolutely maddening!
Those cakes are ALL perfect examples of you get what you pay for.
I own a bakery and darn near ever bride brings in a photo of a cake from a magazine....or a competition cake....and want THAT cake. They have NO concept of cost. When I tell them that I can make a cake similar (however I am not the original creator....) and give them a price.....they usually choke and go to somebody who quoted them less. (Usually somebody just starting out...working out of their home....a friend of the family or relative.....)
I believe it is BOTH the decorator AND the brides responsibility to prevent wrecks from happening. The decorator should be honest about their abilities....the bride should DO HER HOMEWORK and ask to look at pictures (That is the decorators OWN WORK) so she can get a honest feel of the decorators abilities. (MANY brides never even ask for examples of previous work - they just show us a photo of what they want)
Do your homework people!
Oi! And here I was thinking, "Those metal scuplture bride and groom are the only good things going for this post!"
Hanging my head in shame. I thought they were holding hearts.
Very glad I came in later today, so I could catch today's song. It saddens me now to come in first thing in the morning!
I also understand that you get what you pay for, but the bakers should be responsible enough to state when they cannot do what the bride wants, whether it be due to skill level or materials. We have a show called "Say Yes to the Dress" .. how about one called "Say Nay to the Cake"?
The 'rabbit turd' jelly beans around the bottom of the last cake was the perfect finishing touch!
You aren't going to get those fancy cakes with a modest budget...that is true. However, I got a cake for $150 that was beautiful and proffessional. Didn't look like a wedding magazine but didn't look like these cakes either. Check out the quality of these things. Many don't even know how to pipe icing!!! I only make cakes for family and my cakes look much better then these! A proffessional baker should be able to make an even cake, properly iced, properly piped icing. These look like a group of kids made them! Funny for me but sad for the brides/grooms.
you get what you pay for. and some people just need to learn how to work with fondant. my 8th grader can!
the first one is not terrible... maybe the beads could have been planned better. The third one would be pretty without the pink fetus designs. :-/
Oh My Gosh! I am not a decorator and I think i could have done a better job than those... snort. Sad Sad Sad
I always thought I didn't have enough skill to make a wedding cake. Now I know I am wrong. With what little skill I have I know I could probably do better than anything you have here, definitely the last one.
For some reason while I was looking at wreck #3, I was reminded that female Pacific walruses have 2 uteruses. I can't imagine why...
a lil off subject....I went to a grocery store to get an engagement cake made...the girl took my order and promised it would be ready the next day...this was after 6pm mind you, When I went to pick it up they asked who I gave my order to...as none of their decorators had made the cake. Come to find out it was the janitor. The cake was beautiful and she spelled it all correctly....they said they could fire her for that..I said hire her and give her a raise.
These cakes make me laugh...the last one...wow.
I am not a baker, and in my brief time in the cake decorating department of the deli I worked for, I was only ever asked to write things like 'happy birthday' on cakes from the freezer, so you'd say I have zero skill. but I think even I could make a better cake than that last one!
* heads to the bunker to hide from the argument over 'you get what you pay for'
With cake #1, it looks like they asked for pearls and got spitballs instead.
The first "what they got" cake looks like it has a bad case of frosting acne.
1. mmm.... almost
2. close and yet sooo very far
3. sort of
4. not so much
5. Just 3 questions: 1. Did you even look at the picture they sent for reference?
2. Were you drunk at any point in the construction process of this cake?
3. Are you legally blind?
because those are the only explanations I can come up with for such an atrocioius cake.
@zoomom :-D
@sharyn~ Now I'm picturing Al Bundy sitting at one of these weddings with his hand in his pants. o_0