Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Get Used to Disappointment

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

It's time once again to take all your lofty dreams of realized cake-ordering expectations... and douse them with the bitter dregs of cold, hard reality.

Oh, yeah. It's gonna be THAT good.



What they ordered:



What they got:

And here I thought all carrots grew under the ground.


Ordered:

Got:

A tip of the hat for an exceptionally crumby job.


Ordered:


Got:

Finally. A baby cake I wouldn't mind cutting.


Happy day at the pool:

Nightmare at La Brea Tar Pits:

Anyone else having flashbacks of Tasha Yar's death scene?



Thanks to Megan G., Candace R., Alisha T., Catie S., & Suzanne S., who all "exceed expectations." Mostly because my expectations are really, really low.


-----------------------------------




flying gargoyle said...

My face is so far into my palm over these that I can read my own fortune.

Katie M said...

Wow, a Tasha Yar reference before 9 a.m.?! I'm impressed!

Judy C said...

I have a mean spirited remark. If someone got a cake like that last one for me, I'd take it back and write them off my birthday list.

Heather Sayer said...

Tasha Yar!!! AWESOME!!! That's one sweet geek reference :) -heather

Courtney said...

No, not Tasha Yar, but I am having nightmares about poor Artax!! That scene has haunted me for 20 years...

Danger Boy said...

That last one is...well, it's just bad. I have nothing witty for it, it has wrecked at least 27 brain cells that will be useless for the rest of my existence.

WV=wiliturn Wiliturn the computer off to avoid that last cake? Yes I will.

Bekah said...

Have MERCY. The Tinkerbell inspiration was bad enough to begin with...the crying babyface cake had to be more difficult to make than the inspiration, and yet so, so, not what it should have been...and Tasha Yar! Yes! Exactly!

wv: noweedu - perhaps should be a promotional poster in some of these cake shops.

Jenny H. said...

That last one makes me wonder what you would get if you DID, in fact, order an Armus cake. It also makes me want to avoid swimming. Forever.

RJ said...

I still miss Tasha...

mimi said...

Tasha Yar :(

Karen Valinda said...

You definitely saved the "best" for Last! I would be afraid to eat it - yuck!!

Brittany said...

are these people serious?! ..they really believe those cakes look similar...honestly

rachel leigh said...

...whhhhoooo are you? I must know...

Ellen said...

Oh, yeah, that's definitely a skin -- er, pool -- of death.

And does the phrase "Tinker Bell Dangler" sound obscene to anyone else, or is it just me?

I am never disappointed in Cake Wrecks, though.

Mary Connealy said...

Sitting her laughing out loud. Nightmare at LeBrea Tar Pit.

LOL

Fluffy Cow said...

Didn't Tasha die at Epc......
nevermind.

@Ellen- yes, it does sound obscene.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, after making me think of Tasha Yar, that cake made me think of Deanna Troi's Mom in the mud bath with Worf's son. Now that was a memory!

Gary said...

Even Tinker Bell looks annoyed by that cake (examine her posture in the sample vs. the delivered cake).

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or does the (wrecked)baby face cake look like Phyllis Diller?
AngieN24

Maureen said...

Yeah, lets all bury Tasha Yar in that last one. She'd look good with cake on her face. Ug. These were truly wreckies!

Anonymous said...

The baby cake is crying so hard because it is actually a pig whose little ears have just been cut off.
OMG these are the stuff of nightmares. I have to stop reading cakewrecks before bed!

wv: breway... "You need a breway?" Yes bring the whole keg, I'll need it to wash my mind clear of these cake images

john said...

I so want to make a Nightmare at LaBrea Tar Pit cake, complete with cute dinosaurs looking confused.

btw, wasn't it Riker who ended up covered in digital tar? Yar just dropped dead, didn't she?

MissNay said...

Oh my wretched eagle poop. Why?

Usagi said...

Is the baby cake supposed to be the baby from Alice in Wonderland that turns into a pig? If so, good job. If not...

Anonymous said...

I'm actually undecided on which baby cake looks worse. Certainly the original, while professionally cartoony, makes a bad theme for a cake.

