Thursday, October 23, 2008

Dirty-Minded Decorators

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Aw, look at the sweet cake for Sarah-Maude's second birthday:


[squinting] Although, those balloons look a little odd, don't they? Let's take a closer look...

[eyes bulging] Great Scott! Hide the children!!

And I KNOW you see what I see, people, so don't even try to accuse me of having my mind in the gutter. It's the Fireman cake all over again.

Eric N., thank goodness this was for a safely oblivious 2-year-old. Still, given how obvious those balloons are, I'm pretty sure I'd steer clear of this bakery in the future. Unless it was for a bachelorette party, of course.
The Courteous Chihuahua said...

Gosh, I don't remember much from my high school French, but I think that translates to "Happy Colorful Penis, Sarah-Maude."

Helen said...

I think it's the yellow one is the worst offender: the helmet is clearly defined!! Goodness gracious me!!

Anonymous said...

Umm, you forgot to mention the squiggly, little swimmers...

BTW, love your blog - I check it everyday!

HorribleLicensePlates said...

Oh my. I get the red "balloon"!! Ha-ha!

Zitny Clan said...

Ewwww! The kids may have been oblivious, but as an adult, how can you eat that? Or worse yet, feed it to the children? Wrong. It's just sick and wrong!

NanU said...

OH, my.
Is there any follow-up on cakes like this? I'd really like to know what the decorator had to say for him/herself!

Rebecca said...

It doesn't mean you mind isn't in the gutter....it just means we're right there with you!

Anonymous said...

Do I detect a PORN-STAR RIDGE? Those wacky French...

Eternal Lizdom said...

Holy cow!! Put me in the dirty minded category becuase I immediately saw man parts as soon as I looked at the cake. Egads!

Anonymous said...

At first I thought that those balloons looked like chicken legs. Ummm, fried chicken legs on cake, interesting combination.

Then I saw what you saw!!! YIKES!!

Nosnin said...

What kind of balloons look like that?!?
Why they're unnatural.

n i l e e y said...

When I looked at the close up shot, I wonder what was in their minds when they drew the 'balloons'...hilarious nevertheless!

Cannon Family said...

Aacckk!!! Those black squiggles coming out as "string" don't help any either!! Yipes!

Anonymous said...

What possessed the decorator to put the little extra "blobs" at the bottom of those balloons anyway!?! Balloons should be so easy, so long as they are round. Anything slightly oblong, with a long, squiggly string looks too much like male produced dna carriers to me. I know you all know what I'm talking about here too! ;-)

Heide said...

Well, directly translated "Bonne Fete" means good festival. Maybe this isn't a toddler's birthday cake, but the second year of Sarah's joining a brothel.

Anonymous said...

OOOOOOOOOOMYYYYYYYYYYGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD
not sure should I laugh or cry?
for deffo my no1 so far.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the were celebrating the second year of her adult movie career?

What's wrong with a round balloon? Why couldn't they stick with a circle??

Anonymous said...

*pulls out her psychiatrist's couch* So...tell me about your mother, Mr. Cake Decorator. Any affinity toward cigars perhaps?
Apart from the fact that those balloons do NOT look like balloons, if you full view that second picture look at the consistency of the icing. It's LUMPY. Somehow the texture makes me recall the horrible STD video they showed us in high school.

Boozy Tooth said...

Hey wait a minute.... This multi-colored condom cake is for a two year old? Boy, those Latins get the party started waaaay early, don't they? Just joshin, y'all. Who wouldn't want phallic symbols plastering their two year olds cake. I mean, really... it's the only way to go.

JJ said...

wow...they are like so PRECISE...what was the decorating thinking.?!?!

Holly said...

Oh...wow. That's just...wow.

Anonymous said...

Yeah... Ummmm....

Sarah, honey, would you like a piece with a blue "balloon" or an orange "balloon"?

Pink Sith said...

Thankfully I can't be offended because I don't read French! Je suis d'accord chercher les ballons très phallique.

Wade's World said...

There are just no words for that disaster...

Poetry Sue said...

I love the phallic balloons!

nycbride said...

Um, it's French, people! It comes with the territory!

Alison said...

