Monday
Jan172011
Easy, Cheesy, "Beautiful"
January 17, 2011 Bakers, are you running low on flotsam? Is your curling ribbon on back order? Are you fresh out of teddy bears?
Well, never fear! There are plenty of handy flotsam stand-ins lying around even the most basic of kitchens to save you from actually decorating any of your cakes! Just check out these double-duty doers:
- Styrofoam cups
[Image removed at baker's request. Check back sooner next time. ;)]
Add a few fake flowers snatched off your break room centerpiece, and voila! Instant flower vase!
- The Dollar Store's Clearance Bin
Granted, you'll have to pop next door to Duffy's Dollar Doo-Dad Depot, but the options there are virtually limitless:
And you thought you'd have to learn how to pipe roses. [shaking head] Tsk, tsk.Or, if your budget is tight, just raid
- your kid's toy chest:
The good news is this isn't ridiculous AT ALL.'Course, if you want something edible, (spoilsport) you could always go with
- ice cream cones:
Just be sure to fill them completely with icing. Remember: any bite of chocolate chip cookie without a mouthful of frosting is a bite wasted!Or, for those extra special occasions,
- a dog bone:
Yeah. Chew on that, birthday boy.Or, "impending-hip-surgery-boy," as the case may be.
Thanks to Laura, Mrs. McCutie, Erica D., Lisa, Sarah G., and Seth F., who all have a bone to pick with these wreckerators. Preferably one in chocolate.
Reader Comments (54)
The one with the paddle on it is my favorite. What a ridiculous cake.
That last one is really..... something, not sure what but something!
WV biniso. These cakes belong in the trash biniso let's put them there!
HAHA!!!! I loved the soccer ball cake! Made me giggle 'til I coughed.
im still looking at the bone cake sideways trying to figure out what its supposed to mean.... lol
The bone....I just don't know what to make of these cakes...so crazy.
I don't think they went far enough with that bone cake. I mean add more gore, a few more bones and maybe a brain or two and BAM!!! Zombie cake!
What wrecks! I am glad I have never been given a cake with a dog bone on it, that would just re-affirm all my dog's hopes and dreams that the cake is really for him!
What were they thinking? It looks like it has a wig on it.
And the soccer ball cake.. how is that even on there? Did they have a plastic cover big enough for that? It's pretty epic I must say..
My God! I am sooooo thankful I had not eaten breakfast yet when I saw the last cake. YUCK!!!
On a funny side note...I wonder if the soccer ball was as clean as it neede to be to decorate that cake. I'm guessing not....
That last cake... is intended for a murder-celebration-party?
What has to be going through one's head to place a soccer ball on top of a cake??? (Oddly I feel I might be able to deduce an answer to this... as opposed to the bone cake which defies any explanation)
the worst part of the last one is that those nylabones are usually meat-flavoured. *shudder*
I imagine the conversation for the soccer ball cake was: "I'd like a cake with a soccer ball on it". "How big do you want the soccer ball?" "The same size of the cake, of course!"
That bone cake is really just wrong. Yick.
That bone cake is so wrong... I mean, the other ones are covered in garbage, sure, but garbage AND gore? A bit much. What the heck occasion requires a bloody bone cake?
Oh dear...oh dear oh dear oh dear!
My wv says it all...tolyst
Tolyst what is wrong with these cakes would take forever!
A dog bone? Could there be a boner joke? Seems to be a bone-head idea to me! Unless this cake was for a dog (google it, they really make 'em), that is just nasty!
Do these people understand the meaning of the term "food-safe"? A soccer ball, no matter how well washed, is not food-safe. And a do-dad from the dollar store probably contains lots of potentially toxic substances. What are these people thinking? Oh, sorry, they aren't thinking.
And the one with bone is disturbing.
How did they cut those ice cream cones in half? Hacksaw? x-acto knife?
Is that.....is that....is that.... bloody muscle and tendons and sinew hanging off the end of that bone?
grim...so grim....
