I suppose it would be easier if "graduation" and "congratulations" didn't sound so much alike. As it is, we end up with a lot of Franken-style mash-ups:
+.+lw+.+congradulations+copy.jpg)
Putting a "d" in "congratulations" is now so common that I've had folks tell me it's a new word created specifically for congratulating graduates. [burying face in hands] *sob*
Admit it: Now you want to see a cake that says "Congradulations Gratuates" as much as I do. Well, I don't have one. (Yet.) But I do have some more fun manglings:
"Congratutahons, Sus & Robert!"What's that? Her name isn't "Sus"? Meh. So Sue me.
After a while you start to see the same mistakes over and over again. There's the "Something's Missing...":
After a while you start to see the same mistakes over and over again. There's the "Something's Missing...":
The "End of the Road!":
(Complete with a truly epic grad cap - wow.)And of course the classic "Letter Switcheroo":
Actually, this is a Switcheroo combined with "Something's Missing", since there's no "e". And while "Gradutas" does sound like something from Taco Bell, it kinda has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Some decorators successfully navigate the "congratulations/graduation" minefield only to stumble right on the home stretch:
That's quite the stumble though. "Comminsoning?"(It was supposed to be "commissioning".)
Then there's this...thing:
CCCs with "s"s that look like "g"s, gratuitous ellipses, and sloppy icing piled higher than the cupcakes themselves have no "honor". Only "honers".
Anony, Donna, Sue M., Ila P., Sarah L., Jessica R., Christine H., & Rosalie C., congratutahons! You've gratulated from Wreckporter school!
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The switcheroo cake -- why is it decorated with a zipper?
Nevermind -- I don't think I need to know that.
Stoo
oh boy......
Just look at the three inch thick layer of icing they put on that CCC (patohey!)
I kind of like "Congraduations." It is a horror that has grown on me.
"Congradulations, gradutas! So happy you gratuated with honers!"
I think it's a test. If the graduate can spot the errors, then you know they've truly succeeded.
Well, at least the writing is nice in the preschool and Navy ones...
WV - distasin: a combo of distaste and sin, perfect for these wrecks!
How comb nUn ov thoz peepel no how 2 spel GRAJEWAYSHION?
What are honers? And exactly how do you eat a cupcake with more than 4 inches of solid icing on top?
Milarious Hisspellings! Litched Swetters? I love it all!
*tsk, tsk* So SAD people have to resort to paying for these mistakes- just goes to show even if you might not need Math to frost/decorate a cake, STAY IN SCHOOL! ;o) You definitely need English though... That's for sure!
I was writing congratulations on a cake the other week and had my husband in the background telling me to make sure I spelled it correctly so that I didn't create a wreck! I'm only a hobby decorator and had the word spelled correctly on a piece of paper in front of me. I guess it would be too much to ask the same of the "pros"! Too funny!
LOL - the grad cap on the cookie looks like something from Mr. Men.
Ohh, that's a grad cap. I couldn't figure out why there was an arm coming out of a diamond shaped black hole
Sad. So sad. Yummy but sad.
Congrats to all those graduating this year. Hope ya'll can spell, uh, something, anything?!
Oy vey.
Okay...I confess...I almost always write "congradulations" when addressing a graduate. But, I always write it correctly for anyone else.
Now, when I say congratulations to a graduate, I like to call them a grad-GEE-ate. It sounds really ed-ju-mah-kate-ed.
Shameful. Really.
Love, love, love your blog! It sounds strange, but my father's lifelong nickname was Sus!
Susan (after my father)
It's like "No cake left behind."
Oh great! After all that cake wreckery I can no longer remember how to spell congratyou . . .congrad . . . congr . . . good job.
You'd better watch out! That cookie is a double black diamond difficulty cookie! Big Bird already lost an arm on it...
There was an episode of Three's Company where Chrissy was making a banner that was supposed to say, "Congratulations On Your Graduation," but it didn't fit, so she put, "Congraduation!" on it instead. Maybe that's what started it.
