Besides, today is also my brother Ben's birthday, and I've just realized that in all these years my family has never pulled a cake prank on him. This must be remedied. So, let's look at some trick "cake" contenders.
First is something I featured a long time ago: the "sandwich loaf."
First this cruel creation tricks you into thinking luscious buttercream and layer cake is on the menu. Then - WHAMMO! - you've got a pimento-flecked mixture of salmon, mayonnaise, cream cheese, and sour cream tickling your
[Mercifully the sandwich loaf passed out of favor over thirty years ago, but there are still places making them today if you're looking for a way to make your friends and family hate you.]
Moving on to something slightly more edible, how about a frosted roll of toilet paper?
(What? I did say "slightly.")Locusflower made this classic cake prank for a manager who was leaving. Here's the end result of the toilet paper cake:
Tadaa!So perfect, and yet so cruel. Heheh.
On the less cruel and more cool side, check out what WhisperAWish made for her kid's lunch today:
Those "cupcakes" are made of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and the "grilled cheese sandwiches" are pound cake with icing. Love it!Plus, look how realistic the sandwich can be when you toast the pound cake:
Source (with instructions)With this kind of food doppelgangery, I have to say I'd rather expect something else and be surprised by cake than the other way around. But then, when it comes to food, I pretty much prefer cake over everything. [personal motto: "Cake: Not Just For Breakfast Anymore."]
For those of you who don't mind the occasional meat cake, though, here's a clever one by CW reader Maayan Z:
For those of you who don't mind the occasional meat cake, though, here's a clever one by CW reader Maayan Z:
Ever since the Black Widow Bakery first kicked off the craze, I've seen a lot of meat cakes. This one, however, raises the bar with those cheese decorations. Of course, I have to condemn the very existence of this cake on principle alone, but other than that - nice job, Maayan!Getting back to the tricks, though, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the classic balloon cake prank. The concept is simple: carve out a cavity in your cake, place an inflated balloon in it, and ice over the whole thing. When the victim goes to cut the cake, POP!
Variation include filling the balloon with whipped cream (big mess) or water like in the video above (even bigger mess). I've also seen "cakes" made of everything from upholstery foam to kitchen sponges, which results in some small hilarity when the victim tries to cut through it.
So, what do you think, Wreckies? Which one should my brother be looking out for? [wicked grin] Or, tell me the best cake prank you've seen in the comments - I like options. (Just no overly cruel ones, please; I've seen the wedding vids with the bride near tears - not cool.)
Variation include filling the balloon with whipped cream (big mess) or water like in the video above (even bigger mess). I've also seen "cakes" made of everything from upholstery foam to kitchen sponges, which results in some small hilarity when the victim tries to cut through it.
So, what do you think, Wreckies? Which one should my brother be looking out for? [wicked grin] Or, tell me the best cake prank you've seen in the comments - I like options. (Just no overly cruel ones, please; I've seen the wedding vids with the bride near tears - not cool.)
Oh, and Ben? Happy birthday, big brother! Let's get together real soon. ;)
- Related Wreckage: "Cake" Cruelty
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173 comments | Post a Comment
Seeing delicious-looking cakes and then reading that they're made of meat literally puts a bad taste in my mouth.
It reminds me of thinking my dad's sour cream was whipped cream at a Mexican restaurant.
The sandwich and cupcakes is pretty great, I have to say. I'm a bit grossed out by the cupcakes, but the grilled cheese poundcake is a winner! What a fun surprise!
--kate
Now that's what I call a birthday blowout.
When I was in school our teacher made us April Fool's Day cupcakes. She put cotton balls in them! Bite...mmm...bite...urp! Not funny at the time, but NOW!
Just to note my loyalty to cake ALL this time....I ate around the cotton ball...
I do food pranks for me kids every April Fools. They love it. As I write, they are eating "fish sticks" (wafer cookies coated in peanut butter, rolled in crushed corn flakes) and "peas and carrots" (microwave softened green and orange tootsie roll midgets; cut and shaped.) I also chilled Jello last night in cups with straws. That one really got them!
For my brother-in-laws 50th birthday last weekend someone made him a 12-pack cake, a 12 pack of beer frosted with candles. I don't have pictures yet but you'll get them when I do. It was fun watching him try to cut into it, the point is so that they puncture a can and it "explodes", he didn't hit a can but was laughing the whole time.
Am I missing the point of the "We'll miss you" cake
/it's early
//no caffeine
If you want to see some real doozies, watch the Dinner Impossible episode called "Magicians Meal." I don't remember everything he made but I do remember they quick-froze strawberry ice cream to look like hot dogs. It was absolutely amazing, the whole menu!
Plus, Neil Patrick Harris was helping out!
Not a cake, but a good April Fool's dessert is to take a clay flowerpot, cover the hole in the bottom with a chocolate cookie and fill with the ice cream of your choice. Embed a couple of straws with the tops just level with the top of the ice cream. Then crush chocolate cookies so they resemble dirt and cover the top of the flowerpot. Stick a couple of real flowers with the stems in the straws. Can also add gummy worms if you want to give a clue that it's not a real flower.
@~me i had trouble wrapping my head around it too and it's 15.00 here in the UK :s. the 'we will miss you cake' is the end result of the toilet paper gag.
~me, the "We'll Miss You" cake is the completed frosted roll of toilet paper from the previous picture. I had to go dig through the flickr page to figure that out too.
~me, you're not the only one. I've looked at the We'll Miss You cake multiple times and don't get the joke, either!! Maybe that's Jen's April Fool's joke on us!
julie
@ ~me
I'm confused too!
I was confused by the We Will Miss You one, too. However, I think it is the 2nd phase of the toilet paper cake. She decorated the toilet paper to look like a nice cake, but in fact, it's TP.
Did the kids eat the cupcakes? My daughter probably would have spit it out and threw them on the floor after the first bite.
The "sandwiches" are awesome though!
The only prank we pulled with our cakes was those relighting candles.
Hi Y'all!
We just updated the post to clarify things.
The third cake in the post is the end result of the toilet paper cake.
Sorry for the confusion!
Anne-Marie
Oh good, I thought I was being dense (wouldn't be the first time)
The loaf cake is wayyyyyy to gagable for early morning viewing
I love the balloon cake. But what about the classic kitty litter cake?
Okay, the best cake prank I ever saw was at church. Yes church.
I was a potluck dinner. There was a friendly cake contest for the desserts. One of the deacons, a friendly unassuming old gentleman brought a cake. One of the most respected and venerable of the members he served the cake to everyone he could. After all, he'd made it himself. Then with an expectant smile he would ask how they like it. Through forced smiles everyone said how good it was. No one would dare tell him how terrible the cake actually was.
Only at the end of the night did he reveal the joke. He'd iced and decorated CORN BREAD.
*contemplating toilet paper cake*
Anyway... best I have is 70 candles on a cupcake.
It scorched the ceiling.
My ex-husband, who was quite the baker and turned out many beautiful and decadent cakes over the years, once bought a couple of round concrete stepping stones and frosted them for a prank cake. It looked perfect!