Hmmm...well, they are celebrating the birth of a child. And really, from a natural, scientific point of view, balloons are a lot less relevant to that occasion. More relevant to a cake, perhaps...

Anonymous said...

I so want that cake!!!! I know call me nasty, but it would be so worth it to bust that out in front of my family and the in-laws to see their reaction ROFL!!!!!!!

MakingChanges said...

WOW! That's all I can say. Yes, I will admit to seeing EXACTLY what you saw.

skatej said...

*sheepish* I have to admit...I didn't get the problem with the fireman cake until I read the comments. But this one I understood...go figure.

Henry's Mom said...

Oh my gosh.... I was laughing out loud at my desk.... WOW!!!

Hyena Overlord said...

tre bonne eh? a cake with icing man parts and anus spelled wrong. Definitely for Sarahs second year in Porno Valley or on Webdreams.

even funnier...the word verification for my post is coadom....like condom only misspelled...sheesh, my eyes are going, that's for sure.

Anonymous said...

I think I'd have asked the baker, "why are there penises on my kid's cake?!"
Balloons my left hind foot! Gag.
~Amy B.

Gallifrey said...

Great, another classic blunder!!

Unknown said...

Hahaha! I submited the pictures and I'm glad that they got posted.

I forgot to mention that with all the colored frosting used on this cake, everybody that ated it also had a bonus surprise the day after. Colorful "poo" in the toilet.

And FYI, we are not frenchs from France but French-Canadians from the province of Quebec.

Anonymous said...

MY 2-year-old announced, "Look, Mama! Violet violins on that cake! So many violins!"

Anonymous said...

There's nothing wrong with the French on the cake.

Decorated cakes at infant parties are solely for the benefit of the adults attending, as the kids are barely aware of anything but that someone's making a fuss over them. So, put all the naughty stuff you want on it! I'm not sure where to draw the line, though, some precocious kids would pick up on it much faster than others (for instance, *I* thought, "what ugly balloons"--and would never have guessed "dangly bits" if Jen hadn't showed the cake from another angle ^^;;).

Becky said...

Yeah, definitely for a bachelorette party, not a 2-year-old's birthday!

Momma J said...

Is that you know what squirting out?!?

Marianne
www.crochetbymommaj.etsy.com
http://crochetbymommaj.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Tres mal!!!
Horrible!

Alex

David and Taryn said...

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but I thought your bold text on the word BALLoon was a nice touch!!!

And the squiggly swimmers that are "supposedly" balloon strings are just sick and wrong!

Anonymous said...

ok so call me super defensive or something .. i do see it with the upside down blown up shot .. but i have to say my first thought was WOW they did a horrible job making hot air balloons .. the baskets are the same color as the balloons. Then the blown up shot came (no pun intended) and now thats ALL i can see.

LaurenH said...

Actually I'm kind of fond of the penis-balloons on a two-year-old's cake. Might as well face the facts early, "If it weren't for one of these, you wouldn't be here kid!"

Anonymous said...

Sacre Dieu!!!!!

Persnickety Ticker said...

Took me a minute to figure out which end was...um...up? While I get the phallic thing...they just don't even look like a good representation of either balloons or eh-hem. Frankly it's just sad.

Schmei said...

People, do none of you have mothers-in-law who want grandbabies? This is no cake wreck - it was ordered to be just like this so the toddler's mother would understand it's time to get to work on baby #2.

I bet it's the last time they ask grandma to bring the birthday cake...

Lisa said...

I will try not to take all those Frenchist comments personally...

Have to say it's an horrible cake, no matter if the text is French or English.

The thing that made me laugh is visualizing this poor Cake-Maker: I usually do more damage trying to fix things and I suppose it's the same thing for her/him:

"Well, now I have to draw those balloons... Woopsie, this one is not quite round! Well, it could be not-round balloons... I will fix the other ones so it'll look the same... Woopsie, I put to much icing on the bottom of this one... It's OK - I'll just add some lumps at the bottom of the other ones...

OMG, it looks like balloon-penises !
Wait, wait wait... I should add little strings so it look more Birthday-ish...

Damn! It just look like some on those balloons were to excited by this cake!

Oh, well. I hope the customer will pay for it anyways.

