Friday, March 26, 2010

A Little Rough Around The Edges

Friday, March 26, 2010

If there's one thing I've learned from Cake Wrecks over the past 22 months, it's that Epcot is a thing not to be trifled with.

If there's another thing I've learned from Cake Wrecks, it's that you can't make a rounded cupcake cake (ptoieee!). As in, ever. The laws of physics preclude even the merest hint of possibility.

Not that this stops our brave wreckerators from trying, of course. They seem convinced that slathering potentially life-threatening amounts of icing onto anything will put a skeptical customer into a pre-purchase sugar haze strong enough to induce glaucoma.

So let's look at how the seemingly simple circle becomes a disaster destined for diabolically dastardly...um...proportions. (No, wait. Dimensions! Dang it. Broke my stride.)

This...[dramatic pause]...is a base "ball."



And this...is Spider-Man:

Or what's left of him, anyway.

This... is... SPARTA!!!

Actually, no. I think this is supposed to be a hamburger.

"Eh wude lak to baa zebargare kek."
Baker: "I'm sorry, what?"
"Zederbergerer kek."
Baker: "Okay, I'm really not sure what you're..."
*sobbing* "DERBERGER!"

Well just remember, Wreckerators, you can always resort to that old standby: Piping, The Fix For Everything.™

Perfect.

Nina M., Amanda Y., Tyler M., & Ruth U., here's hoping the CCC will be circling the drain sometime soon. Think there's a petition we can all sign?

- Related Wreckage: National Cupcake Day

Jules AF said...

Um, wow. I've made a better baseball cake than that, and I suck at decorating cakes.

Erin of Brownie Bites said...

The first thing I thought of when I saw the "hamburger" was that it looked like a game of Frogger!

Anonymous said...

Oh Ehm Gee, I totally thought that hamburger was supposed to be a Frogger cake!

Miranda said...

This kinda mess is why I am doing the cake for the project manager's retirement and not letting anyone buy one from a bakery. Can you imagine? Some violently colored airbrushed mess with "Hapy Retiarmint Under Neat That Stey In Tuch". Yeah, thanks, I'll buy a cake box at Michaels, bust out my decorating equipment, and do the job myself!

Kara Hadley said...

what, exactly, is that last cake supposed to be?

caferacers66 said...

14.99? lol! wh did I pursue a degree in American lit? I could be rolling large in CCC money if they can sell THAT at 14.99 i could be all mac daddy in the CCC universe. Note to self, buy a mixer at a tag sale soon fortunes await.

Kelli W said...

So, is that last one supposed to be balloons?!? Because other than that, I am really stumped as to what it might be!

Ashley said...

The cheeseburger looks like that game, "Frogger".

Gina @ MoneywiseMoms said...

I thought you were going to say, "Don't mess with Texas," since it almost killed your husband.

Stella said...

my teeth are rotting as I look at these, gosh, I can't even say,'cakes'...

JenniferK said...

Conversation with my 4 year old

DD: "Piderman!"
Me: "How do you KNOW that's Piderman?"
DD: *blank look* "It's Piderman.'
Me: "Yes, but how do you KNOW that's Piderman?"
DD: "Um, because Peter Parker shoots webs, and that has webs on it's face."

Me: *scrolls up to the baseball cake "What's this one?"
DD: "I don't know, I'm only 4!"

Carolyn said...

Count this as another vote for 'Frogger' on the burger cake. XD

Diana said...

This...is...SPARTA

BWA-HA-HA-HA...oh dang, coffe really stings when it comes out your nose....

jengersnap said...

Love the unzipped cotton ball cake.

What, those weren't cotton balls? It was a textured baseball? Huh?

WV: deregar
Deregar kek! Eye vant deregar kek!

LIndsay B. said...

Hilarious, spit out my juice, Pink Panther reference FTW!!

You are so funny. :) Thanks for making my mornings!

Anonymous said...

Was there some sort of material shortage for that last CCC? They almost made two matched "balloons", but instead got a balloon and an oven mitt.

Half Assed Kitchen said...

That last one...Pangea?

Unknown said...

At least those "Spiderman" cupcakes were beautifully frosted! Of course that lovely work is completely tossed out the window when you assume the human face is diamond-shaped!

Shannon said...

I'm with Diana, the Sparta comment made me giggle! The Spiderman one was the least, um, horrific.

Anonymous said...

It IS possible to make a round CCC...I have done it! Yes, I have! You have to bake it round to begin with...in a round pan, you stuff as many of the foil cupcake liners as will fit, then you fill the liners with batter and bake. The cupcakes themselves will be wonky shapes, but the CCC outline will be round. As an added bonus, if you have filled the liners with enough batter, the cupcake tops will form a fairly smooth top that will not take 3 inches of icing to smooth. Yes...I know I am brilliant!!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Look at you! Now in the most popular/most viewed section of MSNBC.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36039383/

Christine said...

