Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong

by Jen Yates

Have your cake and laugh at it, too, with the sweet treat known as Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong. From the creator of the ultrapopular blog CakeWrecks.com, here are the worst cakes ever, including the ugly, the silly, the downright creepy, the unintentionally sad or suggestive, and the just plain funny. With witty commentary and behind-the-scenes tidbits, Cake Wrecks will ensure that you never look at a cake the same way again.

Since May 2008, Jen Yates has been blogging about such confectionery calamities at her popular Web site CakeWrecks.com, winner of the 2008 Blogger's Choice Award for Best Humor Blog, and three 2009 Weblog awards (Bloggies) for Best Writing on a Blog, Best New Blog, and Best Food Blog. Yates now offers up this inspired photo collection with over 150 Cake Wrecks, including 75 percent never-before-seen content.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Food, Photography, Comedy, Adult, Cooking

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 4, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

if it weren't for that table on the ground floor of my store, i don't think i would ever laugh. and certainly not as much as this book has made me laugh. i'm very backwards—i don't just naturally know about any of those blogs or websites that you people take for granted. i just see books. now that i know this exists on this computer thing i am going to check it out because this book made me cry with laughter. i worked at ben and jerry's during college and i made some cakes in my day, so i am familiar with the kind of hi-larious things people request be written on their cakes, particularly when the store is within spitting distance of three college dorms full of stoned kids. but these cakes are a wonder. it's mostly the misspelling/misunderstanding section. i've seen misspellings before (i do read greg's reviews before i vote for them!) hee. but on a cake there is something tragic and bold about misspellings. even the simple ones: "i lave you" on a heart-shaped cake. all i can say about this book is: page 6. page 55. i can't stop laughing.

come to my blog!

[Jason Koivu · Rating 5 out of 5]

You've seen them online! Now see them in book form!

Godawful cake disasters!


Glorious confectionary monstrosities!


Revel in gasps and giggles to mishaps like...







Some of my favorite are the ones that include inadvertently snarky quotes:




Maybe this isn't a true 5 star book from cover to cover - some of the commentary and attempts to yuck it up fall flat - however, if you can make me laugh so hard that I cry, you deserve an extra star or two. This had me in tears two or three times before I finished.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you're already a rabid CakeWrecks fan, get this book! There are tons of brand new delicious, hysterical wrecks that will have you laughing until you cry. There are also some behind the scenes stories - both from the website and the stories behind the wrecked cakes. Don't skip over Jen's witty commentary! You'll be snorting frosting out your nostrils in no time!

My favorites are "Welcome little Swetty!", "Happy 35th, Ann, Dave & Philis" and the whole Baby Bottoms Up chapter.

One of the most brilliant, insightful explanations on why cakes-gone-wrong are both funny and daily addicting is right at the beginning of the book: "I think it has something to do with the fact that almost all of us have a cake story to tell... Good or bad, these cakes tell little stories about us. So when we see a cake... that's shaped like a plunger, we know there's probably a story behind it, too -- and if we're lucky, a really funny one."

[Mayda · Rating 4 out of 5]

What some of these cake decorators lack in penmanship, they make up for in spelling errors. And they seem to think that anything can be fixed by adding more icing. Gobs of icing. Author and collector of wrecked cake pictures, Jen Yates adds her comments with somewhat sarcastic and often quizzical captions. There are definitely humorous cakes in this collection, some intentional and some not, and this book may have you switching to ice cream for dessert. But it’s all in good, or maybe gooey, fun.

[Gerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book for my daughter, who makes cakes professionally, so that she could see what not to do! I got it home and could not resist having a browse but once into it, I could not put it down and must confess it is without doubt one of the funniest books I have read.

Jen Yates pickes out misspellings, poor design, wedding disasters, meaningless remarks, holiday horrors, new baby cakes plus some random wreckage. All of it makes for great fun and plenty of belly laughs, even if one cannot believe that professional cake makers would perpetrate such mistakes.

One customer when asked what he wanted on the cake said, 'Nothing' and that is exactly what appeared on it, the word Nothing! Another asked for 'Somewhere over the rainbow' and got the word 'Somewheres' above some rainbow coloured icing. And what about the customer who asked for 'God Bless Everyone', inside a heart? He/she got exactly what she ordered for the top of the cake read 'God Bless Everyone Inside a heart!'!!

And one customer asked for 'Congratulations' with the lettering to be as small as possible ...yes, you got it, the cake read 'Congratulations As small As Possible'. And on the subject of fonts, perhaps they were triplets or all having a birthday on the same day for the cake read, 'Happy Birthday Hannah Large Font, Cole and Allie Small Font'. Well, the designer had carried out the instructions to the letter, hadn't he/she?