These were funny and gross!
Last year we did homemade Oreos and stuck them together with pepsodent toothpaste instead of frosting. Muwahahaha.....
@the Anonymous poster who mentioned the flower pot idea:
It was on the Pioneer Woman's site last week. Here's a link with lots of great pictures.
Well, that church/deacon trick comment put me in mind of a song, i believe by Robert Earl Keen, about uh, everclear. He'd soaked a watermelon in everclear and taken it to the Baptist's summertime meeting.
Then that thought put me in mind of what my boyfriends mother actually did- made her special pecan pie and took it to the Methodist (aw, i can't remember for sure which religion) function (potluck? Christmas? i dunno what function, but does it matter?). Y'all know what was in her special pecan pie, right? Jack Daniels. And other special ingredients . . . . When folks asked about her recipe, she "accidently" left out all the "special" ingredients, and gave 'em a recipe for a regular pecan pie, to enhance their confusion.
It's not cake, but we had a preacher try to get volunteers to eat "dog food." He'd emptied a dog food tin from the bottom, cleaned it out keeping the label intact. He then filled it with chopped "Mars bars" and jelly (Fudge and some soft caramel sweet would probably work just as well). When it set it looked just like dog food. He taped the bottom back on so you couldn't see and kept that hidden. He opened it in front of a bewildered audience, just as you would normally open a tin. Then asked if we'd like to try it. The expressions of digust were hilarious!
Before anyone else posts it, here's a pretty epic Rickroll cake. Must be read to be believed...
http://www.instructables.com/id/PortalRickroll-Cake/
on the website whatnottoknit there is a knitted cake plate warmer that looks like an actual cake with little knitted roses and all. part of me loves the pattern because of the skill and detail involved and the other part of me is revolted that someone would actually waste the time, money and yarn on such a stupid project :)
Years ago one of my friends made a meatcake for a friend of ours who absolutely hated meatloaf. They decorated it with shortening mixed with cocoa so it looked like a real cake until you cut into it. He was not amused. We were when one of our gang took a few pieces home and left them in the fridge, where his roommates stole them and were surprised.
I was really impressed by the children's lunch of meatloaf cupcakes and pound cake sandwiches.
This wasn't an AF prank but a recipe mistake. But since my birthday falls at the end of March I'll mention it anyway. My Mom made Boston Creme Pie for my birthday almost every year (because I asked for it). One year she couldn't find her cookbook but she went ahead and made it anyway. The icing was so hard that it had to be smashed with the tip of a butcher knife and peeled off in chunks before we could eat the cake!
My friend did the water balloon cake, but it was for a Halloween birthday, so no one suspected the cute pumpkin cake would explode. He kept the shirt that is still stained in orange and black splash!
Meat cake??? Gag reflex now in ovr drive!
My mom had 2 experiences along these lines: at a party, thinking the decorated finger sandwiches were petit fours (I can vouch for this triggering the gag reflex); at a salad bar, thinking the vanilla pudding was mayonnaise (& used it as salad dressing on her green salad). et
Back when I was working a summer job in the kitchen at a church camp, we had someone pull the "sponge cake" prank ... with a used sponge. It turned really gross when the prankee and a couple of the other guys decided to eat the frosting off the sponge; it went back to the dishwashing station cleaner than it had left.
(This was _well_ before MythBusters showed just how contaminated a kitchen sponge can be.)
WV: tortepol -- how to decide which flavor of torte to get ;)
I know you're not the biggest cupcake fan but I made these last year (found them in Karen Tack's book Hello, Cupcake!).
http://sixgreggs.blogspot.com/2009/04/april-fools.html
They were delicious!
You could pull the prank on him that we used for my diabetic friend's birthday recently, although it wasn't a prank for her.
First, find some sort of melon. Preferably with a smooth rind. Pick out frosting and icing to use. Frost said melon all the way around as much as possible. Ice it however you like. Present it to recipient to cut.
This produced 15 minutes of her trying to figure out how we had gotten the cake so round, and what it was made of. Hilarity ensued.
http://www.amazon.com/Gallery-Regrettable-Food-Highlights-American/dp/B0028N72GW/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270135494&sr=1-17
ncd1011@verizon.net
I requested this book for my birthday a few years ago!!
We made the Meat Cake for my little brother's birthday one year. He's a Self proclaimed "Meat and Potatoes" kind of guy, so that's what we gave him. It actually turned out very nice. The inside was an awesome version of Mom's Meatloaf Recipe, stacked two layers high, frosted with Garlic Mashed Potates and we used Ketchup for piping and the "Happy Birthday Tony". It was beautiful and really yummy!
I worked in the kitchen at a summer camp for several summers. One year, for the end of camp dinner, we made dirt dessert(you know, with pudding and crushed oreos, etc) in plastic flower pots with fake flowers stuck in them and placed them on each table as centerpieces. One person at each table was in on the secret and come dessert time, served from the flower pots. What made this prank even better was the next camp, we used the same pots and fake flowers for centerpieces but used real dirt. Half way through dinner, one of the grounds crew, thinking he would spoil the joke, took a huge pinch of dirt and ate it, not realizing we had used real dirt instead of oreos.
In junior high, my sister and her friend frosted cupcakes with shaving cream for April Fools. They had to throw cocoanut on top to kill some of the menthol smell. I still remember standing over the sink, seven years old, spitting out the bite.
It wasn't until I was in high school that I finally did my prank. I baked the chocolate crinkle cookies, except 6 of them I rolled in flour and garlic salt, instead of powdered sugar.
They didn't crack the same way and it took a couple of nights before my dad finally took a bite of one.
When I worked at a bakery/catering company in college, there was a lady who ordered a ham.... decorated with cream cheese... to look like an easter egg....every year....I had to begin mentally preparing myself for it on Palm Sunday....double bleh..
When I was a senior in HS I asked a friend to prom by duct taping a phone book and icing it to look like a cake. The I wrote Will you go to prom with me? on it and attached a note telling him to cut the cake to find out who wants you as their date. My name was on an index card inside the phone book. It was so funny watching him try to cut the cake... :)
That meat cake made me think of Sweeney Todd. But I'm sure she didn't make hers with ground-up turn-of-the-century British winos. Right? RIGHT?
I went to a wedding once which was very small and informal. I hadn't eaten, because I thought there'd be food, which there wasn't. I was very excited about the beautiful cake they had on display, though. Turned out the cake was styrofoam, a gift from one of their artist friends. It wasn't even supposed to be a joke, it was just their idea of decoration. I was extremely disappointed.
With the exception of the inexplicable "Sandwich Loaf", these are all excellent hacks -- brilliantly and (dare I say?) lovingly executed. I can't pick a favorite!
There is a story of one of my ancestors who owned a candy shop in the late 1800's early 1900's in northeastern Utah. They loved a good prank and would occasionally put samples out of chocolate covered cork, onion and peppers.
check out the "kitty litter" cake at www.allrecipes.com. Makes your mouth water, doesn't it:)
I SO want a cake sandwich for my lunch tomorrow!