All this cup cake carnage could be avoided if only someone would invent a large round cake tin, err, hang on a minute...

Bek said...

Just buy a box of cupcakes, people, seriously.

I mean, is it really better to have a mutant baseball than 24 individual cupcakes decorated like baseballs?! Argh.

WV: offshmi - These cupcake cakesh are offshmi terrible.

Anonymous said...

Hey Guys,

You might have a new CCC battle on your hands. My son's school will only allow party and birthday cakes in the form of CCCs. That way, the b-day child (or the kid who volunteered Mommy to bring the special event cake)gets to pick out a design they want and the teachers don't have to worry about someone "getting a bigger piece."

Love and Puppies, Christy said...

Cupcake cakes rock! All the icing and no clean up!

jo said...

The first two "cakes" look angry. The jagged red stitching says "grr" to me. and why wouldn't spidey be mad stuck in his own web?

#3: slug highway through a mudflat? reminds me of the Frogger game.

#4: WHAT. ARE. THOSE? conversation balloons? balloons? radioactive technicolor amoebas? gloves? what?

k.e.l.l.i.e. said...

I promise you. There is only so much that you can shape with cupcakes.

Rebekah said...

I am snorting and laughing!!! Is it just me or are you getting funnier?

kristina said...

As someone who works with children on a regular basis, I appreciate the value of cupcakes...but don't try to create something else out of them!! I did see a neat design yesterday, there was a small cake (think "smash cake" for a 1-yr-old) in the middle, and there were several cupcakes (decorated in the same fashion as the cake) surrounding it.

BTW: will someone fill me in on the Epcot reference? Did I miss a post somewhere?

Melissa (& Billy) said...

Okay. At least the baseball looks somewhat like what it's supposed to be (he's 5. I don't think he'll care. Maybe.). I could look at that and go, "Oh, it's sort of like a baseball. I get it."

The others? Mmmmm, nope. The "I get it" train left the station and these wrecks certainly weren't on it.

Anonymous said...

There are no words for how relieved I am that I'm not the only person who saw that 'hamburger' (I use the term lightly!) and thought "zomgFrogger"!

Anonymous said...

The baroque Spiderman made me laugh out loud. Either baroque, or inspired by Peter Max. Or maybe just hallucinogenic drugs . . .? I give up--I can't explain that one.

Heidi said...

For those not up to speed on the "Epcot" reference, please read this post. IN ITS ENTIRETY.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/04/happy-day-earth.html

Patricia said...

Thanks for the laugh, I needed it!

I wish people would stop creating CCC's and start creating adorable cupcakes again.

I felt like I was looking at lite-brite creation's when I saw those CCC's today!

Nona said...

My daughter says the hamburger looks like a bad couch!!! These are funny!!

Mike said...

Funny, the frogger/hamburger cake has "sprinkles" on just the top. You can serve "sprinkles" or "non-sprinkles" to the guests! Woo-hoo.

Stioch91 said...

Woah. Petition? Yes, please. This crime must be stopped! Danburger, anyone? :)

Anonymous said...

I have seen one solution to the unrounded ball cake: the baker draws the base/foot/soccer ball, then pipes in grass around it. It's still a CCC, but it's an improvement.

Anonymous said...

@anon 10:35 AM: to smash cupcakes into a round tin to bake would make the cupcakes stuck together. doesn't that defeat the purpose of an easy to pull apart CCC? though with the icing they glob on it at bakeries, maybe it's not so easy after all.

Nona, I could see a crumb and candy wrapper couch like that.

Now, can you imagine trying to play base"ball" with a ball that shape? that would be quite the challenge. Hitting it would send it off in any direction wildly, though probably not too far. Imagine the play possibilities

Anonymous said...

i like the idea of individual baseball cupcakes instead. they would be so cute. the kids would love to get their own. one argument for a ccc is to be able to write on it, but they didn't do that here, they just wrote on the cake board.

individual baseballs would have been awesome. maybe it would have cost more to do all the piping for the stitches over and over and really tiny. i mean, look at this angry zigzag that's supposed to pass for stitching. this decorator was having a bad day.

The Gravekeeper said...

What're you talking about? That's totally Spider-Man! After he'd been run over by a steam roller...and someone changed the orientation of his eyes...Man, that's a disturbing CCC.

Les said...

Hehe! The Pink Panther reference made me LOL

Unknown said...

I saw a gardenburger...complete with worms and leaves...
blurk..excuse me...my stomach just revolted!

Will said...

you can't make a rounded cupcake cake (ptoieee!). As in, ever. The laws of physics preclude even the merest hint of possibility.

