Monday
Dec272010
First Canned Fruits
December 27, 2010 Ok, here's the thing: we were totally gonna do an all-new, exciting, hilariously intelligent post on Kwanzaa today. However, it turns out there are no new Kwanzaa wrecks to be found, exciting or otherwise.
Well, except maybe this one:
Which isn't all that exciting. And is probably a Hanukkah wreck anyway.So, as a "compromise" (read "lazy"), we've decided to take another look at last year's doozie of a Kwanzaa catastrophe made by the one and only Sandra Lee. Think of it as one of those really uncomfortable yearly traditions. Like when Aunt Janet gets drunk on Goldschläger at "Winterfest" and hits on Father Jenkins. Yeah. Kinda like that.
Now, to refresh your memories, this is the wreck:
As you can see, it really captures the essence of Kwanzaa: family, community, culture, and corn nuts. It's all there.
And in case you want to make your own, here's a handy diagram courtesy of One Horse Shy breaking down the ingredient list for you:
Mmmmm.
Ok, now that we're fully primed and prepped, let's watch Sandra Lee work her magic:
So... culturally sensitive.
Happy Kwanzaa, all.
Reader Comments (115)
Acorns or Corn Nuts? I could have sworn when I seen this video last year Sandra Lee said Corn Nuts. After watching this video again... she said acorns.
Did they try fixing it so it sounded like less of a wreck?
First of all, that cake is a hate crime.
Secondly, no matter how trademarked the phrase "Corn Nuts" may be, you don't arbitrarily substitute the name of a POISONOUS item instead. Would not "chestnuts" (non poisonous) have worked just as well? Not to mention: "crunchy corn thingys", or
"dried maize tooth breakers"; we all would have known what she meant.
God help the poor soul who sees this video travesty and actually puts acorns on the cake, as they will rapidly end up in the hospital.
Thirdly, Denise Vivaldo wrote a hilarious piece for the Huffington Post (which has now been removed) which takes credit for creating this and other recipes for Sandra Lee, as well as how it was to deal with her, etc, etc. Hilarious. Perhaps if we beg, she will repost the article elsewhere. Tears of laughter were running down my cheeks with almost as much velocity as when I watched the original offending video.
Hey, I found one link to the Kwanzaa cake recipe ghostwriter story:
http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/821446/author-i-created-sandra-lees-kwanzaa-cake
I just checked out her other cake videos on YouTube and this woman is a master cakewrecker. I am stunned that she has a cooking show.
How on earth does that woman have a cooking show? There is so much bad on that whole thing. Seriously apple pie filling? And what is with calling corn-nuts "Acorns"?
I believe my brain just broke.
WV - Boppeno. Type of music Sandra Lee will probably think appropriate for Kwanza.
I love holiday traditions.
I especially love how the cake is sagging in the middle.
Well played, Food Network. Well played.
I will never get tired of reliving this wreck. Corn nuts + cake = magical.
hannahinthekitchen.blogspot.com
I have nothing aginst Sandra Lee when it comes to tailgate foods or appetizers, but her desserts are horrific. I have made a lot of her stuff over the last few years and they taste great, but these things she does to angel food cake just make my brain scream. You may have to skimp back on things like meat in lean times, but the dessert for the holidays is what people look forward to for the spectacular and the flavors... A can of frosting on an angel food cake (just for the record just fine on its own with some fresh fruit and real whipped cream) with non-food stuff on top creeps me out. Sandra, PLEASE LEAVE DESSERT ALONE!
Is it just me, or does that cake look like a giant pile of pate?
Looking at this, I have to wonder...who was this broad schtupping, before Cuomo, to get this show? This show should be called something like, "Pseudo-Cooking For People Without Taste Buds."
=^..^=
Cool cake!
I think she was high when she thought of that and made it. Only high people come up with stuff like that.
Blargh! It is like a gruesome car wreck. It is horrible but you just can't help but look. Again.