Funny as always!
I wanted to play a prank on a co-worker so I purchased a large rectangular car washing sponge from a car parts store, that was the right size to be a cake baked in a 9 x 13 pan. I then frosted it, and took it into work. Everyone was in on the prank and anxiously watched as he tried to cut into the cake.
Well, I guess the knife was really sharp because he was able to saw a nice corner piece from the sponge, then put it on a plate, thanked me, and walked off with the piece of cake back to his office.
We all looked at each other - not quite knowing what to do, and waited for him to come back laughing. When he didn't we all trouped down to his office.
He said he thought the cake was a little tough and probably tasted bad, but he didn't want to hurt my feelings so he just took his piece back to his office and was going to throw it away later.
Sometimes pranks backfire on you.
I did have another "real" cake waiting in the wings so we still had cake.
Deb
My grandma's birthday is April 1st too! I never thought of that...now I want to make her a joke cake. (Luckily my grandma has a pretty good sense of humor)
I love that lunch! So cute!
When I was in grade school, my BFF's mom took a small rubber soccer ball, painted it, and spread a thin layer of a cheesy pate on it, so when you tried to use a knife and cut a chunk out, it would go flying off the plate. That was pretty awesome.
The only cake prank I've ever pulled is placing 40 re-lighting candles on my husband's birthday cake. Filled the kitchen with smoke and set off the smoke detector - oops!
Jen's posting includes fun, and mostly harmless, pranks.
Ooh, garlic salt on the chocolate cookie - that's mean, and dare I say, a bit of heresy ruining chocolate like that?
No pranks here, but I remember with fondness and a smile how Amelia Bedelia misunderstood "make sponge cake" by finding a sponge, cutting it into pieces and baking it into a cake. :)
The Sandwich loaf cake is the most horrendous offensive creation, that is too cruel for any prank. I was a bridesmaid for a college girlfriend about 10 years ago. One shower for her was several hours away (ie middle of nowhere small town Wisconsin) and my husband and I happened to be spending the weekend in Madison, the closest major city about an hour away. Well, luthern church basement bridal shower throws quite a bash and there were several 'cakes' to serve the masses. As my husband 'attended' (we were just stopping through as quickly as possible), the sweet older church ladies saw a male to feed not just one dainty portion, but to help rid of the offensive concoction. To this day, he's still traumatized and the thought of the flavor combination in the 'cake' starts us both gagging. We should have known, the wedding, too, was quite an experience.
A friend made me a sponge cake made with a real sponge. The frosting was made out of whipped Crisco. It looked beautiful. The best part was that my husband was not in on the joke (nor was I). He thought he'd be cute so he swiped his finger into the frosting and ate the fingerful of Crisco thinking it was frosting. The look on his face was priceless!
My mother was famous for her cream cheese sandwich cakes! They actually were tasty, but she never put daisies on them. Parsley was her decoration of choice, with tomatoes carved into roses.
For years, they were a staple at church luncheons, and people would beg her to make them for bridal and baby showers.
I'm now vegetarian, but I'd give big money to taste her cooking again (even the sandwich cake!) Sniff! Sniff!
Hmm...a meatloaf layer cake with mashed potato frosting could actually be pretty tasty. And I want those "grilled cheese" cakewiches so bad.
And it's very reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who thinks cake for breakfast is totally acceptable.
My friend asked for an icecream cake for her birthday (party was on April 2nd) one year. Her friends went out and bought some little coffee creamer cups, froze them, stacked them up and covered them in frosting.
They also bought a real ice cream cake so she wouldn't kill them.
How about a kitty litter cake? If you don't already know about them just google kitty litter cake pictures.
the food network has a few--right now--a lasagna--made from cake and banana pudding..
early a strawberry chocolate pie--with 'chocolate meet' and beet juice dyed mashed potatoes..
for desert? chicken pot pie--with apples for chicken, banana's for potatos, pudding for gravy, and pea and carrots make from tootsie rolls (or starburst)
i guess i always thought of april fools for children.. and not adults.
Have you ever seen sushi cakes? Rice compacted into cake rounds then overlaid with fish. Bleh...
Sandwich loaves are yummy, the slices are like perfectly moist sandwiches infused with the flavour of the fillings. However, they're sort of rare nowadays and considered a nostalgic remnant of the 1980s even here in Scandinavia.
Nom nom nom :I~ ->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sm%C3%B6rg%C3%A5st%C3%A5rta.jpg
Continuing on the sandwich loaf thing - see
http://www.huovisenleipomo.fi/catalog/images/voileipakakku_lohi.jpg
http://www.kasvisgalleria.fi/resources/userfiles/Image/kasvisgalleria%20052_muokattu2.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tXRSvsId10c/ShmgQYUy9BI/AAAAAAAABX0/OW7tXFZR-GE/s400/IMG_9209voileip%C3%A4kakkua.jpg
and stop making fun of this great savoury party food ;_;
Eeee, you guys made it! I'm in Mensa and I voted for you!!
My father in law once stacked up old pancakes and decorated them into a beautiful cake. Then he took it to a church cake contest with someone else's name on it...
He said the judges' expressions were priceless :)
My Great-Aunt and Uncle had a history of playing pranks like this ... cotton balls were their favorite, either placed in the middle of cupcakes, or diped in chocolate to mimic chocolate covered cherries. I think I'm glad that they 'grew out of it' before I came along LOL
The funniest thing I ever saw was when I was working at Walmart and a customer stole one of the display cakes. They didn't realize that the cake was only a frosted piece of Styrofoam.Even funnier was when they had the chutzpah to bring it back to the store and claim it had been sold to them. Needless to say, they didn't receive a refund, but when we looked at the knife marks in the "cake" and pictured them chuckling to themselves at the money they had saved, we were reduced to helpless giggles.
My daughter turns 2 today. I'm thinking in 2017, when April 1st in on a Saturday and she is old enough to appriciate a good prank, we might need to have a special "April Fools" party. These are some great ideas, and kids love things that are not what they seem!
My mom and aunt had a thing back and forth for a while with this little ceramic owl. It went back and forth between the two houses; they would sneak it into the other one's car or purse or house. One year, my mom made a bunt cake and put the owl in the center and then frosted over it. Oh boy the look on my aunt's face when she cut into that cake :)
Sponge cake. Made with actual sponges on the inside and frosted like a regular cake. Awesome presentation.
"tickling your gag reflex" - hee hee!!!!
I made the "grilled cheese" last year. Turned out great!
I like the "grilled cheese" the best. The sandwich cake looks horrible, and the others waste frosting.
One of the best new snack food items which you somehow didn't mention is one I found last summer at the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville. Offered by vendors on the Midway and near standard fair staples was the newest treat, fried toilet paper sheets on a stick or on a plate with sauce. The fried paper was surprisingly tasty and although fried, was low in calories and had the added benefit of extra fiber. Afterward, clean up is not only a breeze but somewhat redundant. The sauces ranged from conventional chocolate and cherry to rocky road and tobacco-molasses. I found them to be really unnecessary as the fried paper was filling, the batter almost seemed fluffy, yet quilted onto the sheets. At only $2.50 per serving (about ten sheets) it was a Midway food bargain for me and a profitable venture for the vendors. The only drawback was that the janitors kept complaining about having to restock the restrooms more frequently after news spread about the snack. People always want free samples, you know.
