
Amanda M., you know how they say that postponing a decision is actually making one?
Yeeeah.
- Related Wreckage: As You Wish
When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.

Come meet Jen at the Orlando Public Library THIS Saturday, the 12th, at 2pm! (John will be there, too.) We'll have a slideshow of our favorite Wreckage, Q&A, and a few giveaways for the crowd. The library will also have copies of Cake Wrecks available for sale, so you can stock up on stocking stuffers. :)
Go here for more info and to RSVP. Hope to see you there!
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.
Now, don't you have a photo you want to send me? ;)
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Well, the cake is lovely, the handwriting is excellent. The text is spaced well.
I am leaning toward this one being more on the customer than the decorator.
On the upside, at least the script is pretty!
It's a beautiful cake.
Maybe someone sent it to a person who hadn't called back-- just to remind him/her to return a phone message.
That would be a really fancy way to give someone false hope after a crappy first date.
could they have fixed it by adding a "you" and a question mark? I guess we will never know.
Oh my.
Oh, that is classic. Almost as good as "under neat that."
Wow. Just ... Wow.
What a great "literal" example.
BTW, it was really fun to listen to you and John last night at B&N in Overland Park. Great presentation! You are both so cute and funny. :)
On the other hand the writing is beautiful!
but such nice penmanship!
Hahahaha!
With a good enough back story this might not actually be a wreck. It's beautifully done.
On the up-side: very nice writing, and it's spelled correctly!
I had a great time at the book signing last night!
Thanks for signing my book even though I'm socially awkward and asked you to do it before your presentation! lol.
Mary
Like in any good relationship, communication is key.
But when the time is right, of course.
Heh, cute.
Nice find, as always!
Guys take note, when you say you're going to call her, but you don't really mean it, this is the way to do it.
Punctuation could have helped:
Will, call back!
Will Call - Back (Your tickets are waiting for you in back!)
Will, call Back. (He's trying to get in touch with you.)
So many possibilites!
It's a beautiful cake. Maybe whoever sent it is asking Will to call back, and the decorator just forgot to add in the comma after "Will."
-Blue Jean
Apparently, the customer did *not* call back.
I get this all the time at our bakery! The customer calls to order a cake, and then she can't decide what she wants. The kids are fighting in the background, their TV is blaring, the baby she is holding is crying right IN the phone. Then she is aksing her Momma... "Momma, what kind of cake? Momma what kind of icing? Momma, what time?" [GIVE THE PHONE TO MOMMA WILL YA?]Then she says "I will have to call you back!! Then they forget to call back. *sigh* I usually end up having to call THEM back. This cake looks decent enough tho.
All in all a good cake wreck LOL for the day!
I'm thinking some people aren't getting why this is a wreck. So here's my take:
The order form apparently had a space for "Inscription" and the order-taker wrote "Will Call Back," indicating that the customer would call back with the inscription. The customer never called back, and the decorator went ahead and started the cake anyway.
So if that's the true backstory, it's definitely a wreck.
Maybe there is a comma missing: "Will, call back!" and an exclamation point of course... Seeing some of the strange things people actually commission on cakes, I guess I can't blame the baker for writing out exactly what is on the slip. They really should have double checked though....
LOL!
The order form apparently had a space for "Inscription" and the order-taker wrote "Will Call Back," indicating that the customer would call back with the inscription. The customer never called back, and the decorator went ahead and started the cake anyway
___________________________
I was going to suggest this. I think thats exactly what happened@
awesome!
It is a simplisticly beautiful cake, with nice hand writing to boot. I can only assume that one person took the phone order, his/her shift ended, and the next person on made the cake assuming it was some sort of inside joke for a secretary.
FAIL
This is a "litterally" lovely inscription.
Haha, I like the comment that says, "apparently the customer never called back".
Awesome cake wreck.
Just what the world needs--another passive-aggressive cake decorator.
Is that "www.CakeWrecks.com" on the front side original to the cake? That could be a clue...
Here's my "backstory" for this cake, but its just a theory.
This bakery gets a lot of partial orders where someone is supposed to call back with the colours, or the proper spelling of a name, or drop off a photo, etc. When they don't do so in a timely manner so poor sod has to track them down.
So the management/poor sod gets annoyed and starts making people put down a deposit/get the credity card number up front. And that doesn't work.
So then they start putting big signs up every where, on the order sheet, website, over the phone that all final design decisions must be in no later than three o'clock the day before the cake is getting picked up.
And that doesn't work.
So one Saturday its 5 in the morning and the baker/caterer/secretary was out late the night before and has a hangover. The weekday staff never tracked this person down and go the inscription and this person just wants to get the cakes done and go home. So they say "Screw this" the customer knew they had 'til three to make changes so they're getting the damn cake the way they ordered it and they're paying for it!
(Can you tell I worked in bakery/catering kitchen? I can totally see Natalie and Barry having this conversation)
Perhaps this could have been avoided if the person taking the order hadn't written "Will Call Back" within the inscription space but near it. Or on a post-it.