When are these broads on cooking shows going to learn to roll their frakking sleeves up? Seeing them handle food with their sleeves down around their wrists is gross.
and she says everybody's favorite part is putting the filling on? NO YOU IDIOT, ITS BAKING THE CAKE, WHICH YOU DON'T EVEN DO!!!!!!!!!!!!
im maddd
Okay, I've gone through some seriously weird hormonal cravings, but I have NEVER thought that chocolate and apple pie filling (from a can??? Ugh!) go together. The thought of those flavors combined turns my stomach!
This goes real nice with her baked potato ice cream!
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=HJIsi2yoC7Q&feature=related
I managed to unearth a cached version of the confession of the woman who actually made up that recipe: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KMPGdQ3BGJYJ:workrelatedworkstuff.appspot.com/www.huffingtonpost.com/denise-vivaldo/kwanzaa-cake-sandra-lee-hanukkah-cake_b_797165.html+denise+vivaldo+confession&cd=18&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
I'm not sure why HuffPo took down the article; maybe Sandra Lee came after them, threatening to feed them this cake...
I used to eat acorns as a child (hey, I left the kindergarten paste for the more mundane children....). They're bitter. Really bitter. And we all know what corn nuts taste like. Who in their right mind would put either of these on an angel food cake???!!! Even pumpkin seeds are pretty questionable on sweet frosting.
Ugh.
Over at www.televisionwithoutpity.com she is lovingly (?) known as SLop, and now I know why.
No i can't watch her again. Please don't make me!! Torture, I tell you, it's pure torture.
On that note, I think you should do an entire week at the end of the year on her disasters alone. It's no wonder they usually include booze.
If not a week, at least one day??
I used to watch her show as a great comic relief after a hectic day, but now I just watch in shock and horror. I knew she was a functioning alcoholic, but when she signed an advertising deal with Smirnoff, it all made sense. After I've had too much to drink some food combinations sound so much better than they really are.
"Add the chocolate and the cinnamon to the icing. You will get an incredible chocolate cinnamon flavour!"
Really?? I thought it would taste like rainbows...
Since anyone can have a tv show, I would like mine now.
She is so delicate with her measurments. So creative and so, .... so, ....
I don't know it's just painful to watch.
Big Momma, where would we find that article?
I can honestly say, I've tried some Sandra Lee recipes and they've been good, but I don't dare copy her cakes (only to improve on them).
I watched a few more of her videos...the Noel cake made me gag (or maybe it was the phlegm trying to get out).
I seem to remember last year somebody sent a video (Cake Wrecks readers) of them making the cake and tasting it, and it was awful. Im' sure it's still in the CW archives somewhere.
Who in the world thought that this woman can cook? I don't think I've ever seen her produce something that I didn't think "OH MY GACK."
acorns...hee..hee...since when are corn nuts acorns?
WHAT MAKES THIS A KWANZAA cake besides the colors??
More importantly...that poor poor lady. She deserves the criticism, but she probably sees herself as freakin' Martha Stewart. Poor deluded woman.
@Harley Quinn, she's always drinking.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Once was enough, although I really do like diagram.
I am also still trying to understand how one can confuse corn nuts with acorns. How?
Kwanza is such a made up, "me, too" holiday - it kinda deserves a jacked-up cake.
I like your post. I like the cute stuff found on your site.
Seriously, guys. Those are "eggcorns" you can buy them at the snack hut when you visit your local "aquorium."
I'm not sure what an Aquorium is but Sandra lee has been to one.
Lol those candles would make me too afraid to even want to eat the cake let alone go near it..any reason as to why they are bigger than the cake?
You know the sad thing? People don't just watch the show (for the laughs, I guess...) but somebody actually buys the books.
I hope her target market is bored, lazy, rich housewives. But I have this image in my head of a single parent, working 120 hours a week and still unable to afford fresh food or childcare, who buys the book thinking "Well, maybe the older kids can help the younger kids make these." It just makes too much sense.
I hope the situation is less like that, and more like here in Australia, where all the marketing is towards "fresh ingredients" and a book like that would never sell because we're all food snobs.
Great, now I'm feeling peckish, and I want Corn Nuts.