Jasry said...

That pool cake made me think of the Stephen King story "The Raft". That one always creeped me out, and to see it in cake form... horrifying, just horrifying.

Sharyn said...

Princess Bride AND ST:TNG before lunch? Happy dance!

Clearly these cakes were all made by the Nutrimatic Cakes Dispenser, because they're all almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the cakes that were ordered.

tiny p. elephant said...

Love the Next Generation reference. The baby cake is gross and the cap.. well the cap...

Janus said...

But Tasha didn't die by being dragged into Armus. Armus killed her with a quick energy bolt. It was Riker who was dragged into the black goo (which, by the way, was a mixture of Metamucil and printer's ink).

Sharyn: Love the Douglas Adams reference.

Anonymous said...

so anyone else notice that the red sox hat now says ofx instead of having the boston logo? here is how i imaging that conversation
Drunk Baker "hey boss how do you like my cake"
Boss "oh fix that" *points at entire cake*
Drunk Baker "hm i thought they wanted a red sox hat but im sloshed so ok!" *writes OFX*

Donna said...

I absolutely LOVE the "What they ordered/ what they got" game!!! Makes me oh so thankful I have a cake decorator who is honest and expresses her limitations up front...no surprises EVER!

Phil said...

The Tinker Bell wreckerator forgot the baby jockeys on the carrots. Someone's getting fired now.

Anonymous said...

Wow, the Tinker Bell one is so bad, even the purple flower is crying.

The ball cap looks like Grover...without a face....after he melted....?

@Courtney: Awww. Artax! I cry everytime I watch that scene. At least he came back at the end. Tasha Yar was gone forever. :-(


Andrea

BADKarma! said...

That "scary baby face" wreck reminds me of a certain episode of "Dr. Who"... Ew.

Claudia said...

These cakes reminded me of my husband's groom's cake. He ordered a cake with the Dallas Cowboys star, royal blue, etc. He got a turquoise star of David.

Puppygirl said...

Most of these cakes are just obviously beyond the skill of the baker. But the two that confuse me are the crying baby head- made more difficult in the execution than the requested cake- and the baseball cap (not for the obvious)- how hard was it to put a "B" on it, and what does O-T-X have to do with Boston or the Red Sox?

sendingtheclowns said...

Frankly, I think the first cake isn't half bad. 7/16th's, maybe, but not half. After all, it's for a 3-yr.-old! Gah. She may have even thought it was BOOFUL; 3-yr.-olds aren't all that picky when it comes to cake (in my experience).
If it's face-smooshable, it's good to go.
But those carrots. They aren't on the prototype, so it MUST be a case where the bakery simply ran OUT of rosebuds. Happens all the time. Yeah, that's it. [Baker to self: "!%*#+!@!-I got no rose buds. Well, we'll just trot out the baby carrots! I'll stick them in pointing up. Makes 'em look perky. And a little excited. For corn's sake, it's for a frikkin' 3 year-old. Oh, and why not toss on that plastic bracelet that I found in the parkin lot. Girls like that crap."]
All I want to understate about that last cake is that the swimmers don't appear to be having a very good time, actually. The *expression* on the *face* of that one (at about 5:00-zoom in for the full effect)-is worth buying the cake for.

=^o0^=

Unknown said...

1) Clearly those are magic fairy carrots that grow upwards, silly person.

2) I was kind of happy when Tasha carked it and peeved when she reappeared later. But then, I'm a horrible person who should be disregarded at all costs.

Then again if you want to talk about Marcus Cole I *will* burst into tears. Marcus! Nooooooo! WAHHHHH!

3) @ john who said, "I so want to make a Nightmare at LaBrea Tar Pit cake, complete with cute dinosaurs looking confused." DOOOO IT! Wanna see!

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Hey,

Just so we're all on the same page, we're talking about the death scene as a whole. Tasha's anticlimactic zap and Riker getting sucked into Armus.

Now, most people got the Tasha reference. However, if we had said, "Anyone else having flashbacks of when Riker got sucked into Armus?" 4 people would have gotten it.