At first glance I thought the paddle was a spoonrest! (which makes even less sense unless it was a housewarming cake.) Love how they wrapped the string around the handle. did they glue the ball to the end with icing? they shoud have used it to "fill" the "negative space."
Meanwhile, I'm a little concerned about that bone. It looks like it's been freshly torn from someone (minus the skin and overlooking the shiny plastic--but lots of gushing blood. is that what RED SPRINKLE SUGAR is for?? Is it a splatter pattern?)
Is this a halloween cake? is it a firecracker? Is it a confectionary Mafia Message Cake? (as opposed to a fish wrapped in paper?)
yikes...
on second thought....do you have a collection of cakes that could be Mafia Message Cakes? That might be a fun post...
you have to hope that soccer ball was the present....a $100 ball on a $5 cake??!! erk.
I can understand the soccer ball cake. It's incredibly wrong on so many levels, but I can understand it.
The bone cake... "Congratulations on your compound fracture"? Although, it should probably be:
"Congrads on You're "fracture"!!!!
In defense of the bone cake, when I was little my mom would always bake a cake for our dog's birthday (yes, we celebrated her birthday) and we would stick a bone in it for her to pull out. Of course the bone was sticking out of the side, and the piece of cake that the bone was in was the dog's piece. It was never just laying on top of the cake. And we never ate any cake that had actually touched the bone, or got anywhere near dog slobber.
Let's do the Food Safety Dance! Or not.
I don't think the cup is the only thing made of styrofoam in the first wreck. If you think about it, that would save *tons* of time and effort! A no-bake 'cake' -- Sandra Lee would be proud!
#2 I guess we know where this one originated, ;-) but I'm sure it was the customer's idea. A paddleball? Really?
#3 Remember separate cakes and gifts? Remember wrapping said gifts? That's *so* 2010, and there's all that paper clogging our landfills. This is so much greener -- like the top of that cake (and the guests, one may presume). Is that real grass? Or real 'grass'.
#4 They missed a few spots -- there is still some cookie visible. Obviously a first effort by a graduate of the Sandra Lee School of Wreck-creation (may it never be so).
The last one could actually be a dog cake -- that's the only explanation I'd accept, anyway. I'm not sure what sort of 'frosting' would be dog-safe, but 'safety' doesn't seem to be today's theme, anyway.
[Singing:] "We can wreck if we want to..."
what the heck is that dog bone cake supposed to be? I feel so confused!
Public health inspectors: on your mark, get set, go! (I suspect that would be the most effective strategy to preventing such cakes. Since customers seem willing to keep paying for these wreckastrophes).
#1 I don't know what they were thinking-- the airbrushing and design concept were actually pretty. Way to ruin it!
#2 spoon rest/paddle with string and a glop of icing. Yeah, that makes sense.
@3 maybe the ball is resting on something, and not directly on the cake? There seems to be a gap at the bottom. And that would explain how the cake's not squished. And the decoration of the cake's actually very neatly done, so this may be the person who ordered it's fault?
#4: a whole new version of cookies and creme in a cone!
#5: Maybe for med students??? physiotherapists?
@Craig: "Sandra Lee School of Wreck-creation"?
Speaking as someone who is actually having hip replacement surgery next Monday, that bone cake makes me afraid...very afraid.
I'm just so grateful that there were no MLK cake wrecks. I had a dream there might be.
Hey, it's nice to see Sandra Lee's lessons taking hold - there's no crap too crazy to jam on a cake. You go girl!
The bone in that bone cake is a Nylabone. I've been buying them for my dogs for years. They can be sanitized in the dishwasher; however, they are infused with a flavor (the original is ham bone flavored) which would probably not go well with chocolate, yellow OR white cake. It seems odd to use them as flotsam; they're not cheap (I believe that is "wolf-sized," which is about $8.99 at PetCo).
A...a... Nylabone?
Really?