~Bethany~ said...

Nothing like a colorful group of "twig & berries" on a birthday cake. I especially like the orange ones who seems to have balls the size of oranges.
Love your blog.

Anonymous said...

hahaha..! I would not have been able to stop giggling if I was at that party.

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase.."eat me"..wow.

CaliGirl9 said...

I thought they were malformed sperm (HUGE heads, small tails) celebrating the mystery of life ... the two-year young life of Sarah-Maude.

My German-born mom's penmanship is just like what's on this cake. We gotta give the baker props for NO QUOTATION MARKS!!

Angie said...

Oh My, well I'm just speachless.
It does make you wonder about the decorator though.
If it was my daughters cake, I think I would have to stand at the counter and ask a bit to loudly "WHY ARE THERE PENISIS ON MY 2 YEAR OLDS CAKE?" Ya know cuz obviously I'd be wondering.

Unknown said...

who thought that was okay?!?!? I mean, someone else HAD to have seen this. You'd think a fellow decorator or the checkout girl at the bakery or a manager or for the love of god SOMEONE would have spotted this and said something along the lines of "Dude, your friggin balloons look like penises. What's the deal?"

I mean, that's what I would have said.

Manders said...

*Hides her eyes*

Mes yeux!! Mes yeux!!

Anonymous said...

Um, not to be too graphic here but French willies(which usually have all original *ahem* accoutrements) would not look like this. So it's somewhat understandable that what we see as the distinctive anatomical detail would go unnoticed.

harmzie said...

looking for a moment beyond how grossly inappropriate this cake is (with all due respect to the defenders herein), I am actually quite impressed at the accuracy of the... um... representation (assuming circumcision, of course).

Should I ever be in charge of a bachelorette cake again, I'll take this photo and say "you CAN do it! It doesn't have to look like a big pink baseball bat"

Unknown said...

As if the name "Sarah-Maude," isn't bad, incongruous, and Bea-Arthur-ish enough...she has to put up with a penis cake for her 2nd birthday. If this is the cake, then I can only shudder in horror as I imagine the gifts that little Sarah-Maude got to open that day.

Anonymous said...

I'd have to say that it's probably more of a canadian wreck than a french wreck. We don't do this kind of decorated cakes, I've never seen anything like this in any kind of french bakery. That's definitly north american, so either it was for a french family in the US or from canada.
Bu yeah, OHMYGOD, adults must have been giggling when seing that, kids just don't care.

koalabear said...

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! that was great

im so getting something like that for my kid's birthday cake

that is, once i have kids :)

then i can tease them when they get older and show them what they ate as a child *evil grin*

Anonymous said...

Well !!! it's a french canadian cake!!!! I need to know where exactly this cake come from since I live in montreal and my daughter will be 2 y/o in less than 2 weeks!!!!

MaryO said...

I was howling at the comment, then almost had an accident after reading The Courteous Chihuahua's observation.

Hilarious. :-)

Liz said...

Comment dit-on "scarred for life" en francais?!?!?!

Pauvre Sarah-Maude!

Anonymous said...

WOW. Just... wow.

Shannon said...

lord this is horrible! thanks for the laugh

Juliet said...

That cake is stunning. They did know it was for a little girl, right?

Those BALLoons can't have been an accident!

Liz said...

Oh, and minor detail compared with the "balloons", but "fete" is spelled with an accent circonflexe (fête), not aigu (féte), which is what that blob over the first "e" in "fete" looks like to me...unless maybe it's spelled that way in Canada? Any input, Eric?

Emily said...

It is in French, you know how open minded they are over there. Just getting started early is all. :)

JennyF said...

I was on the phone when I scrolled down to the second photo and had to put my phone on mute while I laughed raucously. Hilarious!!

Anonymous said...

I don't think there's any way those were *meant* to be balloons. I love it. I think it's hilarious!

Bri said...

Zut alors!

I see penises too...pauvre fille!

I like Sarah-Maude's name though!

Hi Kooky said...

I have no words.

Pam the Yarn Goddess said...