Hmmm... Acorns = seed of Oak tree. Corn nuts = crunchy baked hominy (corn). Neither one would be good on a cake. But now we all know how to make that ever elusive "grey" icing. This is what happens when very blonde, very white women try to do Kwanzaa. For some reason my mother loves her... Of course my mother can't cook.
AAAUGH! My *EYES!* My stomach! My brain! Melting! Melting! *what a world, what a world...*
Though I *am* morbidly curious as to what corn nuts and chocolate taste like together, now. Wait, what am I *saying?*
I STILL maintain that fondant is far more disgusting than canned frosting (which isn't saying much, but still).
I mean, all of those gorgeous Sunday Sweets? They look great, but can you honestly say that the frosting is likely to taste good?
That doesn't mean I think the horrific Kwanzaa Cake would taste better, mind you, just that its frosting wouldn't taste any worse.
WV: balali
Deck the cake with mounds of corn nuts
ba la la la la la, la la la li!
Watch as ev'ryone comes to scorn us
ba la la la la la la la la li!
Feel my gorge rise at my 'puter
ba la la, la la la, la la li!
This nasty cake tastes like...[redacted]
Ba la la la la li, la la la li!
The person who called this "hate crime on a plate" summed it up the best. Sandra Lee might (possibly, although personally I doubt it) have some redeeming qualities, but her holiday cakes are downright offensive.
BTW, the Governor of New York does NOT live in Gracie Mansion -- that's where the MAYOR of New York City lives.
JoyM
If vomit could take on the form of a cake, it would look like that. Her "amazing" cocoa-cinnamon frosting made me want to gag... and that filling! Of course, the giant candles on top bring the thing from terrible to hilariously terrible.
Craig said:
"Prepare for a nationwide angel food cake and frosting shortage..."
I can't stop Laughing!
If I had to fake some acorns in a pinch I would use hazelnuts. They are acorn-shaped, taste good with chocolate, and are available around the holidays. Of course, I have some common sense.
Seriously, I don't know how some of these cooking shows stay on the air. I went to my parents' for Christmas and they get channels I don't get. So we were watching some cooking shows and some were very nice. There was one lady, though- it wasn't Sandra- whose idea of a holiday dessert was sticking donut holes on a styrofoam tree. Classy. Then she grilled some lovely steaks, but then covered them with some gross crabmeat paste. They finished up by decorating real leaves with red glitter. That's what mother nature forgot- the glitter.
Another lady was a health-food nut, and there were so many seeds, grains, dried fruits, legumes, cruciferous vegetables, etc. in her version of the holiday meal, it looked like the only things she left out were bark and twigs. I would have been in the bathroom for the next three days.
She is really bad at measuring. And I wonder if she ever tried *eating* her creation?
All she forgot was the grape koolaid!!! omg how awful is this cake! who in the world would even EAT IT!!! corn nuts and CAKE?????? ewww
Jen
That one time you posted the Star of David cake she made, I emailed a link to my brother with the subject line, "Best Food Network Parody ever!"
I was pretty horrified when I opened the comments for THIS one and realized that she was for real xD
I am trying to figure out the answer to several different questions right now. 1. Is she for real? 2. Who would put corn nuts and pumpkin seeds on a cake? 3. Did that just happen? 4.Does anyone watch this and think "OH! That looks wonderful! I must make that immediately!"
Well, maybe it's better that she just uses pre-made stuff from the store. She thinks that that itty bitty cap on top of the vanilla extract bottle (I'm sure she uses the artificial stuff) is equivalent to a *teaspoon*... (it's clearer from some of her other videos on YouTube--but she does the same thing here).
Thank God for Sandra Lee! She makes it so I never want to eat dessert again. Maybe that will be the start of a new weight loss diet. Any time you want dessert, you have to watch several Sandra Lee dessert videos. Gah!
The best part is that she didn't create this. This woman did:
http://foodnetworkhumor.com/2010/12/origins-of-sandra-lees-horrifying-kwanzaa-cake/
Sandra just presented it. She can't even create her own wreck.