"Sandwich loaves are yummy, the slices are like perfectly moist sandwiches infused with the flavour of the fillings. However, they're sort of rare nowadays and considered a nostalgic remnant of the 1980s even here in Scandinavia."
Nonsense. The smörgåstårta is still quite, quite common. :)
The difference between those and a prank cake is they're not usually trying to masquerade as sweet cakes, but are decorated with prawns, tomato slices, cucumber slices, rolled up ham and cheese slices, or whatever fits the cake's theme.
not a prank, but it would have been a good one, if I'd thought of it first! My brother was about 5 and wanted some ice cream as a bed time snack. He found some in the back of the freezer, scooped out a huge bowlful, and took a huge bite...and proclaimed it was nasty. Mom told him to put it in the sink, and she'd take care of it, it was probably freezerburnt. Ten minutes later we hear her laughing hysterically in the kitchen, he had mistaken the lard for vanilla ice cream!!
we still laugh about this 17 years later!
wv:bletersi - what my brother said when he tried his "ice cream"
I made my boss a "spaghetti & meatballs" cupcake cake (I know, I know) for April Fools Day because she hates, nay, despises pasta. She took one look at it and said, "That's vile. I'm not eating that."
BTW - she ate it.
I din't think the first cake is that weird. But that might be because I'm swedish. See, here we have something called smörgåstårta. It's kind of a lot of sandwiches stacked on top of eatchuder. And it is delicious. Google it and try yourself.
I did the fried egg made of a slice of ice cream topped with marshmallow cream (the yolk is a blob of lemon pudding) with angel food cake "toast".
(I make homemade bread a lot and sometimes I totally mess it up when I cut it, so the funky toast in the picture is actually pretty accurate.)
http://beehiveandbirdsnest.blogspot.com/2009/04/those-little-fools.html
I also did the saran wrap across the bedroom doors this morning and out of my six kids (three boys, three girls), only the boys fell for it. What does that say about male observation of details?
Nice. I've never been able to witness the glory of a cake prank first hand. But I do know that once my mom had a cake for my step brother. It was a square, but she wanted some too badly to wait for him. SO what did she do? She took a knife, cut one long slice out of the whole cake, then pushed the two ends together and spread the frosting over the incriminating line.
Heston Blumenthal did a show in the UK, where they literally cleared the table: everything on the table was desert and edible, the cutlery, the dishes and even the candles (which were lit!)
Here's a pic of one of his amazing candles. They were white chocolate and filled with caramel! http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/heston-blumenthal/feast/heston-s-medieval-feast_p_7.html
You just made me really happy that I no longer work at my old job, where my evil, evil boss pranked someone with a water balloon cake (she put whipped cream all over the water balloon and said it was a "jello cake"). Hooray for my nice boss, who gives everyone a real cake on their birthday.
Today is Rachel Maddow's birthday! And she's a fan of you and your site!
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/04/01/4101184-when-your-birthdays-on-april-1
Danbala: yeah, maybe I shouldn't have referred to the whole of Scandinavia as I can only speak for Finland :) They're not exactly extinct here either, but here the smörgåstårta - or voileipäkakku - is a pariah (albeit a nostalgy-inducing pariah) among savoury coffee-table treats. At least according to fashionable food magazines whose editors love to bully poor voileipäkakkus.
(Beats me why, as stated before I think they're yummy. Some have been predicting the comeback of the sandwich loaf. NOM.)
Sandwich loaf is a big thing in Northern Minnesota, let me tell you. Lots of places still sell it up here, and the first time I encountered it after I moved here...well, I was speechless. I have a coworker whose favorite things is sandwich loaf, and she brings it to every potluck (made by our local grocery store).
Yuck (and unhealthy)!
Jess
Not exactly a cake April Fools, but one of the best food related pranks EVER was pulled off by the BBC in 1957.
They ran it as a segment of a news program. They claimed that spaghetti was grown on trees, in Switzerland...
BBC's archive, with video-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm
The Museum of Hoaxes' web page-
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_swiss_spaghetti_harvest/
My best cake prank was when I turned around a prank made on me. A goofy male friend was telling everyone that I was bringing a cake to a group gathering to watch Buffy. More specifically he was telling people to ask me about the cake I was bringing. It was a strange prank, but he's a strange guy.
After being inundated with calls and comments all day I decided to bring a cake. I ran by a craft store and got two styrofoam rounds and ice them with some store bought chocolate icing. It made a lovely cake.
By this point everyone was in on it but the instigator. At the gathering I sugested that he serve it for us, since he'd had the "inspired" idea for a cake in the first place.
I'm a good cook and the look on his face as he tried to cut and serve that was priceless. He didn't want to say anything to hurt my feelings, but it was clearly not a moist cake...
It's been over ten years and we all still laugh about it.
So, I brought a cake.
I made a meatloaf cake once for a get-together. I walked in with my cake carrier, people's mouths started watering... mwah-hahahaha! To be fair, tho, it was mighty tasty meatloaf and mashed potatoes, just not the sweet treat they were expecting. I've also made the Cheeseburger Cake, which turns that trick around in a *ahem* nicer direction.
The grilled cheese sandwiches are perfect, tho; might have to steal that one.
My crazy grandmother boasts about icing a giant sponge (have fun trying to cut that!) and making little truffles, some of which were actual truffles, and some of which were chocolate coated soap balls :) Blech.
My MIL makes that first sandwich "cake" for special occasions: baby shower's etc. It's actually pretty good, my Husband loves it.
there are a couple i can think of. iron maiden (back in the day) played a prank on their bass player Steve Harris and made a cake that exploded when he cut into it.
and penn and teller, in their book Play with Your Food, had a heart shaped cake that bled when you cut it. both really good food pranks.
My boss' birthday is April 1 (poor guy) so we're always looking for clever ideas to trick him. Last year I decorated an upside-down cake pan as his birthday cake. At first he was puzzled as to why he could not cut into the beautiful cake, then ding-ding! he figured out what was wrong! Loved it!
I will try some of the great ideas posted on this page for his next birthday.
My fave prank cake was the kitty litter box cake I made for my brother. I took white and chocolate cake and crumbled it into an unused clean litter box. Mixed it with crumbled white oreos and some vanilla pudding, and used melted tootsie rolls rolled in crumbs as the uh..."kitty roca".
We served it with a kitty litter scoop (new and unused of course.)
If you'd like to see pictures I can send some over!
Andrea B.
Back in my Hotel kitchen days we used to dip almost anything in chocolate to make it look like a truffle. Garlic cloves, balls of wasabi, pieces of "fat cap" from cooled beef stock. This stopped other departments from pilfering our real chocolate creations as they could not tell the difference.
