Saturday, December 20, 2008
Ye Olde Yuletide Ax
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Jami H. assures me there's actually cake under that mess. A mess, I might add, which is completely inedible - except for the frosting dots on the plastic aquarium sprigs, of course. So let's see: we've got trees, icicle garland, holly berries and leaves, and a shiny gold...ax?
Srsly - who plans this stuff?
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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.
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116 comments | Post a Comment
I don't really understand what's going on here, but I know I'm scared.
Well ya know Jen, mass murderers want to celebrate Christmas too! Jeez, you're so discriminatory.
Prepare your retinas, indeed!!
Is that lettuce I see on there???
That looks JUST like the trashcan in my son's kindergarten classroom did when I swept all the junk off the craft table after their holiday party.... who woulda thunk I could have marketed it as a holiday cake? Good news for me, I have 2 more to send through school.... I'm gonna be RICH!
Tammy
Mmmmm, plastic axe.
Is that a cupcake under there? I think I spot a cupcake wrapper...
What IS that??? (turning head, squinting eyes, moving closer to screen - nope didn't help!)
I think I see a CUPCAKE under all of that mess! And does it have red and green swirled frosting with holiday sprinkles? I wonder if the wreckerator thought they were fixing it by adding plastic crap to cover up the part where the red and green combined to brown instead of swirling in a festive holiday fashion.
And the ax... I am really at a loss on that one. Maybe to chop down the aquarium springs growing out of your cupcake?
Thanks for some Saturday morning humor!!!
Shocking.
"..someone left the cake out in the rain..." No, really.
I'm pretty sure the axe is for
Chopping through all the ornamental
garbage to get to the luscious Fruit
Cake inside! No? Then maybe it's
A suicide axe for killing yourself
after ingesting that nasty bit of
Christmas festivity!
The golden ax caught my eye immediately. Why? If it were a scythe, I could understand...Father Time, and all...
I look forward to your blog and your witty commentary every day. Thanks so much!
Blogless Mary Lou
It looks like Santa threw up on the cake. All of that crap...errr stuff...isn't even artfully arranged. Looks like the decorator (and I use that term loosely!) stood back 5 feet and just threw it willy-nilly. Why bother?!
The first thing I said when I open this was...
"What the eff is that?"
Of course, 'eff' was completely pronounced.
Some poeple should not be allowed near a mixer & a stove.
Where's the kitchen sink?
Could this cake lend some of its decorations to yesterday's "Winter" cake? They'd both still be wrecks, I promise!
Best of all, it looks like all that mess is on a cupcake!!
I had to keep leaning closer and closer to my laptop screen to actually figure out what was going on!
Maybe there's something about the cake they were trying to distract people from. Perhaps they thought "if we pile enough random crap on top of the cake, they won't realize we ran out of frosting."
What the HECK!!!!!!! this is crazy!
What kind of person comes up with crap like this and thinks its a good job well done??????
NUTS!
That looks like a cracked tooth waiting to happen!
Monique D.
In fourth grade, we made presents for our moms that looked like this cake: a plaster of Paris base with things just kind of embedded in it, of which all that remain now are the twigs of decomposed evergreen sprigs, a dusting of glitter, and the partial carcasses of broken tiny glass ornaments. So cheer up, cake -- in 39 years you'll look much more tasteful.
Woah.
What is happening here?
WV: mucro -- What this cake is made of.
Brianna McCarthy@Passion.Fruit
http://briannamccarthy.blogspot.com
I...um...what? That's not a cake. That is the pile of bits and pieces of broken or unwanted decorations that has been sitting in a corner of the garage.
I thnk that's a giant cupcake hiding underneath there...perhaps the purpose of the ax is to break the cupcake free?
I think someone was walking through the bakery with a box full of unused decorations and they tripped and dumped them on top of the cake. Then the decorator was probably busy and just threw some frosting on there for good measure.
I think I see a cupcake somewhere in there... lol
Someone had a perfect town in Animal Crossing!
Also, Druids would cut mistletoe with a golden blade, maybe the wreckerator is better-educated in folklore than we thought.
Here's what happened.
Employee #1: I have to leave early. When that cake is out of the oven decorate it for Christmas and put it in the case.
Employee #2: Uh, I'm not sure I know how to do Christmas cakes.
Employee #1: Just like a birthday cake, except red and green, instead of electric blue.
Employee #2: [Doubtful look, remembering how loudly the last birthday cake customer screamed.]