Hahaha... what's even funnier is that the decorator obviously doesn't have a grasp of anatomy or, worse yet, hasn't seen, touched, or played with a ... uh ... BALLoon in a very long time. Did you notice that some of them look like they contain only one BALL? Some of the others must belong to very old men - they're crooked and hang funny. They even look wrinkly. I also agree with one of the other commenters - there are no little swimmers to complete the picture. Thanks for brightening up my day LOL.

Anonymous said...

OMG, that was hilarious! I literally gasped when I saw the second photo.

Rachael M. said...

Bon-fete, indeed!

Dea said...

Wow, that decorator must be the disgruntled Disney animator who made the naughty x-rated towers on the Little Mermaid movie covers when fired!!!

Anonymous said...

This is hysterical on one level...totally wrong on other levels...love your blog!

Anonymous said...

Those poor circumcised balloons ;)

dee said...

Your blog is hysterical! I posted about the Walmart cake ("Under Neat that") last week after my friend Zach sent it to me and SO many people commented about it! A few people told me they'd seen it on your site and that I should check it out...now I can see why! OMG. Penis balloons on a two-year-old's cake?! I can't even...

Love this!

Anonymous said...

Are cake decorators generally this passive-aggressive?

Bri2k

Unknown said...

Yes, the worst part of this is definitely the squirtys coming out!

Anonymous said...

What? Those are just how French balloons look.

Keemster said...

Ils sont pénis! Oui?!
Yucco!

Anonymous said...

This kind of thing makes me wonder if it was completely accidental (God, please!) or if the cake decorator was intentionally making the balloons look like that because they knew they could hide under the defense of "What?! They're balloons!"

Anonymous said...

Oh, the upside-down view is sooo deceptive. Those are pretty li-, er, lame decorations.

Anonymous said...

I wish this had been posted prior to my bachelorette party. My MOH went the far more direct route and made a penis cake with toasted coconut in the appropriate area. Which was a lot of fun in a bar, but it would've been fun to see how many drunk people would've realized what these were.

She'd've had to use white "strings", though - the model for this cake should see a doctor.

Mechelle said...

I see it too. At first they looked like tacs to me, then came the second view, *oh! what the!* Well it's a tac-ky cake none-the-less.

D.B. Echo said...

Well, at least we know Patrick Stewart didn't create the cake. Otherwise it would just be an image of a woman going to the bathroom!

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/93/93lsexycakes.phtml

Anonymous said...

Wowzers. Sometimes you just never know if these wrecks are the work of a disgruntled employee.

The fireman cake story was hilarious...and a little sad. I could just picture that earnest decorator making that cake.

FreedomFirst said...

Oh. My. Goodness. !!! What was this decorator thinking??!! No, wait - I don't want to know.

Rachel said...

First time poster here! Like she said, at least kids are totally oblivious to these things! Hopefully the parents were able to have a bit of a laugh over it!

ksaldria said...

I think it's obvious what line of work this decorator was in before they went into baking. Who the hell makes frosting balloons that way? Seriously? On the other hand, I know a whole bunch of people who would have so much fun consuming this wreck.

Nauntie Lush said...

Oh Dear! I knew that those were um, those wieners you were talking about when I saw the cake right side up!

Thank goodness 2 year olds don't know what wieners are for!

Anonymous said...

Oh, Lord! I've read this blog for awhile now, and tonight I have to say I've laughed until i've cried!Hilarious. Especially the comments.

Unknown said...

"Happy birthday, darling. Now that you're two, let's have a talk about the birds and the bees."

Joy said...

I want a piece with a blue "balloon" on it!!!

Mad Izatie said...

hm... hillarious. and so WRONG on so many levels. XD

Fleeting said...

Oh dear god. Those crazy Quebecois and their liberal sex practices!

Why did the decorator not say to themselves... hey, you know what, maybe I ought to just start over. Nobody is going to want to eat giant mounts of way-too-brightly-coloured icing in the shape of very happy penises.

My theory is that they accidentally mixed up the order with one for a bachelorette party being picked up on the same day... and flipped the cake and added the strings to cover up the flub!

Anonymous said...

I thought the things at the bottoms of the balloons were supposed to represent the knots tied in the balloons to keep the air in. Sadly, this overattention to detail has really led to some pretty phallic balloons.