Having just ordered a graduation cake last week, I have to say this cracks me up even more. Right on the order form they have a big, bold reminder to the decorators to CHECK ALL SPELLING before putting the messages on the cake.
Is that an arm coming out of that cap? To strangle the cake decorator, perhaps?
Angie (from over at www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)
When DD was just learning to decorate cakes, the manager of her shift came in one afternoon, soundly castigated her in front of the other employees, and made her SCRAPE OFF the "T" in "Congratulations" and put in a "D" on each and every one of the three dozen cakes she'd finished that morning.
She would not listen to anyone else, including all the other employees, as to the correct spelling.
When the customers came in to pick up their cakes and complained about the error, manager maintained that she was correct, and again yelled at DD that they must have just been upset that she perhaps hadn't done the substitution NEATLY ENOUGH.
The one with the 'truly epic grad cap' looks like some creepy little arm monster about to crawl out of the void.
This is the highlight of my morning routine. Thanks for providing the snort-worthy belly laughs. I am stunned on a daily basis that people actually charge money for some of these things!
WV: uncedl - I am always uncedled when people congradulate the gratuate.
can i just say for the record, that i think pre-school "graduations" are completely stupid and unnecessary? they just started these a few years ago, and it's ridiculous. next we'll have 2nd grade graduations, 4th grade, 6th-into-jr. high...it's ridiculous.
so, of course i loved the messed-up Pre School cake.
It really has become more common place with the D, though I still maintain it will never be correct.
I'm used to "Gratz" as a short, which is a gaming thing I think, and I'm waiting for some of THOSE to show up here. :)
Should we create SOL tests for cake decorators?
How on earth do these cakes see the light of day?! But without them there wouldn't be Cake Wrecks and that would be the REAL tragedy!
Wow. You know, I don't think people are actually meant to eat the CCCs. There must be some code all CCC Makers follow. "I solemnly swear to ice all of my Cupcake atrocaties with at least two inches of icing, and to dye the icing such a ridiculous color, with/and/or place truly dizzying and sickening airbrushing on top.
Yours truly,
The CCC Makers every where.
Holy crap, that's a lot of icing on the CCC!
thanks jen for doing the grad theme!
I have in fact made a cake with congratulations spelled with a 'd' and not a 't'. But it was conGRADulations! So that the misspelling was shown to be on purpose. Don't know if that makes it any better. Probably not.
The mangling of "congratulations" and related words never gets old.
Love the "honers."
Would con"grad"ulations be better? I have to admit, I usually go with "congradamalations," just for kicks.
Despite the spelling error on the Navy cake, the handwriting is quite impressive.
Oh todays blog entry brought me some memorable laughs... I specifically remember a high school friend, who worked in a greeting card store, telling me that congratulations and congraduations were both words, one being specifically for graduates. Nearly 20 years later and I STILL remember laughing right at her, telling her she was WRONG.
She's probably still congraduating graduates. Moron.
As I scrolled to the last one all I could think was, "Is that frosting a foot thick?!?"
Bakers need a commonly mispelled words poster in their kitchens, but it probably still wouldn't help.
yotacooks.blogspot.com
You have to admit the Navy Commission cake had beautiful writing on it...
Must ... have ... honers ...
Because I've figured out that "honers" is a new word for gobs of yummy icing. (At least it better be yummy!)
How to frost cupcakes:
Open a new frosting drum,
grab your mortar trowel . . .
Fudgie the Whale Lives!!!!
Oh, the Navy commission one is soooo sad! So close, but in the end an epic wreck.
Hey, you have to give the guy credit. It IS pretty clever the way he got around the CongraTulations/CongraDulations debate..... just leave out the offending letter!
JK, these are awful.
The Commissisionaingharing cake was a sad story. The whole time I was reading it (seconds and seconds) I was thinking OK! OK! SPELLED RIGHT! THIS IS GOING TO BE GOOD! YOU'VE DONE IT! ONE WORD TO GO!
oh.
darn it.
For the second last cake, the Colourful Things looked a tad unnecessary. I admit, it looks rather good. The spelling? Not so much...
