A Publix Service Announcement
June 22, 2012 Dear Publix Bakery,
My name is john, and we need to talk.
See, I like you. I really do. Your icing? Awesome. Your cheesecake pies? Beyond nummy. And every time I cruise your aisles at my local store there's nary a wreck to be found.
UNTIL NOW.
Exhibit A: A few weeks ago, I received a picture of your new "Cinnamon Candy Creme Cake":
;)
AKA, "The Sticky Pustule Bundt of DOOOOM! Now with more Herpes!"
Now don't get me wrong, PB. (Can I call you PB? 'Cuz I'm gonna call you PB.) Every bakery has an off day. But then I got a few more of these Pustule Poppin' pastries, and I started wondering: is this going to be a "thing?"
;)
A nasty, nasty "thing?"
Just to be sure, I went to my local Publix - my own flesh and blood, so to speak - and imagine my horror, PB, when I found this on the featured end cap:
;)
NooOOoooOOoo!
So here's what I propose, PB: You stop making the polyp'ed wonder here, and I'll stop thinking how much it reminds me of my dermatoligist's office posters.
Deal?
Thanks to Marlissa D. and Amanda G. for reminding to wear sunscreen today. And to always use protection. And to maybe have a salad for lunch.
Reader Comments (90)
I think publix knows about Cake Wrecks, they are SUPER strict on what they will let go out the door. I've tried to get them to make silly cakes before, not for cake wrecks but just fun funny things for friends' birthdays, I get shot down every time. They won't even let you mix and match decorations on the same cake. They will sell it to you separate, but you have to put it on once its left the store.
Shingles ... on a shingle?
As someone who reads Colonoscopy reports all day, I can tell you that these do, in fact, look exactly like a polyp-filled colon.
What's wrong with a nice REAL cinnamon cake, not one with gross candy on it? And, as a former Floridian, I miss Publix :(
I saw a program last night on TLC called The Bubble Man. He looks just like these cakes. They have neurofibromatosis, poor things. There is no cure.
Worst. Ever.
Did they hire the Weasly twins to come up with new recipes?
I'm heading to FL tomorrow. Now when I spot this cake, it's going to be like spotting an internet celebrity. SUPER EXCITED! (and slightly terrified.)
Good God! This looks likes something from my high school biology book! Herpes, anyone?
I work at a Publix Bakery and agree it does not look right.........We have brought this to te attention of of manager and HDQ at Lakeland..Sorry..You guys know we make fantastic things here!
@the Witch's Kitchen- no, I did not but I shall forever from this day forward (which will make grocery shopping a whole new experience with aisles full of ... oh, kids in here you say? nevermindsorryIwentthere)
@Maureen you win the interwebs. this is EXACTLY the kind of thing Fred & George (or is that George & Fred) would have come up with to sell!
@Sharyn "Is it really cake, or ebola on a tray" would make an awesome Eddie Izzard routine, don't you think?
@mel your kind words mean more than you know and cheered me at the end of a tough week. thank you, sir. (curtseys)
"The Sticky Pustule Bundt of DOOOOM!" Classic!
Thanks to all the Publix employees who commented. Indeed, I also believe this had to come from a Vice President who doesn't have enough to do. All of you should ship these cakes to a great big corporate event where they're trying to impress someone. Hopefully, there will be at least one executive in the bunch (or an executive's spouse!) who will realize how truly dreadful these cakes are and get them off the shelves!
Went grocery shopping tonight, and just had to go and see this for myself. Sure enough, there it was, right in the middle of a table of otherwise yummy looking cakes. I tried to stifle my giggles but to no avail. How much you wanna bet a corporation-wide memo goes out tomorrow demanding all of these be pulled from the floor? Get 'em now before they're history!
@Andrea, LOL.
Professionally-confirmed similarity to actual colonoscopies = TMI to the third power.
@Amanda M, actual cinnamon cakes have been featured here before, and the result was Word War III. It's only because today's wrecks aren't connected to any particular observance (I hope) that the Internet is not a smoldering ruin at this very moment.
Theardare, on hearing that these wrecks aren't selling: "Purrrr."
Oh, yuck!! This cake reminded me of some truly gross experiences both from on the job and personally. I read thoroughly disgusting descriptions of all kinds of skin lesions and nasty STD rashes and such (K80 up above had the right idea!)...and it also reminded me of the most horrendous thing I've ever seen up close, a terrifically inflamed, large abscess that was the same color as that cake. Eeewww, indeed!!
... My mother had her gallbladder removed, today. It was very infected and near to bursting. I have photographs from the surgery, and I have to confess how disturbingly similar the grossly-infected gallbladder and these pictures look.
My mom's doing fine, I should add. :)
Looks like that cake needs some Proactiv. Lol. I would be afraid to even bite the thing let alone bring it home. It looks like it wants to break all my teeth as well as my heart for looking so scary. If these cakes sell at all I wanna know who has any teeth left after trying to eat them :D.
"A Whole new Boil"
I can show you the boil,
Shining, shimmering, festered!
Tell me Publix, since when did
You start letting wrecks slide by?
Someday suits will walk by,
Gasp in horror and wonder,
Who could've approved that blunder
That looks like something died?
A whole new boil!
A new mental image to make us spew.
All folks will say, "Oh no! It can't be so!
Dear Lord what is that thiiiing?"
A whole new boil,
Just pop and see!
Pus off your face
Put onto cake
So cinnamon-y...