Penis Power! E=D

Eric said...

Your mind may not be in the gutter, but when you turned the cake upside down those black "strings" take on a whole new meaning...ewww gross!


www.goinggreenaccdently.blogspot.com

K R said...

oh my dear god...thats genius. pure genius.

~E said...

bon fete indeedy!!!

Im still kinda hoping they forgot the second number in the age...like 21 ans...or 29 ans...

and the french makes it so much dirtier!

or is that just me?

Wendyburd1 said...

Gross, poor kid!

HellboundAlleee said...

That's probably a Quebec cake.

And those are CIRCUMCIZED penises.

Now, if the cake was, say, from the west side of Montreal, I would agree, that those are penises.

But if the cake is from anywhere else in Quebec, you'd have to say, no, no, they don't look like penises at all.

Innocent, I say. Innocent.

Anonymous said...

Oh
My
Word!

My b'day is in January, where can I get one of those cakes?

Miranda said...

WHAT were they thinking? for an adult, this could be a funny gag, but for a little child? That ain't right, not at all. Not even *I* would do that.

Unknown said...

Here are some additional informations.

When I saw this cake http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-another-obscure-bank-holiday.html I remembered that we had a similar cake made for our little girl 2nd birthday. It was made at the bakery of a local COSTCO (Trois-Rivieres,Qc).

We were in a hurry because both our families were attending the party with a lot (15+) of kids between 1 & 8 years old. We picked the cake and rushed to the party location so we didn't notice it until we served the cake.

What my daughter saw from her side was this (see first picture). A cake with colorful balloons.

Everybody on the other side saw this (see second picture). A cake with colorfull "male organs" (I know you like quotation marks).

It was so unmistakable that everybody in age to understand what they saw was shooting embarassed looks around to see if anyone else noticed. (Everybody did except for the kids, fortunately).

We had a good laugh about it. We still wonder what the bakery employee had in mind at the time.

I could have showed the pictures to the store manager but the cake was no more.

Thanks for all your comments.

Anonymous said...

that's hysterical! I'm laughing at my desk over here!

Kattastic said...

I just snorted coffee out of my nose!

diddlesgirl said...

hm, has the cake decorator ever seen a balloon?
oh, i need this cake to take to my childs next party. just to see the look on my inlaws faces as they try NOT to notice what is on the cake. i would have to give them very specific slices . . i am enjoying this dream a bit too much!
did no child at the party ask why there were particular body parts on the cake?
ok, they are doing this on purpose! someone else said their word verification was close to condom - mine is forne!

Anonymous said...

As one of those damn French, I wonder about the "bonne fête" writing. In French-from-France, "bonne fête" means primarily "happy name day". Obviously, Sarah doesn't have the same name day as Maude (respectively Oct 9 - March 14). "Happy birthday" would translate as "bon anniversaire", *not* "bonne fête". Perhaps they just meant "happy celebration" (it can mean that too), but you wouldn't say that in the context of greetings. You would hardly write "happy celebration" on a cake, you would be more specific. So... are you sure about the provenance of the cake?
(but don't think I'm denying that the French can produce authentic cake wrecks too... yesterday again, I saw this horrendous... thing... in a cake shop window, I regretted so much I didn't have a camera with me. Shudder.)

Anonymous said...

Oh. I reacted too quicky to the "damn/wacky/"open-minded" French" various comments and missed Eric's post explaining that it was a French Canadian cake. This answers my previous interrogation about the language.

Jen said...

Oh.My.Goodness.

ROFL!

Anonymous said...

You know, with the "balloon" string right above the "F" in "Fete," it looks more like "Bonne Tete" which would say "Good Head."

Hmmmm...

Anonymous said...

Yep, you are right! I see them too and have tears running down my eyes from laughter. The cake decorator must have been getting back at the boss that day. That'll teach em! Love your site!

The Girl in the Mirror said...

the "strings" make me especially uncomfortable now, seeing as they are black. what have they been eating?? i think its time to see a doctor.

Unknown said...

And the word verification I have here is "penon"!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the consistent laughs :-)

Cupcakes Lady said...

LOl Brilliant. Wrong on so many levels, without doubt. ;) xx