Employee #1: Just do your best, and if you mess anything up there's a bunch of Christmas decorating inedibles in the drawer next to the airbrush. You can cover up any mistakes with something from there.
---
And as for the axe, the Presidents' Day supplies are in the next drawer up, and Lincoln's Axe got in the wrong compartment.
IT's what you do at the grocery's cake department when the teen ager is baking and he/she doesn't know how to ice and decorate...
"hey I know! I'll just go get some of that tree decorating stuff off the discount table at the back of the grocery store near the restrooms and use that instead. Christmas is Christmas right? " heh heh heh....
even scarily - *someone* is going to buy this!
I'm seriously worried about my mental state because...I think I understand the "theme". It's an ode to going out into the wintry, icy woods to chop down your Christmas tree. Peaceful, ice laden branches, golden ax, branches crackling underfoot.
I've fallen into the vortex Hold me!
it looks like one of this pictures with a lot of stuff on it and you have to look for one tiny person . In this case it's more like "finde the ax"
My son has an irrational fear of Veggie Tales. He was leaning over my shoulder and said "oh no mommy veggie tales made a cake..no mommy no!!!!" The scariest thing he could imagine creating the scariest thing imaginable..that about sums it up ;)
What...What IS that??? Did they really put that on display??? My sweet mother of Wilton.
Word Verification: inner; This cake violates my inner cake decorator.
christmas barfed on that cake, cupcake/ whatever? it must have been a rough night for christmas.....
This is what happens when Santa barfs.
This is my new favorite wreck! Hideous in the most magnificent way!
Maybe they made it for Jack Nicholson to commemorate "The Shining."
Where's the psycho santa with the bugged out eyes?
Angie (from over at www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)
Mella- I'm not sure. The axe is the one item I could actually tell what it was. The rest is just... a glob of stuff?
The thing is hideous for sure, but the ax is kind of a traditional Yuletide Log decoration. Get it? Log? Ax? There is logic there.
The garland? Not so much.
And OMG, my verification word was vicules! I can totally see it, "This cake is covered in vicules of holiday decoration."
Is there even any cake under that monstrosity?
Is that a cupcake??!
At last, a cake to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas--going to extremes in the most excessive manner possible.
Except I didn't see gold or silver dragees. Maybe next year.
I'm with the person who said, "It's an ode to going out into the wintry, icy woods to chop down your Christmas tree." Not to justify the result, but I think there was a coherent intention there -- it started from a Buche de Noel and spiralled out of control.
There's nothing wrong with an ax on your buche de noel, but it makes more sense if you can tell that the cake is supposed to resemble a log!
It looks like the twisted pile of stuff at the bottom of the ornament box when we drag it out of the attic every December. Not a very appetite-inducing sight, I have to say.
Who manufactures shiny gold axes, and for what purpose?!
Oh wait - is there an annual Paul Bunyan convention somewhere?
That looks like someone got really excited about the holidays and threw up...thus creating this wreck.
Is this supposed to be something you eat?
?????
???
??
? Nope, I still don't see it.
**Word verification: racipe - a recipe for an inedible cake
Hey, I think I can see Waldo in there! XD
Whoever made this wreck... has to eat it. Plastic axe, fake trees, and all.
It's so frightening and random...I almost want one.
So THAT'S where all of our kindergarten Christmas decorations went... We've been looking for those!
Wow that certainly is a wreck!
also i know this is random but John Mayer has been having a cake contest on his blog. check out all the fabulous cakes at http://www.johnmayer.com/blog
What the H were they thinking?!
What the heck! This is the perfect visual for a "less is more" lesson.
Out of curiousity, Jen, what is your opinion of "fruitcake"? ;)
Why would you stick a "Seasons Greetings" sign on a CHRISTMAS tree? I'm jus' sayin'....
Fugly. Just Fugly.
(I associated the axe with Washington cutting down the cherry tree, but Aviatrix's Lincoln reference is equally valid and equally misplaced in a Christmas wreck.)
Aw, it's not all THAT bad!
Go to any gathering of little, blue-haired old ladies (no offense to little, blue-haired old ladies in general, of course)during the holidays, and I'll bet you'd see worse than that thing on their coats, masquerading as "holiday corsages."
Oh, Mari--I don't know about a Paul Bunyan convention per se, but the folks up in Brainerd, Minn. seem to think a heck of a lot of the big guy. Big statue and all that. Yah. ;)
Do you ever wonder if wreckarators are doing this on purpose just to get on the site? That is the only way to explain this.