Honestly, you guys are so quick to judge! Obviously the orange/brown decorated cake was for a graduate of a school that had a tiger for its mascot. "ConGRAULations" should have been "ConGROWLations." And graduating with "honers?" Who's to say the recipient wasn't a harmonica performance major at Julliard, hmmm?
That's why you stick with "Congrats". It's MUCH safer, well for most of these cakes.
For some reason, every time I go back to the graduation "with honers" my mind insists of substituting the word "boners". Which I suppose would also make for an interesting graduation party...
gotta say, though, that's some of the prettiest writing I've ever seen on that Navy cake.
As a former teacher, I am unable to fully express just how irritating these cakes are. If I were to receive one of these as a young "graduta," I would be afraid of my diploma shriveling up into a pile of ash.
Way to save the, er, "best" for last, though! That's gotta be the highest-scoring wreck yet. This just may inspire me to develop "Cake Wrecks: the Home Game." Kind of like highway bingo, but played in bakeries instead.
Reminds me of an episode of "Three's Company" when Jack was graduating from cooking school. Chrissy was in charge of the banner which read - yep, you guessed it! - CONGRADUATIONS (she didn't have room to write "Congratulations on your Graduation").
Maybe these are homage to a wacky 70s sit-com?
When I ordered the cake for my daughter's graduation, I was certain I would wind up with a wreck. The woman asked if I wanted the word "always" spelled with an "s". As an English teacher, I had to tell her yes, because without the "s" it isn't a word...sigh...
With that last CCC, I'm surprised you didn't also point out the random capital D in the middle of the word graduate...
*pouts* I didn't get a cake for graduation, wrecky or not. Maybe I should go buy one of the leftovers from the grocery store.
Being an English major, I would have found gratuitous spelling and grammar errors funny (especially if whoever ordered the cake did it on purpose).
Oh, honey, those are honerz, much much more impressive than honers!
Ugh.. I have never seen so many CCCs with ungodly amounts of icing slopped on them. Do people actually eat those??
Kris
Oh wow.
This is what teaching to spell words phonetically gets you..
Amy B
Hey, I've seen that whale guy before. Isn't he the one who says, "Syphilis blows" in a different episode? I hate it when they use the same actor for totally different characters, like in Law & Order.
Hey, that's my Fudgie the Whale! It was for my bridal shower, and I loved it even more because it was clearly a Cakewreck. And yes, my name is not Sus, it's Sue. And they had my now-husband's name as Robin until my sister-in-law corrected them. This made my day.
I like the deflated balloons held up by springs (or telephone cord?) on the "Graduta" cake.
Oh man. The Navy one really got me.
Almost... made it... NOOOO!
Too bad about that cake for the Navy. The script was actually very nice.
I'm a retail store cake decorator. (And no, I haven't seen one of mine here yet..lol) Many years ago when I was still just a clerk I actually had a customer argue with me saying that her inscription was spelled wrong. The inscription read "Congratulations" and she along with her family said it should be "Congradulations". I finally had to grab a graduation decoration and prove her wrong. Many people order their cake with it spelled wrong and I've threatened every year to copy the dictionary page just to have handy for people. Oh, the stories I could tell you all..lol I need to start taking pictures of what people order. :P
Egads. Did y'all notice that the CCC not only has an unbelievably thick layer of icing on it, but they actually piped another huge rope of frosting on top of THAT?!
Seriously, I didn't think it was physically possible to make icing that thick! Is it like spackle when you have a rather large flaw to fill--you have to put a bit, then let it dry, then add more and let it dry, and etc.
Horrors! That cake could have taken DAYS to construct!!! *runs screaming*
WF: eneduirt. That CCC should've been pitched eneduirt!
Oh man. Those are pretty bad. (Being an English major makes me cringe even more.)
The spacing on that first one is *alomost* spot-on but not quite there. (If they'd moved "congradulations" up a tad it might not be so scrunched. Or just toned downt the blue-poo colored flowers.)
What is with the whale-esque looking blob that passes for a cake?