X_x
Would like to see the look on their face when they try and cut the football :)
If you're really running out of decorating ideas fast enough that you end up just sticking a bunch of junk on the cake, you don't need to be decorating anything edible in the first place. I mean really, dog bones and soccer balls? Is that really necessary? And the paddle ball. What, did they run out of plastic flotsam? This is much worse in my opinion.
What with the current popularity of Zombies I think that's what the one with the Nylabone might be for- if so, it's not too bad.
The one with the soccer ball might be fine for some kid who absolutely HAS to have a soccer ball cake- at least it's not a big smeary glob of icing that vaguely resembles a ball.
I'm pondering the third cake. What kid wouldn't just KICK the ball, despite getting a shoefull of icing?
They would so be locking me up if the bone cake was a rorschach test.
That soccer ball isn't one you pull out of your kid's toy chest - that's an expensive, official FIFA World Cup 2010 soccer ball...
@Queen Julian XIII- yea! I'm not the only one who thought Zombies!!
@Craig- oh, good, now I can replace "Waling' the Dinosaur" with "Safety Dance." What a huge improvement (or is that hug improvement?).
JEN (to get your attention I used all caps): Mafia Message Cakes. Go!! :D You know it's a good idea!
-Barbara Anne
based solely on the title today, I was half waiting to see a cake topped with cheese somehow..
I'm not sure if I'm more pleased, or more disappointed that there wasn't one.... but now I will be trying to figure out what type of cheese goes best with basic cake flavors for the rest of the day...
Who the heck puts a bone on a cake? haha. That and what the heck is it supposed to be coming out of?
Wow! I've never seen such an effortlessly ugly bottom border as on the styrofoam cup cake.
I'm sure it's been said in the other comments, but you forgot the R at the end of the bone cake. hahaha
what...were...they thinking??
I love the ice cream cones best, just cause they're edible. Next comes the football cake! Just cause you're right, these days, it's perfectly acceptable! Great tips! :)
The only response I have is:
"Why does that cake have a soccer ball on it?"
And my face looked like this... O.O
Sheesh I think they put just about anything on cakes that isn't nailed down to the floor. I won't be the least bit shocked if a toilet somehow managed to be a decoration on one sometime lol. Oh please don't find a pic of one.. I will have to hide.
I like cake soccer ball for im happy birthday today
@Aliza: Yes, it's the Sandra Lee School of Wreck-creation. She has a portable classroom -- in a wreckcreational vehicle, of course.
I was incredulous at the concept of handing over a Franklin for a soccer ball, until @Kathleen pointed out that it is the FIFA World Cup 2010 soccer ball. So it's a soccer ball that no one in their right mind would actually use in a game for fear of messing it up. Now it makes sense!
I told myself, "Self, if you ever want to present a collector's item to someone, you can't go wrong by turning it into a cake topper. First edition books, Cake Wrecks calendars, you name it -- into the frosting!"
Maybe the customer walked into their local wreckery with that ball and uttered the timeless phrase, "I would like this on a cake."
The rest is history. (So was the wreckerator, for contaminating the collector's edition soccer ball with frosting.)
@Craig-- the laugh remark in the "<>" brackets didn't display. I was trying to say the Sandra Lee school comment was very funny.
And yes, I'd like to add my name to the list of fans who would love to see a Mafia Message cake post!!! Brilliant idea, @Jo
You forgot to remind the wreckerators to bake the cake with the styrofoam cup already in place! We wouldn't want to miss that extra bit of toxic flavoring, would we??
Did any one else notice that the soccer cake seems to be perched on top of a pillow on a bed!?! Oh, those photographers and their fancy tricks...you know, so as not to distract from the cake :)
I'm really worried about this post. It makes me want to root through any cake I want to buy with a pitchfork to make sure nothing like... this is hidden in my yummy supposedly-innocent pastry! I mean one moment I could have cake in my mouth, the next, plastic dog bone! Blech!!! Not
Q-ool!
-B