Cake Wrecks and cake missteps

When I first heard about the Cake Wrecks blog at neatorama, I expected to see an array of cakes that were poorly decorated – frosting sliding off, writing smeared, etc. Instead, the cakes were far more creative. Some were wrecks in the sense that they lacked good taste and probably seemed like funnier or better ideas before they were actually put into the reality of cake and icing, like the Foot Binding Cake for a podiatrist. Some just seem generally inappropriate. Others were literal wrecks, like this James Bond-themed cake that featured a plane crash. The archives are great and definitely worth a look.

Looking through these pages made me think back to cake wrecks I’ve experienced, or witnessed. The ugliest cake was undoubtedly one where the frosting never set and began to run as the cake was served. It taught me a lesson about the need to refrigerate cakes before during a heat wave and making an extra effort to keep the kitchen cool – either by keeping outside sources of light/heat out or keeping the air conditioning on – when I’m making buttercream. The strangest cake was not one that I made, but a SpongeBob Squarepants cake served to a 20-something man for his birthday. I initially thought that there had been some mistake on the part of the bakery, but it turned out that the relative who ordered the cake just thought it would be cute (and perhaps did not have a clear idea of the fact that young men would not be likely to “ooh” and “aah” over a child’s cake, no matter how cute it was – especially when none of said young men were particularly interested in SpongeBob at any point in their lives). The cake was eaten, however the first reaction to seeing it was confusion, followed by general amusement.

What’s the strangest cake or “cake wreck” you’ve ever encountered? I’m a bit curious now to know whether these… unusual cakes are more common than I thought.