*Goes off to read a good book to recover from the horror of the misspellings*
The "end of the road" cake.
Looks less like a graduation cap and more like a chicken stepping out of a square doorway...
that navy one looks really nice! too bad they couldn't quite get that last bit.
Oh my...I would be so embarrassed! I think a cake like that would make me MAD that I graduated!
"And while "Gradutas" does sound like something from Taco Bell, it kinda has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
I had to walk away from my desk I was laughing too hard at this.
The script on the navy cake is really quite beautifully done... what a pity they borked the spelling.
In the case of the other cakes, I cannot believe that they allow people with such terrible penmanship to write on cakes. Are there no standards these days?
I have to admit I completely give everyone a pass on the cake writing. I just cannot pipe words on a cake...cannot figure it out. I have more than passable penmenship (nuns+rulers=lovely script)but piping bag. Just awful. But to be fair I worked with a wonderful old decorator, his writing on a cake was well just stunning, gorgeous...art. But try to read his writing on a cake form...two words...serial killer. I mean it looked like he carved letters onto paper.
LOL
i only like congradulations when it's spelled with grad in all caps or in quotes. you know, conGRADulations, con"grad"ulations. then you know it's a purposeful and punny error.
and the icing on that CCC? *gag* too much!! that alone should be why they should never be made. say hello to a sugar coma!
Wow, I am amazed at how many of these you have. Insane!
I thought that the tassel on the cookie cake looked like a bird's leg and foot...entering a black hole?
Agreed, preschool graduations are utter nonsense. But how nice for little Elise! I had no idea they taught cursive writing to three year olds now. Perhaps her school values penmanship over spelling.
Yes, yes, the "honers" made me think of boners, too. I love these. Makes me want to graduate again just to get my very own cake wreck.....
I remember when I was a kid watching Three's Company, Jack graduated from cooking school and Chrissy put up a sign that said 'Congraduations'. Her explanation was that she couldn't fit 'Congratulations on Your Graduation' on the sign. And I recall thinking, "Huh, well, that's not going away now." (And yes, a lot of my seminal moments in life came from cheesy sitcoms, why do you ask?)
I COULD NOT stomache the CCC (*patooey*) cake with all that icing on it...my teeth are starting to hurt already and I unexplicably cannot seem to sit still...SUGAR BUZZ!!!!
I guess you don't have to gratuate from high school to decorate cakes
well, obviously, it was a wreck for Sue, but there are a few proud Sus-es out there!
My lifelong nickname has been Sus, pronounced like Dr. Suess, short for Susana.
I think I've solved the excess frosting on the ccc--it's so the purchaser can quick frost a ton more cupcakes when a larger than expected crowd shows up.
Am I a bad person because I thought the last cake said "with boners?"
Am I the only person who thinks you can never have too much icing on a cake? ;-)
Loved the navy one. But isn't it a full bottle that's suppose to be smashed at the launch, not an empty?
And CCC's -- a gradutas abuse of icing
WV: corpred -- Now, back to my corpred [sic] job as a transcriptionist
lol! that is just wonderful..
"Congratutahons, Sus & Robert!"
Ummmm what the hell is that? Did a whale eat Sus and RobERT? You didn't even mention the weird sludge colored whale! lol
OH on a side note. I would like to point out that my word verification is "reck sain". No... these "reck" makers are not "sain" at all! ROFL
Love your blog - can't wait to get the book~
I am so tired of seeing "congradulations" posted on facebook. (Especially last week, when the high school had it's graduation.)
Also my supervisor is an English Major and she spells it with a "D" too!!
Shoot me now!
Grad cap... or grad crap?
wow. just wow.
We should just be grateful that the "h" on "honers" did not look like a "b".
Well, 'Tis the season!
Time to calibrate the ValleydickToryanns and SalootaToryanns...and let's not forget all of the other Gradualwits who aren't named Tory Ann.
Great time of year for the cake business, no?
My favorite mnemonic for spelling congratulations correctly: If you have a "D" you don't deserve congratulations.
oh i love it!!!!