Next week, one of the punchlines will be, "It kinda reminds me of the combination of Kirk's safe in episode 25."

john

Craig said...

#1b Pro: Tink doesn't have 'coverage' issues for a change. It says '3rd', not '3nd' or '3th'. 'Birthday' is spelled correctly. Apart from those things, it has bold colors and beads. Could it be deep-fried?

#3a & b Yes, it's the subtly snarky well-wishing every parent wants to receive: "good luck with your new baby." 3b specifically: I'm guessing the mother's name is Rosemary. Just a hunch.

#4a The flame f/x on the candles is an interesting touch. 4b: The whole thing should be a candle. "Nightmare at La Brea Tar Pits" FTW.

wv: compell. 2b is one of the least compelling cakes I've seen in a while.

Melinda said...

The baseball cap (with an airport abbreviation on it?) made me cringe, but "Nightmare at La Brea Tar Pits" made me snicker aloud. And then cringe.

wv--meive: Some people still believe that they won't get a wreck, but meive lost all hope.

Kati said...

I can't get over the creepy baby "eyebrows". How do you eat those?!!

Anonymous said...

The Tar Pit baker is also apparently racist. Notice how he or she took out all of the black people?

Anne-with-an-e said...

If the person truly requested a Red Sox cap, what they got is a real travesty. How dare they!
But if they didn't, it's still a wreck.

WV: coutbra, or Tinkerbell underwear

Sharyn said...

Please tell me I'm not the only one who just went and googled the combination of Kirk's safe on episode 25...

Anonymous said...

I was telling my teenage son about Tasha just the other day. For some reason, the death portrayed in this cake isn't the one I think of. I always loved when Guinan told here "you aren't supposed to be here." True Sci-Fi stuff for me! No one else sensed it. Whoopi Goldberg was great at Guinan.

Anonymous said...

**snORk**
Nightmare at LaBrea Tar Pits! XD
The doomed, counterclockwise: Severe head injury @ 12 o'clock. Jack-o-lantern @ 8. PO'd albino chimp (or a Flintstone) @ 5. And a Picasso @ 2:30.
And wasn't it Riker? I never liked Riker.
--BL's mom

Ashley said...

I love it! I logged on to point out the obvious problem (Tasha Yar dying of an energy burst, not drowning in the goop), but I see you guys have it under control! Nice work.

Rebekah said...

That baby cake looks like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web.

min said...

Usagi, that is exactly what I was thinking! I'm so glad I'm not the only one.

Brandy said...

The baby cake was for my sister's baby shower. Can't tell you how happy I am that it made it onto this blog....hilarious! We were so mortified when we had it delivered and had to show her the result. We laughed about it for days. She said it looked like a little pig baby, so 'right on' to people commenting it is reminiscent of a mini piggy!

Kat said...

The baby cake doesn't look like a pig to me; for some reason it reminded me of a baby version of the "V for Vendetta" guy.

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Anon @ 3:29,

True, true... Of course, it could also be that this is what was requested by the customer but I find it's always best to think the worst of people.

john

KittyKat said...

Sharyn took the geeky words right out of my mouth.

The Princess Bride AND Star Trek:TNG all on one page. You all complete me.

Anonymous said...

Poor Tasha, her bum was nice.

Anonymous said...

It's as I always say- If you keep your expectations low, you're rarely disappointed, but you could be pleasantly surprised!

Letitia said...

wow, so did the purchasers of the wrecks return the cakes? Or simply enjoy the wreck that they no doubt paid handsomely for?

That baseball cap...oh man. And the tar pits? Who thougth that cake was ok to sell?

TisforTonya said...

oh my... from the Princess Bride to the Tasha Yar reference... my well-hidden (humor me) geeky side is in Heaven!!!

and the part of me that's trying to eat less sugar - is doing well.. those are some of the most unappetizing wrecks ever!

Anonymous said...

+ 2 for Tasha Yar death refernce.
-Kara

Dharmamama said...

"Tinker Bell dangler" sounds like a sex toy.

The baseball cap cake, if you didn't have the original to compare it to, is not that bad - it looks like a cap thrown on a base, with dirt on it.