Because sometimes people order cakes and you really wonder if that's what they wanted, but you just never know...
And yet they never do..
Amy B-H
These are the best kind of wrecks.
@ Taylor,
I do not get the impression that people do not understand the wreck. Mainly they are just joking about the cake
I'm hoping for either an intentional act to punish yet another non-call-back customer, or for the decorator to be completely non-English speaking.
Because if it's just that someone wasn't paying attention or was that clueless without an excuse, I fear for humanity.
Did someone at the bakery leave a phone message on the "cake order" paper by mistake?
This reminds me of that famous tombstone inscription which says "I told you I was sick!"
will is a very self-centered #^*&.
trust me. he won't call back.
he never does.
I don't know about you, but that's the fanciest phone message I've ever seen...
Will call Barack!
Maybe it is former President Clinton (Bill-Will) call Barack!
Hilarious.
Sigh.....
A promise never fulfilled. At least it's a pretty cake.
Aw, man! What a shame--the script is excellent and the flowers are lovely.
I'm just shocked someone let this out of the bakery! Maybe the person buying it said, "You know, I'm going to buy this cake anyway--when I tell my friends, I'll need some evidence because they won't believe me."
I don't know...it's too well done to be a mistake.
I'm having trouble believing that somebody who can make such an otherwise lovely cake could then go and do something silly/stupid like this.
I'm definetly leaning towards passive-aggressive decorator having a bad day?
I seriously doubt they will.
Fine lookin' cake, though.
"Okay, what do you want the cake to say?"
*thick accent* "Will call back."
-Leigh
Am I the only one who feels like this cake looks sort of... funereal?
And that the phrase "[I] will call back" would totally fit that idea, in a morbid, Twilight Zone-y way?
WV: mysivend. Mysivend the other sieves filtered out the rocks.
It looks like they didn't call back.
WV: Winer. As in, the person who ordered this cake is a winer if they did not call back with an inscription and then complained about this one.
If someone didn't call the bakery back to arrange an inscription, they totally deserved that. XD
Beautiful icing. LOLsome words!
At least it doesn't say "TBD".
We met. We laughed. And we just knew. It was love. Not that every day love, but the real thing. It was like we'd known each other forever, and those five days in Rome were enough for us to set our wedding day. My flight back to NY left first, but I was to get everything ready for the ceremoney. I'm sure there was just a problem with international calls, and maybe his flight home was delayed. I know he hasn't been able to contact me, but our wedding is today. I'm sure he'll come. Plus I ordered our favorite cake flavor.
He Will Call Back.
He Will.
Will Call Back.
If anything would make will call back, it's a gorgeous cake...so maybe he will...here's hopin'! :)
You guys will be here in less than a week!!!!! can't wait!
~Bonnie B
I am going to redesign a standard bakery order form so there are two sections in which to write. One will clearly say "To Be Written on Cake:" and the other section will say "Baker's Notes" so there's no more damned confusion (how is it possible that they can be this dense?!) on what goes on the friggin cake! AAaaaagghhhhhh!
If only there were a comma after Will... then it would be a great passive aggressive cake!!!!
Is the decorator calling out the customer? Ho-O!
Well played, decorator. Well played.
What's with the navy blue foliage? It is indeed funereal!
I'm thinkin' some kinda call back from the other side.........
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Lily
And it's done so lovely!
But it clearly has "www.cakewrecks.com" written on the side of it-it *has* to be intentional, as much fun as the other possibilities are.
The road to Hell, paved
good intentions, has cake stands
with goodies like these.
essesse - Learning Parseltongue has never been so simple!
C'mon, Will, call back already!
If the customer never called back and then came to pick up the cake anyway, expecting it to be done and ready to go, he/she deserved this.
Brings to mind the ridiculously un-feminist "It must be Him," by Vikki Carr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u4PolDz1I
Oh, my freakin' heck!
I think this is the funniest one I've ever seen on this blog!
The cake is beautiful -- although a touch funereal. The writing is lovely.
How could the decorator be go to all that trouble to do the cake so well and not figure out the message was not an inscription?
fabulous.
This is one of the cakes that makes me wonder if people are TRYING to get one cake wrecks...
spondygirl.blogspot.com
Epic.
It still is a good looking cake.
Y'all please! The www.CakeWrecks.com is a tag that someone(most likely Jen or John) added to say they own the photo in case someone else reposts it somewhere, not something written on the cake or cake board. So, IF it is intentional in some way, it's not the way you are thinking.
ahaha that is too funny!
I really wonder if the people who decorate these cakes think about what they are writing and how little sense it makes to write it on a cake?
It's surprising to me that someone with such fluid writing can also be that stupid. Could this have been done as a joke to get on Cake Wrecks?
"you know how they say that postponing a decision is actually making one?"
Or, as Neil Peart put it, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
I think it's a new form of phone slip for taking messages, functional and yummy, too. Of course they forgot to tell you who called.