Word Verification: treed as in: Them thare cupcake has been treed! :D
Holy hell, that's a CAKE? How on earth do these people get jobs?!
Merry aXemas!!
Long time lurker, first time commenter. Had to come out of the woodwork to comment on this monstrosity. What the bloody eff IS that thing?
WV: Habler: Horrendous enabler. IE; the person who told this Wreckorator that this cake was sellable!
How else are you supposed to chop up the yule log? With your fingers?
It hurts.
It hurts so good.
...erm... I mean badly.
..c..c....cupcake?!
Hmm...
Yup... I'm pretty sure that this is a 4 cupcake CCC... And they probably had one green... one red... one blue... and one yellow frosted so the multitude of 'stuff' is meant to cover the fact that they should have turned it into a string of christmas lights instead of a heap o' Christmas Crap.
Hmm... But the axe now... hmm...
I suppose Lizzy Borden's ghost might have ordered a Christmas Cake with her favorite type of gift...?
LOL
Ouch!
So, they store a box up on the top shelf. A box full of little plastic things that are left over from other projects. And they were getting it down so that they could put away the golden axe. But they dropped it...and some of the bits got stuck in a cupcake. And some marketing expert said, "WHOA! Throw some icing dots on it...it'll sell! Watch, there's someone out there who will buy ANYTHING." And so was born a (cup)Cake Wreck.
Don't worry if your house has no chimney kids, Santa will just use his shiny gold axe to get through your door. He also uses his axe on the kids on his naughty list, so be good 'kay?!
Here's my best guess: an outdoor Christmas tree caught fire, but it was stopped quickly with lots of water (no charring, but icicles) and a golden ax (hence the big leafy mess). As to who would've been near with water and a golden ax, I don't know. Frodo Baggins? Paul Bunyan?
My first response to this was "Well, of course, you use the Yule Axe to cut the Yule Logs."
But I see other commentators have beaten me to this conclusion.
wv: miess. The sound all the CakeWrecks readers make when someone misses this badly. Ouch.
I had to go back and look for the ax, there's so much stuff on that monstrosity! And it looks like it's a cupcake cake, which makes things even worse. Add in that it was probably supposed to be a takeoff on the Buche de Noel and it's a wreck three times over!
prolly need it to break thru to the cake.
Looking at this is giving me a stomachache. Not because of the decorating per se, not because of the gobs of neon green frosting, but because I can't help but imagine that all of the inedible crap on top has the same musty, old-plastic smell that my mom's Christmas decorations do when she first pulls them out of the attic. Like a combination of decaying insulation, mold, and baby vomit. Bleagh.
- Mu
Word verification: Lessi. Lessi how many cups of eggnog it's going to take for me to forget I ever saw this monstrosity.
Maybe the Axe was a college football reference... Cal Bears/ Stanford Cardinal rivalry, anyone?
Although I must say I'm a huge Cal fan, there is no excuse for this atrocity. ABSOLUTELY NONE.
Whoa. Eyeball overload. I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to be looking at!
"Srsly - who plans this stuff?"
That would be nobody. Nobody at all.
The ginormous axe is to cut down the tiny trees. Which makes about as much sense as the whole cake does.
I have visions of someone going to an estate sale. Buying a messy box of really old, dusty Christmas decorations and throwing them on a cake.
I took a cake decorating class years ago. I made several cakes for my kids. On a couple of occasions I had friends offer to pay me to make a cake for their kids. I always refused to accept money because frankly my cakes were not good enough to be considered professional.
Or so I thought..... maybe I should re think my cake making career. ( I will know I have made it if one ends up here ;) )
lol yeah I am being a board hog.
Is that an "I Spy" cake?
umm...that's a cupcake with that mess piled on top.
sad, sad, sad...
because there is someone wandering through the bakery [aisle] lonely enough to say, "yeah, i'll have that pile of crap and plastic on top of that perfectly decent cupcake...that'll make my day!"
Axe? AXE? Wha the....
Anonymous said...
Merry aXemas!!
December 20, 2008 2:10 PM
********************************
Hey, I LIKE that!! >^~~^<
All I can say is, it looks like how I feel after all the presents are opened.
Word verification: rappinea. I won't be rappinea gifts anytime soon.
'That was inedible muck, and there wasn't enough of it.'