That one cookie cake with the cap looks like one of the bad guys from Zelda, the black squares with the arms.
I think that the "g" shaped "s"s on that last cake are supposed to be cursive "z"s. Not necessarily better, but at least congratz is slightly better than congratg.
I was just barely walking through the store and saw about 10 cakes displayed with "Congratulations" written on them...but half of them were written in a nice scroll and the other half was print- all the ones in print said "Congradulations" and I did let them know...but they just said..."Yeah, we'll fix it." Yeah right!
That one cake with the grad hats on it looks like some sort of thing with a yellow arm...
David B said...
"We should just be grateful that the "h" on "honers" did not look like a "b"."
******************
Yikes--good point! I am quite grateful; especially since ONE would've been enough!
You know, for being on a cake and all.
(...somehow, something still doesn't sound right here...)
=^@@^=
I am sad to see the mixup on the Navy cake because the actual lettering is so pretty!
that is pretty bad, and very ironic.
Anyone else notice that Sus and Robert's cake is the same whale cake as Amber's "Syphilis Blows" cake a few weeks ago????
I thought that last cake was a tombstone on first glance.
If I ever hear anyone argue that 'congradulations' is an actual word, I may just slap them silly.
This drives me crazy! I had to correct SO many of these cakes when I was managing an ice cream shop. All the employees wanted to decorate cakes so they would "help out" by taking care of the cake orders when I wasn't there. I had to correct 30 misspelled grad cakes in a single June!
Verification Word: crien (what I was doing when I came in to another freezer full of misspelled cakes)
First I was confused by the "preschool" gratuation cake; previously to now I thought the first thing you could matriculate from was Kindergarten (or is it -garden?) Then the whale cake blew me away...not getting the tie to etucation there.
But Gradutas? I don't think these people are understanding the gravitas of the situacion...graduashun is a big deal!!!
WV: ansuri...all of my grammar questions are now ansurid!
You know, I remember making a card for my dad when he got his MBA that said "ConGRADuations!" on it...thing was, I was 6 years old at the time, and I spelled it that way ON PURPOSE. Granted, I was a fairly precocious child, but still, if a 6-year-old can come up with this, should it really be that hard for adults in bakeries to figure it out? Or at least to consult a dictionary? Seriously.
Where can you buy these cakes? My class has to purcase cakes for the after-graduation reception and these are perfect!
It's really too bad the person making the Navy cake couldn't spell because they have gorgeous handwriting/piping skills.
When I graduated from high school, my mom actually *tried* to get a cake that said "Congraduations Gratulate" as a joke. Of course, on the one cake where it was actually *supposed* to be misspelled, they spelled it correctly.
That Navy cake was so close to great! Nice decorations, the decorator has beautiful handwriting, then on the next-to-last word, whoops!
Fail whale!!
wv: iniste
I iniste that you honer my wishes and spell congratulation correctly.
The amount of icing on that CCC is...amazing. That had to have taken some work.
If it makes you feel any better, I bought one of those "congratulations" banners with the individual words stuck together with brads yesterday. When I opened it today and hung it up, I realized it said "Goncratulations." I'm going to the Dollar Tree tomorrow to buy another to see if they're all like that...
I actually like to say "ConGraduation!" at grads.
i can't stand people confusing the spellings of "graduation" and "congratulations", but the "sus" on that one cake I can understand. my name is suzanne, and a lot of people call me "suz" (pronounced "sooz"). maybe a susan that people call sus?
it was an honer reading this. congradulations on your blog success.
Whats that on the end of the road cake? It looks like a chicken's foot sticking out of a black toilet pedestal or something.
Yota Armai said Bakers need a commonly mispelled words poster in their kitchens, but it probably still wouldn't help.
I think you have just invented the next Cake Wrecks retail product! How about it, Jen? Maybe with a photo of the offending cake illustrating the wrong way to do it.
Amazingly enough, I saw a gift bag at a local chain pharmacy that was spelled "congradulations" I had to take a double look as the letters were all wonky to start with. Crazy world- you can now get a gift bag to match your misspelled cake.