WV: jintab My jintab would be high if I was drinking right now.

Dharmamama said...

Oh, whenever I think of Tasha Yar, I always think of, "I am fully functional."

Carol said...

Several pounds of neon bright icing and copious sci fi references... this is what keeps me coming back for more.

Anonymous said...

NO! I've just barely started TNG! The spoilers! They burn!
-Daria

Darla said...

That baby made me pull back and grimace in pain. Yikes.

As for the last cake...who knew there were mandrakes on TNG? Talk about crossing the streams.

Sonja F said...

"BUT I DON"T LIKE FONDANT"

Anonymous said...

I thought the Tasha Yar reference made me happy... then I saw all the responses, and how easily people admit to getting it, and that made me even MORE happy.

SaraV said...

Princess Bride...ST:TNG(old episode at that)...and a veiled sex toy reference....yep! Jen hit the triple jackpot today. :)

vw: uplis. Will uplis stop making me laugh so hard with these cake wrecks?

Jo said...

Love the Tasha Yar reference - has made my rough day a little brighter!

Anonymous said...

What do you have against the LaBrea Tar Pits, anyway?

Um, that "baby" face...well, at least they tried to sculpt it instead of being two dimensional. o.O

I actually typed 'two dementional' at first and it does indeed look demented. I haven't seen the last Harry Potter movie- do they show any Dementors faces?

@Fluffy Cow- oh, no you didn't!! LMAO (does happy dance)

-Barbara Anne

Anonymous said...

Sharyn, I did NOT google it. I binged. LOL

-Barbara Anne

Rena said...

To this day I can't watch the Tasha Yar death scene episode. Yet, the reference made me happy :)

Naomi said...

Time to cut the baby face cake! Who wants an eye piece? (I do, I do!)

Rachel said...

I'm trying to figure where you get episode 25 from -- according to Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers, we're talking either episode 24 1st season, or 26 if you count the pilot episodes.

You know that kid in Galaxy Quest who said, "I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT WAS REAL!" I was that kid, just a female version. And got into Trek during TNG. I was eleven and an outcast. It was fate. What can I say.

Arlene said...

I really really hope none of these cakes were purchased. Wow they didn't even come close to what was advertised lol. That pool one actually did bring to mind Tasha Yar's death scene..scary that.

Anonymous said...

I ordered that Tinker Bell cake for my daughter a couple years ago! It looked beautiful, but the box was left partly open to accommodate the height of the toy, so the cake was stale. We served it anyway, and then I took the remaining 1/3 cake back to the store and got a full refund. Yay, free stale cake!

Sif said...

Aw, Tasha.

Wee Tait said...

We're all for having a go at new things but this is pushing the boundaries slightly...

Anonymous said...

Oh, dear God. i saw that first cake and all I can think is 'That poor little girl!'

Anonymous said...

WTF???? How dare those people call themselves professionals.

Miz Kizzle said...

Thanks to the first photograph I now have the horrible words "Tinker Bell Dangler" stuck in my head.

Anonymous said...

The screaming baby cake's not so bad compared to the other ones. Then again, it wasn't a great source to begin with.

That being said, "compared to the other ones" means compared to the La Brea Tar Pits and what appears to be Cookie Monster's death scene.

Anonymous said...

As someone who had to churn out the cakes at a discount bakery for 4 years, people need to learn that you get what you pay for. Seriously, those decorators are expected to decorate a cake from start to finish in less than 10 minutes.....with that said, I so would have fired the decorator who wrecked the Tinkerbell cake. Gotta some standards!

Anonymous said...

After seeing so many horrible "what they got"s, I've decided that too many people are asking bakers to copy beautiful cakes without seeing a portfolio of previous work to make sure the bakery is actually capable of beautiful work. Advice to cake orderers: confirm your bakery is capable of more than "Alpo" before ordering "steak" (Homer says: mmm, steak cake!)

Tasha Yar ref: boy that takes me back, and you're so right!

Deb H said...