I made a sheet cake out of 4 yellow sponges and put plenty of chocolate icing all over it. She thought the male boss had made it. She was trying so hard to slice it without showing how overcooked she thought it was. I wish I had taken a pic, it was priceless.
There's a book called "Hello, Cupcake!" That has a section in this. Here are a few of my favorites: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2195/2418976997_00c10c092e.jpg corn cupcakes
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3169/2417273202_5bf7407864.jpg spaghetti and meatball
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_k4x5a3c1b_M/SO0G11kZSEI/AAAAAAAAIRM/gr57--goRrU/s800/cupcakes1.jpg and tv dinner
they're amazing!
That sandwich cake at the top looks COMPLETELY DELICIOUS. I want one!
And man... the toilet paper is frosted so nicely, it's a bit of a shame...
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow had her birthday today, and her staff got her a wreck! http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/04/01/4101184-when-your-birthdays-on-april-1
A friend of mine put a "marital aid" in a cake that she iced for another friend's 50th birthday.
My favorite food prank involves little powdered sugar donuts. Scrape all the sugar off and replace with baking soda. Pile on a plate, or put them back in the box and serve. If you've never bitten into a baking soda covered donut, try in, you won't forget the sensation any time soon. You can't swallow, you can chew, you can't spit. Kind of funny.
Here's a fun variation that I've used for friends who are dieting or otherwise not eating "real" cake.
https://www.800florals.com/order.asp?item=TW313
Today is my son's 16th birthday!
Amazingly, he has~~at such a tender age, at that~~already done it all; there's nothing left to learn..!!..time to go RULE the WORLD.
(Have a nice trip! See you next Fall...!)
=^~.-^= Seriously, folks, this kid is an alien spawn. Cake's okay with him...but JUST okay. Take it or leave it-ish about it.
His thing is cheesecake--which isn't cake at all.
I have no point, here.
Just making small talk....trying to avoid being too obvious about not understanding the *concept* of frosting an actual roll of toilet paper.
Gosh, they should have at LEAST taken the wrapper off first.
Who KNOWS how many people might have touched it while it was on the store shelf? Not very sanitary, that.
Our neighbor loved pranks, and giving lots of Christmas gifts to her friends. Over thirty years ago, she gave my mother a huge box with a "cake" of dried cow poop. Not to be outdone, my mother saved it for a year, coated it with chocolate, then wrapped it and gave it back to her.
Talia is my hero!
Not actually a "cake" but yes, we've used food as a trick. My mother made a Dirt Cake and used a flower pot as the container. She stuck a silk plant into it and VIOLA - a centerpiece. My husband (highschool sweetheart at the time) had never had never heard of a dirt cake, and certainly couldn't figure out the reason for the silk plant in the potting soil. I just shrugged my shoulders at the sight, as not to lead onto the joke. So you can imagine his surprise when I grabbed a spoon and took a huge bite of what he thought was potting soil. He jumps up from the table, runs to the living room, and drops to his knees. I take some of the "soil" with me to check on him, drop some of the crumbled cookies into his gaping mouth. Gargle, spit, patooie... wait... was that an Oreo? It has been over a decade and we still can't quit laughing about that one. -Andi-
Not a cake, and more of an unintentional prank, but:
My father once made french toast for my brother and his friends after a sleepover, but he used garlic bread. The boys eagerly received their plates, slathered the french toast in butter and syrup, and dug in... and half of them tried to politely cover their surprise, while the other half openly gagged in shock.
It wasn't until Dad tried it himself that he realized his mistake.
For my 18th birthday, my 'friends' and I went to a restaurant. At the end of our meal, the wait staff came out singing to me with a plate with a beautiful brownie on it covered in whipped cream and a cherry. I went to cut into it and it felt a bit stale. After a while, I gave up cutting it. My 'friends' started laughing at me. Apparently, they had given the wait staff a candle that looked like a brownie with whipped creme on it and a cherry (with the wick coming out of the cherry...i should have noticed). The restaurant added some more whipped creme to the borders of the plate for effect. Of course, the restaurant felt so bad for me, they gave me an actual piece of (really good) cake for free! I did NOT share any with my friends. : )
What makes me want to cry is the thought of all that perfectly delicious frosting going to waste. Sure, it's a funny joke to frost a balloon, TP roll, etc....but think of the frosting, people! Think of the frosting!! *weep*
I was at my second cousin's wedding a couple of years ago, and was seated in front the most adorable older couple (like, in their 80s older). I'm pretty young and a big cook, and I like making everything from scratch. This really, really excites sweet little old ladies from the NC mountains. Anyway, we got to talking, and the subject of the worst dish we'd ever made came up. The wife said something like "well, I don't think I've ever made something so bad we couldn't eat it." Her husband responded quickly with "well, there was the sauerkraut cake," as he turned sorta green.
The recipe is in the church cookbook my grandma gave me for my 21st birthday. It's a chocolate cake made with kraut as the "secret ingredient." I think it's supposed to make it moist or something. I love chocolate cake and I double love kraut...just not together. Ever. Urp.
WV: millia-I wouldn't eat sauerkraut cake for a millia dollars.
The best one I've seen wasn't actually a prank.
When I was a kid, my family ate very little sugar. We always went for the sugar free ice cream and the whole wheat bread, etc, etc.
So for my mother's birthday one year, my grandmother (a wonderful cake decorator by hobby) disguised a wheel of cheese as a birthday cake.
She had covered the wrapped wheel in plastic wrap and decorated it with chocolate frosting. It was beautiful! And completely sugar, and cake, free.
I laughed when I saw the loaf. My family is still making them. Crazy mayo loafs for every occasion, whether it´s a wedding, birthday or a funeral. Where I come from it´s called Braudterta or Bread Tart. I have a friend that hosts a loaf contest every year. It´s very ambitious in an ironic kind of way. Enough ranting, I really like your website. It combines my favorites: Cakes and humor. Keep up the good work. Lóa, Iceland.
My mother, who is a great cook and did a lot of the food for my reception, insisted upon making and serving sandwich loaves or ribbon sandwiches as she called them. I could not talk her out of it!! The rest of the food was fantastic.
A friend of mine made my wedding cake, lovely 3 layer red velvet cake with butter-cream frosting and strawberry filling...he just forgot that he had layers of cardboard separating the top layer of cake from the rest. When I went to cut the cake I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't cut (I thought it was frozen at first). When we finally realized that there was cardboard there, my friend was very apologetic...it was rather funny and he's lucky I'm such a good sport. :)
My Aunt used to make a foam -rubber cake. It was so funny. It is impossible to cut with a cake knife.
BTW..WV was travi..reminded me of travesty.
oh my that sandwich loaf(shivers)i remeber my mom making that for special occasions......and yes it tasted as bad as it sounds.....thanks? for the memories
ibdeequeenuc
The best one I ever saw was for an "Over the Hill" birthday. My friend iced an upside down sheet cake pan. When the birthday girl tried to cut the cake, she couldn't, but she thought it was just from the tears of joy/surprise due to the surprise party. It was hilarious.