When I was in high school I worked for a bakery where the decorators thought it was super clever to write "CON - GRAD - ULATIONS!" on all the graduation cakes. Which I thought was moronic, but at least they KNEW that's not how the word's spelled.
Oh dear. There's so much frosting on that that at first I didn't even realize there were cupcakes under there!
HILARIOUS...................
The "epic grauduation cap" looks like a zombie arm crawling out of a grave....
The gradutas balloons put me in the mood for lobster.
My name is Sus. And my boyfriend's name is Robert. But that is not my cake.
I wish I had a "before" picture of my brother's graduation cake last year. He was a the valedictorian. I went to go pick up his cake, and then name of the high school was spelled wrong. I was pointed out this misspelling and the answer was "Oh, well will it be okay?"
"No, it will no be okay for the valedictorian to have his school misspelled on his cake."
It did get "fixed."
Here's one question... do YOU know how to spell the name of the town yo live in?
With honers---thy name is IRONY.
I'd like two gradutas, with hot sauce, and a large diet Pepsi...and a side order of chalupas..........
hooray! i was the lucky finder of the "honers" CCC, and i immediately called my bf over to see bc i, too, instantly thought of boners. And then, the more i looked at it, the better (worse?) it got!
they had a whole slew of CCC and they were all covered in about 6 inches of frosting!
I remember when Crissy, from "Three's Company," made a banner which said, "Congraduation." It worked for me.
my cousin likes to use "congraduations", which i think is awesome.
Taking a 'can you spell like a 5th grader?' quiz should be a requirement to work in the bakery. Ours just recently posted a sign saying "CONGRATULATIONS, no T" in the decorating area. I don't know why they didn't think of it sooner!
I'm commiserating on the commissioning cake...so sad because the writing is just beautiful!
yo Jen,
Just thought I'd let you know that graduating "with honers" is something that is common in high school and college, like if you were an honor student throughout you are said to be graduating with honers. At least where I'm from anyway.
Taylor, I'd be very worried about a school that could graduate honOr students who can't spell the word "honor". There is no E in any accepted spelling of that word.
Oh my stomach hurts now from laughing so hard. Thank you for the afternoon guffaw!
I would have not noticed the fact that it was on cupcakes if you didn't say anything about it. YIKES!!! All that icing.
OMG, I laughed so hard when I read this and resolved not to make the same mistake on my sister in law's cake. Just to be safe, I made myself stop and check it. Thank goodness I did! I managed to fix "Congratulai" into "Congratulations!" I have a *little* bit of sympathy for cake decorators after that experience...but not much, HA!
Isn't that the "Whale of a Wife" cake from The Simpsons?
I remember seeing another misspelling somewhere (not on a cake; probably a badly translated video game) where it was written "Conglaturation." That one was so bad it was almost funny. These just make me cringe.
And I like frosting as much as the next person, but I've gotta say that CCC is simply disgusting. And a good way to give yourself diabetes. Blech.
WV: solio (Working in the soil. On your own.)
Oy! That last CCC (patooey!)... The directions are simple enough that anyone could make this, though I don't know why any sane person would:
1. Get a bunch of cupcakes.
2. Mix enough frosting to cover two dozen real cakes. Use a wheelbarrow, so the shovel will fit.
3. Apply frosting. Take frequent breaks during this process so that you don't hurt your back.
4. Finish with either a trowel or a steamroller (it looks like the former was used, but I would have suggested the latter).
Maybe there were several kids at the party in question, and all of them lived at least two hours away. By car. Any adults in attendance thus learned that they should never order a cake with 'extra frosting' (in case the wreckerator measures in cubic yards as this one did), and 'honer' was restored to the land.
By the way, 'gradutas' has a nice, Latin sound to it. Sounds very important and honerable.
So I'm wondering how many of those cakes were misspelled on the order form too because at a grocery store the decorator isn't necessarily the only one taking the orders, that means at LEAST two people looked at those orders and still no one caught the mistake. I'm a cake decorator and you have no idea how many messages are misspelled on the order (at least 5 a week).
~Katie