Actually, it's just a matter of resolution. The baseball cake fails because the cupcakes are too big relative to the cake as a whole. If you made the baseball bigger, say 3 feet in diameter, I bet the result would be much more circular.

Nani said...

Oh, Steve Martin, you slay me.

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Will,

What are you, some kinda scientist?

What is this, cake Science?

What do I look like? Alfred flippin Einstein?!?!?

Actually, you're probably right. But let's not encourage them.

john

Janet said...

I'm on the individual baseball cupcake decoration train. It would've been so cute!

Mary the Nurse said...

Glaucoma???????

Anonymous said...

...reality seems to be melting again..

Colleen Marie said...

As for the last one, I can see a balloon, and a shirt? Llama? Squidworth?

Anonymous said...

Can someone please tell me why that hamburger has a caterpillar-infested vine growing on it?!

Becky

Anna said...

I can't be the only one who saw a red blob with a bikini top for the "Spiderman" ccc.

Hilarious!

Kelly said...

I feel like MAYBE the last one is supposed to be exclamation marks? Like, remember in 6th grade when you wrote your name in bubble letters with an exclamation mark at the end...KELLY!

Am I right?

jj said...

I like Will's solution of really big CCCs. This site could just come to be about big cakes that actually don't look too awful. I think it might even be an important step toward world peace. :)

*sits down to meditate*

sendingtheclowns said...

@Heidi:
Heh heh...WELL, now. We won't be hearing from kristina for a while...!!
=^~.-^=
Here's what I saw when looking at the first "creation":
I was scrolling down through the post, and was sneaking up on the first picture, when my something-or-other-technical froze. There I was, staring at the top half (ONLY) of the first...uh...cake.
AND...the first thing that popped into my "mind" was that it reminded me of one of those handmade Norwegian Fisherman's sweaters.(!!!)
Don't ask...
=^??^=

sendingtheclowns said...

OH! And...and..
That second one? BIKINI TOP. Yeah!
On top of a bed of cupcakes--of COURSE.
I can't make ANY sense of that next one, and I think that's a good thing...it could mean that I'm not crazy enough to *recognize* it as REPRESENTING an actual SOMETHING.
As for the very last one..hmmmmm...
couldn't tell you--but it is NOT worth $16.99!!! Mercy!
=^@.@^=

Jen said...

Holy cow! I've had a really bad day at work and I stumble onto this website and almost peed myself I was laughing so hard! The Cake Wrecks Correlation at the bottom of the page is too funny! I'm bookmarking this site. Thanks for cheering me up!

Meant To Be Wed said...

I think the last ones are dinosaurs??!!

army_wife said...

http://listverse.com/2009/03/27/10-incredibly-bizarre-and-awful-cakes/

Here's a link you might enjoy. ListVerse has a "Top 10" list of "incredibly bizarre and awful cakes". Enjoy!

Unknown said...

Maybe a CCC can't be round b/c the formula for a circle is "pi(e) R squared" not CAKE. Love this blog.

Little Lovables said...

people say balloons on that last one, I say they look like lungs on drugs, early 90's neon style.

Anonymous said...

I'm totally with you on the petition - where can I sign up?!

That last mess - I saw a ping-pong paddle on the left but can't even hazard a guess as to the mish-mash on the right.

Anonymous said...

Looks like Spider-Man ran out of web fluid at the wrong time.

Vanessa Martin said...

To Will and John,

All right you two, I want you to step back from the vision of putting together enough cupcakes to make a believably round structure and think for a minute: who the heck is going to have a birthday party for a 5 year old that requires that many cupcakes? The last thing you want is several hundred 5 year old children hopped up on sugar, just to ensure that the stinking cake is ROUND.

Linda said...

I'll sign it!! pass me that petition to end the horrors of ALL CCC's!!

Of course,if people would stop ASKING for us to make them, bakeries would stop making them.
Just sayin'..

*from a grocery store cake decorator who refuses to make CCC's!

kristina said...

@ heidi
Thanks for the link....you now owe me an ENTIRE bottle of tyleonl o.O

Cameo said...

My husband and I say " DERBERGER!" anytime one of us misunderstands the other. This made me tear up I laughed to hard! Thanks for the laugh!

Rhonda said...

Me - What do you think this one is?
4 year old - Um, a cake?
Me - Yeah but what does it look like?
4YO - white cupcakes
Me - But as a whole?
4YO - Lots of cupcakes with a red squiggle
Me - It's meant to be a baseball
4YO - Oh dear god no, that is not a baseball! This is a baseball (points at baseball shirt) and that is just a mess with too much frosting.

When a 4 year old tells you you're using too much frosting you know you have a problem.

jean said...