My mother in law once made a meat cake for my brother in law. He was teased by us for liking Spam so dear M-I-L stacked several Spam blocks together and frosted the whole thing. She even put his candles in the cake o' nastiness. It was quite the sight and smell. He didn't figure it out untill he cut the cake. She then brought out his real cake which was delish!
Now this one wasn't a prank but still a funny story. My husband and I got married April 2 many many years ago. Dear M-I-L made our cake and it was beautiful. It was a stacked cake and it had a staircase that wrapped the cake dripping with hand made sugar flowers and beautiful mini hand dipped candles. Half way through our reception, I looked over to see the side of my cake go up in flames. All we could do was laugh. It was quickly extinguished and poor M-I-L was horrified. I think it was the most memorable wedding cake ever. And boy was it yummy!
Cake for breakfast. Made sense to Bill Cosby!
Bill Cosby: [when his wife sees that he has given the kids cake for breakfast] I've always heard about people having a conniption but I've never seen one. You don't want to see 'em. My wife's face... split. My wife's face split, and the skin and hair split and came off of her face so that there was nothing except the skull. And orange light came out of her hair and there was glitter all around. And fire shot from her eye sockets and began to burn my stomach and she said, "WHERE DID THEY GET CHOCOLATE CAKE FROM?" And I said, "They asked for it!" And the children who had been singing praises to me... LIED on me and said, "Uh-uh! We asked for eggs and milk... AND DAD MADE US EAT THIS!" And my wife sent me to my room... which is where I wanted to go in the first place.
Candace said: I seriously made a cake once that turned out more like a prank cake. It was back in the '80s, and I was trying to make things "healthy", so was trying to avoid white flour, white sugar, etc. Well, our family has a tradition of decorated cakes for birthdays, so I was struggling with how to make frosting without powdered sugar, and I came up with the idea of using corn starch (the same consistency as powdered sugar) and honey. The cake looked beautiful, but none of us could eat the corn starch-based frosting. My siblings still kid me about that one.
Like someone else said above, there's a Swedish dish called smörgastårta, which basically means "sandwich cake", it's bread layered with mayo, tuna, leek, cucumber, dill, and cream, topped with shrimp, usually rather flat and square-shaped, though.
@ halfbakedcake
I have actually had chocolate sauerkraut cake...before I knew there was sauerkraut in it...I worked at a historic village, and this was cooked in cast iron over an open fire, by one of the best historical cooks ever. she wouldn't tell me what the secret ingredient was for a week...
believe it or not, it's really good if done right...(and trust me, i've had it both ways)
My best friend once received a birthday cake from her house full of roommates. I'm not sure how they did it, but I think what happened was they made two layers and iced them at the last minute, right after sticking a vibrator - switched on - between the layers. Her MSN name for months afterward was "New-found fear of birthday cakes".
My aunt entered into a cake baking contest once under the name "Connie Crete." :)
Try as they might, the judges couldn't even cut out a slice to try.
I loved that toilet paper cake! How I wish I could have done that to my ex supervisor before I left my job to get married.. she would so have deserved it lol. As for the meat cakes who was cruel enough to come up with those?? They do make great prank cakes just not something I would ever want to eat.
I agree with my fellow Scandinavians - sandwich 'cake' can be absolutely delicious, it's not that weird :). But as many pointed out, it's always very clear that they're not sweet. Unless some wrecker covers their cakes with tomatoes, ham/salmon etc...
Sandwish loaf is EVIL, it's dark lord of the Sith EVIL! Yes, I've had it, it's much worse when you're 5 & expecting cake.
LOL! Toilet paper cake,love that.
The "grilled cheese" & meatloaf is very cool & so is the meatcake.
LMAO! That balloon trick reminded me of the cake the Little Rascals made when they made the surprise cake.
Stymies Surprise Cake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i41mQr2IJ_Y
unfortunately I can't find the clip where the kids eat the cake & get their surprises.
Oh, Jen, I'm so sorry! When you mentioned Mensa, I thought it was an April Fool's prank or a Rickroll. But you guys actually were voted one of the top 50 sites. Congratulations! (I think I'm only the second person to even mention it.)
The sandwich cake is an extremely popular and typical dish found in all Estonia. The fish sandwich cake is the most common! It's delicious. However it doesn't usually come with flowers on the top - anyone know where the one pictured comes from?
My boyfriend works for Bed Bath & Beyond, so he comes across all the "as seen on tv" gadgets that people buy and NEVER use.
One of those was the Bake & Fill. It's a cake pan that lets you make a layered cake, or a hollow outside cake with a well to fill with custard, ice cream, jelly, ect.
He bought one with the sole desire of making his best friend a birthday cake. "What are we going to put in it?" I ask.
He looks at me and, as though it wasn't even valid question, answers, "beefaroni".
"Just think, he'll cut into it thinking he's just getting a boring old cake, but inside will be delicious, steaming beefaroni." he says.
To this day, "beefaroni" sends me into hysterics.
May I recommend the following site? It's the one your site, Jen and John, reminded me of, when I first came here.
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/
If any of my fellow Wreckies go to have a read, might I suggest you sit on a towel first?
I haven't seen this one in the comments yet: the Christmas log made out of an actual log, beautifully frosted. My grandfather had one made by a professional baker friend as a joke for a fundraiser raffle. The prank turned a little sour when the guy who won (who would've gotten the joke) gave the log to his SIL, who needed a fancy dessert for a reception. I'm not sure she ever believed her BIL didn't know it was wood. My grandfather still thought it was funny, though, decades later.
I have a friend who made me one of those sandwich loaves for my bridal shower. Only hers was pretty, and had a lovely shrimp salad for the filling. Delicious! She also made "sushi" for a party using angel food cake & dried fruit.
And I LOVE the meatloaf cupcakes/pound cake sandwiches.
As a fellow April Fool's baby, I say your brother is exempt from any pranks on his birthday.
However, those of us lucky enough to celebrate an April 1st birthday don't have to play nice with our pranks...no matter how cruel, no one can get mad at you on your birthday!
I think WhisperAWish's switcheroo would be perfect. I would be delighted to be on the receiving end of that one.
Sandwich cakes are still popular in Finland. More than one of my friends has been fooled at a cafe when they ordered a slice of what they thought was a sweet cake, only to be greeted by liver mousse instead of chocolate mousse when they take the first bite.
WV: depno - a nonprofit organization opposed to 80s hair gel.
heh, one that was an accident-- me mum has a habit of moving things around in the kitchen every so often, so one time when I was over an helping with the desert, she asked me to fix up the whipped cream. I do believe someone mentioned how closely powdered sugar resembles corn starch, particularly when they've been put in the container you're expecting the former to be in. Luckily the mistake was caught before it went out to our guests!
I love the "cheese sandwiches"!
I'm very confused by the sandwich loaf - though the description isn't all that familiar, it looks very much like what we would call "sandwich cake" here in Sweden.
It's absolutely delicious and is not eaten as cake. It is eaten as a main dish, primarily at birthday parties and other large gatherings where you have to feed a lot of people at once (and then usually followed by normal cake).
