At the Ohio State Fair this week, a very unusual cake contest was held. Children were challenged to come up with the “Best Worst Ugly Cake,” using an angel food cake and a wide variety of gross and/or scary accessories. Nails, screws, razor blades and steel wool topped one cake, creating a dentist’s nightmare, and others relied on leaves, twigs, fake rats and artificial body parts to up the “ugly” factor on their creations. Many competitors used edible decorations, including strawberry syrup (blood), candy eyeballs, gummy maggots (ed note: ick!) and cooked spaghetti (brains). The cakes, fortunately for the judges, were evaluated on looks – not on flavor.
This contest can easily be replicated at home, which makes it a great potential activity for kids birthday parties and/or Halloween parties. Store-bought angel food cakes are usually quite inexpensive, but you could just as easily use any other kind of small cake (cupcake, etc.) for the contest. Then, just stock up on whipped cream, strawberry (blood) and chocolate sauce, sprinkles, chocolate cake crumbs (edible “dirt”) and gummy worms/rats/whatever and get ready to be a little grossed out.
What do you think?