Just found your blog for the first time today. I logged on for a few minutes and stayed for 4 hours. It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I think it could be a replacement for exercise. I laughed so hard I feel like I did 100 crunch sit-ups.

I have already told 3 people about it. I will be back tomorrow and every day after that!!!

Tricia said...

I've never bought a CCC, but I've often wondered ... does the icing stay on the appropriate cupcake when they are pulled apart? Or do you end up with half-necked CC when the adjacent CC pulls it off?

Leah said...

Hilarious. I love it!

Leah xx
gwendolynloves.blogspot.com

Vanessa Martin said...

From Reece (hubby of Vanessa):

If one cupcake is 2.75 inches in diameter, that gives it an area of 5.9 square inches. Thus a CCC that's 36 inches across would be 324 square inches and take roughly 171 cupcakes.

From Vanessa:
I still say that's way too many hyper 5 year olds for one birthday party!

:)

Anonymous said...

What the....?
Who invented cupcake cakes?
Can we find them and kill them?
Or at least prevent them from breeding...
And as for the only ccc's at school rule... guess what, kiddies?
Life isn't fair. Sometimes you will get the smallest bit. Sometimes you'll get the biggest bit.
Learning to deal with is all part of growing up.
You'll soon learn to be at the front of the line, so you always get the biggest bit ;-)
(for those out there all touchy and pc and sensitive, this is a joke! I'm skinny, a geek, frizzy haired, brown skinned, part aboriginal, part irish, part romany- ask me about being left out picked on. It's in my genes, man!)

Shez

GreatBlue said...

I think it's to the hamburger's benefit that it doesn't look remotely like a burger. It means it looks like yummy cake, which is more than you can say for most cakes based on meat.

Derek said...

Is it me, or does the burger cake look like it has toothpaste on it?

Arlene said...

That third "cake" looked like a poop hotdog.. yuck! The first one would either induce a diabetic coma on anyone even attempting to eat it let alone feed it to a five year old who would probably never sleep again thanks to the frosting. Those CCC's should be banned lol.

Amanda said...

The Sparta/hamburger cake is quite the thing to behold! Is that straight frosting on the top? OMG!

Becca said...

Did anyone else notice that the "hamburger" cake has what I can only assume is supposed to be lettuce piped with a rose leaf tip?

And really why not make 2 dozen cupcakes that each look like a baseball than wreck the heck out of it.

peewee said...

I have no idea what that last one is. TEnnis racquet and something?

Alysa said...

I saw turkey drumsticks for the last one...Of course if they were brown that would make much more sense :P

Anonymous said...

My 4 year old looking over my shoulder asked if the hamburger was a chocolate couch.

Micheline said...

OMG, thank you so much for a great laugh this morning. The link to the Pink Panther was just the frosting on the morning laugh.

serns said...

The stitching is flat out wrong for a baseball. It's not a zigzag stitch, like on the cake, but a special stitch which pulls the leathers together. (http://images.google.com/images?q=baseball stitch)

DW said...

It's a good thing you mentioned that the red cake was Spiderman. At first glance, I thought it was something to do with a bikini.

thisisbeth said...

The first cake has a name on it, so someone ordered a baseball CCC. Unless they ordered cupcake baseballs, and putting red icing baseball stitches on SO MANY cupcakes was just too overwhelming for the bakery, so they turned it into a CCC.

Sylph said...

Laughing so hard I'm crying.. not bad for a Monday morning - Thanks!!!

Sylph said...

How many cupcakes would it take to make a circle? I'm very much tempted to try it myself.

And what would be the result if someone tried (egads) _cutting_ the cupcakes to fit?

Evalis said...

"If there's one thing I've learned from Cake Wrecks over the past 22 months, it's that Epcot is a thing not to be trifled with."

Yeah yeah, you SAY that, but we all know you are secretly making an epic post consisting of nothing but actual wrecks of Epcot. =P

Anonymous said...

@anon 12:41 PM: to smash cupcakes into a round tin to bake would make the cupcakes stuck together. doesn't that defeat the purpose of an easy to pull apart CCC? though with the icing they glob on it at bakeries, maybe it's not so easy after all.

They only bake together in shape and just barely stick to each other. You simply lift them straight up off the board and they come apart very easily. I discovered this method when my son begged for a CCC. I figured, if I HAD to do one, it was at least going to look decent.

Anonymous said...

You could easily make a circle on CCCs if you sketch out a perfect icing circle and colour the curvy bits that fall outside the circle on individual cupcakes with a different coloured icing. Its not rocket surgery.

Dale said...

All these horrendous ccc's make me wonder if it is possible to make a good one and if i should try to be the person that does.... promise to send a photo when i fail ;)

Anonymous said...

Why would you make a cupcake cake if all you want is a round cake? They make regular round cake pans for that!