But I know from earlier that there is an intense, irrational hatred around here for things that look like cake but aren't. I just remember when some people dared to have cheesecakes made from actual wheels of cheese.
The descriptions in the main blog posts about them were funny and nice enough as usual, but some of the comments... People seemed to genuinely hate the people who would dare to eat cheese instead of cake.
And now we have comments like "The Sandwich loaf cake is the most horrendous offensive creation" - I mean, I understand if you're not as excited about cheese as I am, and I understand if you don't enjoy eating cake-like sandwich contraptions as much as I do... But to call it offensive?
Cake purists are my newest irritation in the world of different purists who are actually offended by the fact that some people like a different variety of something that they like.
I like tea and photography, but if I dare to drink "herbal" tea or alter images with photo manipulation programs, I get a stream of "It's not real tea! How dare you like that and call yourself a tea-lover?" and "That's cheating! Only pure photography is art! How dare you enjoy the process of photo manipulation when I do not?"
And now it's the cake purists crying about things shaped like cake, being offended and wanting to throw up. Oh well, at least people weren't as violently offended by the sandwich as they evidently were by the wheels of cheese.
The book "Secret Life of Food" (awesome book!) has cupcakes made to look like sushi, with coconut for rice, fruit roll-ups for seaweed, and swedish fish on top.
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Food-Clare-Crespo/dp/B0000AA9KB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270234505&sr=8-1
I think disguising cake as something else is fine (although the kitty litter cake is an exception - that's the nastiest thing I've ever seen), but if you disguise something gross as cake you'd better have a real cake hidden nearby.
-Holly
My birthday is also April Fool's Day and one year, to get even with me for some bratty comments I had made about her baking abilities, my mother did a lovely job of frosting a circle of foam rubber and serving it to me in front of the whole family as my "cake". She handed me a butter knife to cut and serve the "cake". Ever tried to cut foam with a butter knife? Doesn't work! Whole family laughed their asses off!
I remember the "cake" I made for a co-worker back in the '80s (before we all knew about sexual harasssment). I used a 2-liter soda bottle, cut in half the long way, and with the pour spout cut off. Then I took a styrofoam ball cut in half, and placed at the bottom end of the soda bottle. Iced the whole thing with pink icing, and little brown squiggles on the styrofoam ball sections.
He laughed when it was presented. Then he tried to cut it. He turned and asked "Why is it so hard?".
Once we all got back up from falling on the floor laughing, I bought out a real cake.
I have made many perfect cakes in my life, and 2 "Wrecks". Both accidents. First cake I was 10 and wanted to surprise my mom for her birthday. I baked up some bisquick cake, and accidentally used salt instead of sugar. Most disgusting cake ever.
My Dad loves German Chocolate Cake, with the coconut/nut icing. I had no idea what it was made of, and when making him one for his birthday used a dry mix I found at the store. Turned out to be ground birdseed. He still gives me a hard time about his Birdseed Cake. He laughs, "That one was for the Birds" like 20 times now.
I would still eat either one of these over the meat (hurl) loaf. No offense to those who love it. Just not for me. Gaylyn
for my friend's birthday i wanted to make a snake-shaped cake, so i made two different-sized ring cakes. when they were set out to dry i needed counter space so i put the small one on top of the big one - they made a lovely stacked tower, only lacking the final tier. strangely enough, a beer can fit perfectly in height and width so i covered one in tinfoil, popped it in, and iced it up. when my friend tried to cut the cake she looked really worried, as i am known for my pride in baking! i had to tell her that it was actually a beer can, and she took it out and then we ate the actual cake. yum!
Surprising someone who's holding a knife seems like a bad idea.
Don't know if you'll read this... but my Mom made me a prank cake when I turned 12. She had baked a pie shell inside of a cake pan and decorated it real pretty. Then she let me cut it! It stayed in one piece with the first cut (that surprised my mom), but with the second cut, it crumbled! How could I have broken my Birthday cake! Luckily there was a present inside for me and a real birthday cake in the wings. Funny how I can't remember what that one looked like!
sendingtheclowns: Basically the iced toilet paper is saying we will miss you @$$whipe
The country singer Loreta Lynn tells this story about a bake off where her husband bought her pie.
She was like 12/13 and never cooked before. She didn't know the fifference b/w salt and sugar and instead of sugar she used salt in her pie.
Dew (her husbad took 1 bite and had a fit.
It wasn't on purpose but It would make a hreat prank LOL,
i love the quote from the MENSA site;
"It makes me laugh every day. It's geeky, it's clever, it's funny, and it's CAKE! What else could you want in a Web site?"
word verification: dessur
dessur--a fancy french chocolate cream dessert
A girl once baked cupcakes for my brother with cotton balls in the middle. The first one you ate was nasty. After you knew what to look for, you just ate carefully until you fished out the cotton ball, and they weren't bad. That means they weren't wasted, either!
My sisters and I always used to play food related pranks on one another. One of the worst (because I was the victim!) was when my older sisters offered to make me a tuna sandwich for lunch. I should have known something was up since they were being so kind and generous, but I was young and gullible. :)
At any rate, a few minutes later I was biting into a CAT FOOD sandwich that they were trying to pass off as tuna.... they did make it pretty convincing, I must say. Relish, mayonnaise, lettuce, bread.... they even used tuna flavored wet cat food. *shudder* I took one bite and spit it out. Still gives me nightmares.
My Grandpa had an April Fool's Bday as well... My aunt would make prank cakes. My favorite was a "sheet" cake, which was a frosted bedsheet :)
not so much a cake prank, but my bday is april fool's. I was "the girl" in an office of men and my boss was very proud of himself that he remembered my birthday. He ordered a cake, picked it up and took it to the office early so he would be waiting for me to walk in.....but he forgot I was on vacation. He couldn't remember how long I was on vacation (and couldn't find any of the paperwork since it was locked in my desk) and this was a Friday, so his plan was to have a cake waiting every morning until I came back to work. Lucky for him- I was back on Tuesday, but the rest of the guys were kind of disappointed, they wanted cake all week.
We used to get together weekly and play games at a friend's house. I would usually play video games on the computer, while the guys took turns on the PS3. Anyway, after finishing Portal, I had to make a "lie cake" for them. I bought a tin of cookies (you know, the round tins of shortbread cookies) and iced it to look *exactly* like the cake from the game. We left it out for our friend to cut, and when he finally did, it was really funny to see his reaction. He thought at first that it was frozen, and started to act like he changed his mind, so as not to hurt my feelings. We started cracking up, and it dawned on him that this was a prank. So dedicated to enjoying sweets were we that we opened the tin and scraped the icing off with the cookies and ate them anyway! I really, REALLY wish we had video, or at least pictures, but we never thought to take any. :(
But the worst prank, in my opinion, was on me, and not on purpose. My lovely mother-in-law made me a 13- x 9-inch red velvet cake for my birthday, and I started to cut it and began to have trouble toward the bottom. That was because the old, filthy, grease-soaked pot holder had wound up under the cake when she turned it out to frost it.
