Cake Wrecks

Cake Wrecks is a blog about when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.  It covers everything from unnecessary quotes on farewell cakes to uncanny-valley plagued baby-shower cakes.  My favorite by far is the Good Luck in China cake. If you can only read one thing this week, read this.  (Trust me, you can shop this week without a grocery list.)

The bakery has an online form that apparently prints directly onto the cake. 

Will they? Will they miss Anber?

From the post titled, "You know your mom is cheap when..."

Baby for dessert. Deserted baby for dessert?

And finally the Good Luck in China cake. The story is by Scott of Basic Instructions, which was reposted in Cake Wrecks, and now is reposted here: 

"I had a day job as an office manager for the Seattle office of an international firm. We found out that one of our employees was transferring to one of our offices in China. When one of our people would leave, we usually had a little wing-ding with drinks and cake on the departing employee's last Thursday in the office, so on Tuesday it fell to me to fax a cake order into our nearest Costco Bakery.

I should point out that on that day I had a headache so bad that it hurt to move my eyes. Ordering the cake was the last thing I did before I went home sick for the afternoon. As I filled out the order form, I realized that in addition to the personalized message ("Good Luck in China," in this case) we could also get a large decoration for no extra charge. I looked at the options and none of them were appropriate. They were all things like teddy bears, balloons, or race cars. Crap, in other words. I figured if none of them were appropriate, I might as well get something that made no sense whatsoever.

I put a check mark next to the word 'Fireman.'

The next morning (Wednesday), lying in bed just before getting up, my mind wandered over the previous day and all the things I had accomplished. My eyes snapped open as I thought, 'What did I do!? Why did I order a fireman? That makes no sense!!! I'm going to look like an idiot!'

I went to work, intent on calling the Costco as soon as they opened and stopping the cake before it started. I still had a day before I was supposed to pick it up. I figured that should be plenty of time. After some effort, I got hold of the bakery manager, only to be told that the cake had already been made. It was too late. I figured I'd just have to stand up straight and take it like a man.

My wife and I went to Costco to pick up the cake. When I got to the bakery, this is what was waiting for me.

(see above picture)

Making the hose flesh-toned had been a very bad move.

At first all I could do was blink at it and wonder, 'Am I the only one who sees a giant wang?' I looked at my wife. She was blinking at the cake. An awkward silence and a few stammered sentences later we established that we both saw the same thing. A fireman holding an immense, dripping wang.

I could not serve this cake to my coworkers.

My first thought was that I would just absorb the cost of a second cake and pretend this never happened. Then I thought, 'Wait a minute! This is not an erotic bakery! This is Costco! I should be able to order any stupid cake I want and be confident that it will not be sexually charged.'

While at the checkout line I found a Costco employee to complain to, and showed him the cake. He blinked at it. I told him I was uncomfortable serving this cake at a place of business, and he started laughing and looking relieved.

Here’s what I came to realize about the cake. The obscene image was just obvious enough that you can't help but recognize it, but also obviously innocent enough that you don't want to say anything for fear that you're the only one who sees it.

Soon I was surrounded by several Costco employees who were looking at the cake and laughing. They explained that they had a new cake decorator who was a deeply religious woman from a foreign country, as if that explained everything. At one point while we were hammering out a settlement a woman happened by, caught a glimpse of the cake, covered her mouth and gasped. Good stuff."

(From Cynical-C, Metafilter)