Doesn't it look like they made toilet paper rolls on the top of the pool wall? Maybe that water was supposed to be yellow with a hint of brown...

yotan said...

ugh that tinkerbelle cake. i never could get those weird-looking purple and pink flowers to look right. (i'm not the... 'artist' featured, i'm just familiar with that painful design!) though really if you just take your time with the darn thing it's not that hard to do...

Val C. said...

For some reason "Tinker Bell Dangler" sounds like a nickname for a serial killer.

Dawn said...

A Tasha Yar reference, hurray!

Anonymous said...

Oh, man! And no one notices the Princess Bride reference?!?

~Cathy in NOLA

Anonymous said...

The ascending carrots on the Tinkerbell cake are easily explained.

No, actually, they aren't.

Look at the pink flowers, the purple flowers, and the "carrots." They are supposed to be parts of the same flower (mmmm, delicious buttercream flowers). How can a decorator look at the guide picture and decide that the flowers must be dismembered and scattered hither and yon? It doesn't make any sense.

Word verification: lomant. A special kind of ant, bred by Neverland fairies, that sneaks into birthday parties and gobbles up the really hideous cakes before the children can be traumatized.

Jenny Islander

Anonymous said...

Is it just me, or did they make the "crying baby" cake harder than it need be? I mean, thanks for the extra effort, but....

Goueznou said...

@Dharmamama: Obviously these bakers are not programmed in multiple techniques.

(...and their decorating is bad, too. Zzing!)

Anonymous said...

I actually ordered that first Tinkerbell cake for my middle child a few years back. Maybe I should try and track down the person responsible and thank them as mine looked better then the example. I'm not sure what I would have done if I went in and that thing was waiting for me.

The pool is just scary. I appreciate the Tasha Yar reference, it'll make the nightmares easier.

Jessica said...

The Tinkerbell cake that the customer got is actually a Little Mermaid with some roses and Tink stuck on it.

Anonymous said...

Haha, I know exactly what happened to the Tinkerbell cake. The design is meant for the Little Mermaid cake that most chain store bakeries have...someone started making the wrong cake and got lazy....

Meghan New said...

Believe it or not, I like the wrecked Tinker Bell cake. Now, if I was a bakery worker, I would definitely be a wreckorator, but I still like the Tink Cake.

Maybe it's because I don't care for the original design in the first place.

wv. Creade -- We can creade a non-wrecky Tinker Bell cake.

Unknown said...

I gasped with such joy and excitement when I read the intro to this post: I took a full-on in breath and smiled--much like I did as a child when I saw the presents under the tree Christmas morning or the gifts my parents arranged on the dining room table for me to find first thing in the morning in celebration of my birthday. THAT'S how excited I was! haha!

My first thoughts:

TINKER BELL: I didn't see any carrots or radishes in the referenced cake!

BASEBALL HAT: Oh my. Sad. Sad. Sad little deflated "hat". Nice use of brown sugar ON the base (NOT!). It took me a minute to figure out why there was sand on the cake...literally!

THA "BABY": Poor Brandy! My first thought was Elizabeth Taylor (R.I.P.) because of the fake eyelashes! Where have you ever seen a baby wearing fake eye lashes?? And, whose idea was it to take a flat surfaced, cartoon-like baby and turn it into a sculpted baby face (using the term lightly?). In the end, I decided it looked like Miss Piggy doing drag as Elizabeth Taylor (yes, I know Miss Piggy is female...but those eye lashes...you would HAVE to call it drag regardless).

THE POOL: Wow. Yuck. Ew. Are you frickin' kidding me? Nice sunny pool party going on there. That baker should be sued for...slandering the good name of butter cream icing. Unlawful use of cake. Impersonating a cake decorator. Somethin' somethin'.

Who the heck is Trish????
Am I THAT old???? (42)

I'll challenge you to come up with a most excellent Frank Zappa reference on any upcoming post! (EXCLUDING "THE MUFFIN MAN"...OR ANY LYRICS THEREOF. Nor "Little Green Rosetta." That would be much too simple!)

:)

WV!!! "dombase" haha "That poor Boston baseball hat sitting on top of that dombase looks pitifull."