After seeing this post I HAD to do the toilet paper cake for my Dad who was born on April Fool's day. I covered it in chocolate frosting, did a little decorating and wham! Never knew what hit him. He was trying desperately to cut into it for a minute before I broke down and told him to scrape the top off. He said it was the best birthday cake he's had in a while! Thanks for the great idea :)
I love these! I don't know if this idea's been posted or not, but what about a cake frosted only in Royal Icing? ;)
Happy Belated Birthday to your brother! That's my birthday too and nobody in my family has ever playted a trick on me either. I have to say, if they ever did, I would hope it would be that "grilled cheese" sandwich. YUM!
Not quite cake, or even april fools, but when I was in high school, my mother used to make hand dipped chocolates at christmas. My brother and I decided to dip some jalapeno peppers, and then mix them up with the cherries. We enjoyed it quite a bit, and laughed even louder when my mother admitted to doing the same thing at work before she was married. Who says some things aren't genetic?
In Norway they eat something called fish pudding. Imagine something that looks like vanilla pudding, with that Jello-ish texture - and then add the taste of FISH. Okay?! Yuk.
My sister took one of those, and decorated it as a VERY yummy-looking cake for her husband to bring to work...as a funny prank. :)
For my younger sisters' wedding we decorated a plastic box with chocolate icing... Was a lot of fun to watch the guests beeing fooled by the "VERY hard cake..."
At another wedding my friends decorated a TELEPHONE BOOK! They covered it with cream and marzipane.... You could count the holes in the marzipane to see how many people got tricked by the cake. :D
Actually, the sandwich loaf is very common in Brazil [and I believe that in others places too] and is really delicious, you must try ;D
Has a curiosity: here we called it "cold pie" ^^
Heyyyyy! I'm all for "non-sweet" cakes. They do the mayo-salmon cakes all the time here (=Finland). They're super yummy!
No, really.
Really really.
LMAO These are just great! Did you ever see the episode of Dinner: Impossible where he had to cater the dinner for the magicians? They worked up a whole menu of stuff that looked like one thing, and was some other food entirely!! It was AMAAAAAZING! =)
Pt. 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWVBGda_4js
Pt. 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp_wci7ozDM
I say swap wheat flour for brown rice flour. If you have ever had to eat a brown rice flour cake you would understand exactly what I mean when I say nasty. Nahaaaasty
Orrrrr you could always spike it with Mirulax. I do that to my own meals. You know. For fun.....
I bet you hope Im kidding, don't you?
This remembers me of a portal/rickroll cake I saw once on Instructables, I think. It was a huge fake cake like the one on Portal (you know, the cake is a lie and stuff) made out of cardboard, and underneath that there was a real cake with Rick Astley drawn on it.
That reminded me of my parents' famous wedding cakes. My grandma offered, or rather insisted, that she do the baking. Here, there's the cake that gets eaten during the reception and usually a few more to give to the guests to take home, thus the plural.
Well, my grandma made the dough bits two weeks ahead and stored them in her pantry so that they had time to mature to stone hard. In due time, frosting, icing, fondant, marzipan and what else were added to make wonderful pieces of art. They only needed to be cut by axe. At every family reunion, there's someone to bring it up adding that if the cake was sawed or hacked or otherwise divided to pieces and dipped into coffee or rum, it was excellent, and also all the marzipan et al.
I hate to tell you this, but the frosted sandwich cake thing is still alive and kicking (so to speak). Southern Living's website (that's like the food bible for us southern women) has one posted recently as part of a spring menu.
That sandwich loaf or meat pie-- I suspect that if decorated appropriately (ie NOT to look like a sweet cake!) and with fillngs that are actually tasty (ie by a competent cook), they could be rather good. Looking at it, I've found myself pondering making a sandwich loaf for my next party.... *IF* I can come up with suitably yummy filling options ;O
Cake mishaps: a good friend of mine and I were hosting a cheesecake party. We made three plain batches, divided each batch into three, and flavoured them differently. Baked muffin tins (mini servings). The mishaps occurred when we tryed to dye the cassis cake an appropriate purple (came out very disconcerting shade of grey), and the grasshopper cakes impaled themselves on the cooling racks when flipped. They were soooo bad, we nearly fell over we were laughing so hard! Luckily, whipped cream covers all sins ;) (Happily, they tasted incredible and our friends gorged themselves silly).
Later on, we did haunted houses at Hallowe'en. It was a seriously complicated production (we made it onto TV), but the same co-conspirator/friend did these lady finger cookies-- shortbreads, with wrinkley joins, blanched almonds tinted lightly as finger nails-- they were disconcertinly realistic looking. Oh, we had fun freaking the kiddies out by chomping down those!!
My sister-in-law was very angry with me when I broke the (very cheap and flimsy) keepsake wedding cake knife at her wedding. Two of the tiers of he cake were Styrofoam so she could have a fancier cake than she could actually afford. I mean.... if you're going to be cheap, at least warn someone that half your cake is fake and that your knife is crap before asking you to cut up the cake for you.
Just to let you know, when I googled Dinner Impossible, the Magicians Meal came up as the top suggestion in autocomplete before I even finished typing dinner. Thanks cake wrecks, for saving my lazy fingers!
bahahaha! love all of those! My mom and i frosted Styrofoam and gave it to my sister as a prank once! [she kept trying to cut into it asking why it was so hard to cut.. not the brightest bulb, that one;) ]
Next year you can do this trick. It's not a cake but still a fake yummy dessert. Make caramel apples using onions instead of apples. mmmm tasty! lol!
I remember when I wuz a kid in the 60s, my mom would have the ladies over for a "luncheon." She went through hoops making that damn sandwich loaf, and I must say, between the pastel cream cheese "icing" and the lovely layers of chicken, ham and tuna salads, it really looked incredible...and it tasted pretty good, too. I wish she could have pulled the same kind of magic with her salmon pucks, er, patties, but that's a whole 'nother story.
My uncle, the baby (no quotes, he was a baby)of 6 was whining one night that he wanted ice cream for dessert and that his siblings always got bigger scoops and more chocolate sauce than he did. Well, the next night he got a huge scoop with lots of chocolate sauce, with the first huge bite, he learned Grandma had given him a scoop of mashed potatoes instead - that shut him up! lol
Btw- I am SO making that meatloaf cake for my son's b-day this Halloween can't wait :)
~Brandy
For my 16th birthday I asked for a companion cube cake (from the video game Portal). My uncle made me a gorgeous "cake" covered in fondant that looked exactly like a companion cube. As I cut into it it crackled and I was mildly confused.. then I got a chunk off, and it was made of styrofoam. My mother brought out the real cake, with "The cake is a lie!" (another game reference) "Happy birthday!" written on it. I thought it was pretty funny.
I watched a girl have a amazingly yummy looking chocolate cake delivered to our high school classroom. On top of the cake was "Amy, I have a question" but nothing else. She was all puzzled until the cake started to sing Bruce Springsteen's Jesse's Girl. She searched through the cake to find her boyfrind Jesse's phone in a plastic bag ringing. With messy hands she answered and he asked her to Senior Prom. She of course said yes.