A History of Cake Wrecks

One of my favorite websites of all time has to be Cake Wrecks.  Okay, I should probably be ashamed to admit that, but those cakes and the accompanying comments are hilarious.

And I have to admit, I've had my share of cake wrecks in my life.  Four times a year, I chuckle to myself as I frost a cake that's supposed to be Darth Vadar or a princess or a frog or...

That's right.  A Lego cake.  Unfortunately for John, there was an accident at the Lego factory - an accident involving super high temperatures causing all the cute little blocks to melt.

Going back to the princess cake...

This is what she looked like in the later hours of the evening, just after I discovered the bowl in which I baked the cake was not quite deep enough for Snow White's long legs.  Thankfully, I'm a resourceful little mama...

A tiny, quickly assembled cake baked in a ramekin cup and some amazing work with the very little frosting remaining in my bowl produced the final product.  (My Sweet and Beautiful Sister-in-Law can testify to the absurdity of that evening.  Suffice it to say, there was a lot of laughter in my kitchen).  I left the lower shelves of the fridge in the photo to share the full freaky effect of opening the fridge to find Snow White up to her hips in bright yellow cake.  I'm glad she didn't have to stay in there any longer than she did.  It really was unnerving to see her cold, smiling face every time I wanted some milk for my coffee.

So, my children might grow up scarred.  "Remember all those crazy, scary cakes Mom used to make us?"

Then again, maybe they'll appreciate that they never had THIS cake:

If you can't read that, it says, "Welcome Home, Brad.  Best Wishes, Amy."  I thought about scanning the photo, but decided a web cam shot, fingers included, would be more to the point.  Don't want to be too classy for the occasion, you know...

Now, if you don't know the occasion, the message might be a bit confusing.  Who are Brad and Amy, and why does Amy need "best wishes" upon Brad's homecoming?  This certainly does not sound like a happy, stable home in which Snow White is swaddled in Saran Wrap and thrust into a volcano shaped cake...  Poor Amy and Brad.  I hope they find a good marriage counselor.

But that's not the real story.  

The real story is that my cousin's husband had just been released from death row, and my Wise and Wonderful Sister was on her way to college.  I swear I'm not making this up.  Even I'm not that imaginative. It just so happened that the celebrations of Brad's homecoming and Amy's departure collided on one poor cake, whose picture would be unearthed years later by a woman who has spent too much time laughing her way through Cake Wreck articles.  

Somehow, I'm feeling a little better about my children's birthday cake(wreck)s.  Not only are we making our own family tradition of laughable cakes, we are carrying on a twenty year family tradition of absurdity.  Cake wrecks are, I must humbly accept, an inescapable part of my life.

At least they taste good...