I am also a clerk at the Publix bakery. When we first got these things in, the first thought was: "Are you kidding me?!" First off yes, we should have had a real cinnamon cake. For our quality standards it would have been a good move, but no. A brave co-worker tried this and he said it was just weird. I cringe every time I have to touch them and they come in a sealed package! I was really hoping it would only last a week, but no, we're still gettting them in. =^p
Those really are quite nasty looking. Ew.
I just wanted to point out that not all the baked goods in the Publix bakery are made in Lakeland. According to the Publix website, http://www.publix.com/careers/Manufacturing.do
"...Production lines include dry mix, frozen sweet goods, frozen rolls, frozen wire-cut cookies, icings, and fruit fillings. Ready to serve baked products—muffins, crème cakes, cornbread and cupcakes—are processed here as well. The Atlanta Bakery Plant...produces frozen pies and rolls that are ready to be baked in our stores."
It makes total sense to process the dry ingredients for Publix cakes in on central location because this means that you can trust that every cake you get from Publix, whether in Georgia or Florida, will taste the same. Its a product you can trust to be consistent.
I used to live in Florida, and now live in Ohio. I really really really miss Publix, especially the fried chicken.
@ScaperMama brilliant, lady, but I just gagged out loud as I read that (GOL?? I don't think that one's going to catch on)
Damn it! I KNEW I should have sent in my picture earlier!! I work at Publix as a decorator too, and I've been lucky enough to not have had any of these grace my store for about a month or so. The pictures you have there are actually some of the nicer ones I've seen in a while. Cream cakes have a few days of shelf life before we pull them, and let me tell you, the cinnamon candy ones look worse than this by the end of its shelf run. The candies actually start to melt and run because they're sitting on the cake glaze and it almost looks as if it's bleeding.
I often imagined the direction for our work and products often came from people in corporate that have no experience in desserts or even talk to anyone with the experience of decorating/working in the stores. This one proved it to me. And also made me think that someone must have been on something when they came up with this. Seeing as we've also started carrying our brownies topped with buttercream & crushed oreos, I've also added "potentially pregnant" to the list.
The top one looks like the bottom side of a tongue.
I had a feeling it would only be a matter of time before this cake showed up here! I was recently in my local Publix, and there it was. I had glanced at it as I walked by. I stopped in my tracks and backed up for a second look because I wasn't sure what I was looking at... and I'm pretty sure I said "oh dear lord yuck" out loud. One of the girls in the bakery was watching me, and she was giggling, so I'm sure they get that reaction all the time.
Brownies topped with buttercream and crushed Oreos, @Inky? That might be their way of repenting for the colonoscopy cake. If so, I'm inclined to let bygones be bygones.
Does Publix ship, by chance?
OM NOM NOM NOM
Oh noes. To turn your fear into joy, have them make you a key lime creme cake. They are the best s*** in the world.
I haven't seen them here in Tennessee. Maybe they figure we have enough STDs floating around without them adding to it.
Does this look like a giant diseased cervix to anyone besides me?
I happen to Work at Publix in the bakery And know that we are not particularlly fond of some stuff that gets shipped to our stores. But as the powers above dictate what.feature.items.are on sale they also create new items for trials. Obviously if the item fails to "take off" it will be pulled from stores.And never produced.again. Simply said it will pass. But do not judge your Publix bakery cause as you know much of their product is exceptional.
that awkward moment when you realize publix bakery's motto is "where shopping is a pleasure" dang i have a dirty mind...
How, how, HOW could they look at that and not see it for what it is: an STD-laden O Ring Orifice!
Dear God, it looks like cervical cancer.
What amuses me most about this is that about a month ago I first saw this cake appear at Publix and I grabbed a pic of it to send in to CakeWrecks. Then data loss happened and the cake was not there when I returned. Glad to see I was not alone!
OK, we've hit a new low here. Agreed?
Who/what would a cervix that size have been removed from? Jabba the Hutt's girlfriend?
@PAssociate
There has to be a better way of getting rid of them. Impregnate them with epoxy and use them in artificial reefs? Damfino.
@ Janet L
OK, so I'm not the only one. (Pubix and orgasm, that is.) And the answer is, apparently, NOBODY.
I read a post from someone who stated that all of Publix's product is baked in Lakeland and shipped to other Publix stores. I would like to state as a decorator that this is categorically UNTRUE. First of all, we have over a thousand stores, Lakeland does not have the man power to ship out enough product for all of these stores. Therefore, Publix has manufacturing facilities rather close to the stores that they provide product for. I am proud of this fact because it results in a fresh tasting product, because for all intensive purposes, it IS fresh. As for the "ton of chemical ingredients"...I want to make it clear that we do not have giant vats full of chemicals that we pump into our desserts...we just don't.
Unfortunately this cake didn't taste nearly as bad as it looked. I had the chance to sample it. Before the Syphilis comments had been made of course. Every store was automatically sent a case of them when it first came out. After that case is gone, its up to the bakery manager whether or not to carry it anymore. Needless to say, none of the stores in my area continue to carry it, hopefully its a catchy trend. It may make one more appearance however, when the warehouses realize its not selling they will discontinue it and send the remaining cases out to the stores for them to deal with.
"The Sticky Pustule Bundt of DOOOOM!" - I'm still laughing at that!
This is the first time I've experienced genuine disgust. (The sad fact is I can imagine it tasting fine, but...)
To the Phineas and Ferb cake... Hey where's Perry?
A reminder from your local Publix to go get a pap smear.