-viv stanshall (as sir henry of rawlinson end)
JEEBUS, that's atrocious.
From what season is that "greeting" being sent, exactly? Tacky craft fair season??
that looks like the living room rug the Christmas my brother and I pulled the tree over, by accident, twice in one day. Luckily there was no axe or our Mother would have murdered us.
wvotd..dirocal. A tummy remedy needed to counteract eating the plastic decorations on this cake
question,,,,why do we never hear formthe people who submitted the cake? If my cake was up i would be answering questions and stuff like was this a crappy cupcake cake?
OBVIOUSLY, the golden ax is there because the little elves used it to chop down the Christmas trees.
...
Naw, I agree with Zitny Clan--definitely mass murderers celebrating Christmas. At least it's not bloody or anything.
I am amazed that so many people see a cupcake under that... I definitely didn't see anything.
The axe is for Yule. It's a Yule Cake without being an actual Yule log... Still hideous, though!
That's just freaky.
wordver: bluout.
Close enough to blowout, which is what someone did with this cake!
-Deb (the same Deb from the other posts)
Geez, you guys are so picky ;)
At least this thing has sprinkles!!!
...okay, so maybe it is a bit fugly.
OMG, OMG, it's wearing a *necklace*.
ew. it scares me.
I gave Cake Wrecks an award:
http://bearabledeals.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-first-blog-award.html
TY for being so great! Merry Xmas!
So, having looked at the cake for a long time, I think it's supposed to be a grassy forest with two christmas trees covered in snow and ice but yeah, it's a wreck of epic proportions.
As for the ax, I'm thinking it could be meant as a reference to the grand old German tradition of papa going out into the forest and cutting down a real Christmas tree for his family. This is the only explanation I can come up with.
That cake looks like a Christmas tree threw up on it!
...the 'Seasons Greetings' sign is bigger than the cake!!
Yes, it is indeed a Buche de Noel, therefore it looks like this.
Says my husband (who now looks forward to me opening Cake Wrecks...LOL), "I don't even know what to say about that!"
I like the ax, though. That's super festive!!
Scary.
I...I don't know what to say. It's like a Christmas massacre.
DISCLAIMER: DO NOT EAT THIS CUPCAKE NEAR AN OPEN FLAME. The shell suit of cupcakes!! I can't believe I didn't realise that the axe was to cut down the tree, making it the best thing on the cake!!
Maybe you use the axe to chop the traditional Yule Log...?
Jami H., the wreck hunter for this amazing piece. To answer any questions: I found it the Kroger's in Little Rock. No known sports association and while a rifle might have been a duck hunting reference, the axe remains a mystery to my fellow Southerners. It is an extra large cupcake (or mini 2-person cake.) It contained: two trees (with stars squashed by the lid), icicle garland, red/green (meshing in brown) airbrushed icing, red/green sprinkles PLUS christmas tree shaped sprinkles, large plastic holly sprig, golden axe (with a small hole on end of handle) and large signboard. This baby made the rounds to several Christmas parties before being consumed and decorating my tree. No idea what the decorator was thinking, but it was the best $3.00 aXe-mas gift ever.
The axe is either what they used to chop those plastic decorations into bits so they'd fit on the cake, or it is there for the buyer to chop through the plastic decorations to GET TO the cake. Not sure which.
I do usually buy a buche de noel from a very good French bakery (with French owners) for my family's dinner on Dec 24th, and it does usually have a plastic ax ornament stuck in it.
My mother insists on saving them - we have a few styles now!
But those cakes look like logs, while this one ...
Lisa in Toronto
It's a yule log! Right? The axe? Maybe it was left behind in the log when the tin woodsman chopped it down?
It looks like someone decorated it in the dark. GRab a handful and chuck in all on. Yeck.
It took me good 5 minutes to even SPOT the ax, with all the other riffraff on there. WOW
this is by far one of the most disastrous cakes i've ever seen.
Holy goodness..... all that shtuff is on a single CUPCAKE1?!?!
That's craziness!!!
It's possible that the axe is for the pagan legend of the green knight. If I remember correctly, it takes place during the holiday season and the narrator is challenged with beheading the knight using a golden axe.
That's alittle...outhere. Just a little xx
A "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" cake, definitely, but based on the Sean Connery version where the Green Knight ends up a pile of greenish sludge.
wvotd = bascuper: The wreckorator should have said "bah!" and scuppered the cake.
Winter Maiden