'It's a Gril' celebrated the birth of a new baby gril, sorry, girl, and 'I'ts a Boy' spelt it right but punctuation was not the designer's strong point.

It's great fun and it will be a wrench passing it on now for it is a book to be picked up and browsed when a laugh is needed.

So, 'Whoppie Happy redding', a paraphrase of the cake which should have said, 'Whoopie It's your Birthday' but the first word lost something in the translation ... and it is amazing how many different spellings there are of the word birthday!

[Eastofoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a total laugh-out-loud-tears-streaming-down-the-face riot ! The combination of disastrous cakes and the author’s totally hilarious, smart musings/quips/captions makes for a hell of a great read. The blurbs are never mean-spirited or that annoying teenage toilet humor which makes it even funnier.

Nearly every page has a picture of a horrifying cake with some text alongside. Sometimes it’s just one sentence, maybe some internal dialog, a conversation or a few lines of “explanation”. Rarely is it too long so the humor is always at the forefront. Some cakes are just plain and simple monstrosities while others don’t jump out at you right away but when the author gets going you can’t help but go “ewwww!” or “OMG!”. Most will have you gaze in awe wondering what possessed the baker to put these out for public viewing instead of making a beeline for the trash can. You’ve got the ghastly Technicolor cakes with garish fuchsias and blinding turquoise, the frightening poor taste cakes like the military/dolphin/amo combo job for a wedding (!), the bizarre feathers in a cake as decoration (yuck) or the classic “clumps of pooh” log looking cakes –wow are those ever repulsive! Expect to see some classic examples of miscomprehension, misspellings and “unique” misunderstandings (ie the Baker was smokin’ some bad stuff that day!). My faves were the disastrous attempt at a tartan plaid for a wedding and the beautifully author titled “Vortex of Doom” cake –that was hys-ter-i-cal!!

If you’re looking for a gift for a hard to shop for person get this baby and you’ll be guaranteed some serious laughs, wheezing and near choking while you try to catch your breath and wipe your eyes as you flip through the pages –it is that good :D

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that regularly winds up in our breakroom at work, with a few of us crying over it because of how hilarious some of these wrecks are. I'd never heard of the website before I'd read this, and now it's one of my favorites to read daily to cheer myself up.

[TL *Humaning the Best She Can* · Rating 3 out of 5]

*read for free with Kindle Unlimited *

Happy Easter 🐣
--

Bit overlong but still fun to read 📚 Some of these cake I had to do a double take because I thought my eyes/brain had tricked me.

Might just send this to my cousin who bakes so she can get a good laugh out of it:).

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you rate a humorous book like this?

I rate them as follows:

How hard did I laugh?

Did my husband laugh? I consider this the boy/girl test- do both sexes think its funny. I should probably worry that I think two data points (my husband and myself) are enough for me to answer this… Oh well, that’s why I majored in History and not statistics.

Distractibility( from real life)- can it make me forget about the fact that I’m probably supposed to be working on?

Pass-around-ability- can I pass it around to distract all the workers in my office?

And to answer those questions, I laughed, my husband laughed, my boss laughed, and it’s gotten a lot of attention at the work coffee table. Listening to a giggle laugh track next to my desk definitely improves my work day.

For all the color photos that are priceless, this is a pretty cheap book. Absolutely worth it, and much more office friendly than FU Penguin….

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last night our library held a program on how to salvage cooking disasters. Cake wrecks fit in so well with the topic that I had to take it home and read it all last night. Author, Jen Yates conceived her idea for the book from an email message sent by a friend; you know one of those that get forwarded to everyone in your address book. The picture of the cake with its wacky message was the impetus for a blog www.cakewrecks.com. Blog to book seemed a natural.

If you need a laugh and have a few hours you can’t go wrong with these cakes where something is lost in the interpretation and/or communication is lacking. As I flipped through the book I couldn’t help musing “What were they thinking?” and reminisced on some of my own cake blunders. I liked the whole but wished I had a piece of cake to enjoy with the book!

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is guaranteed to make you laugh! Jen Yates has compiled a book showing photos of professionally decorated cakes which have had mishaps, misspellings, and misinterpretations! And Jen's observations are almost as funny as the cakes themselves. Everyone has had baking disasters, but it's nice to know that even professionals have had some things go terribly wrong! I found myself laughing out loud at some of these cakes (lol)!!

[Eyehavenofilter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is hysterical and frightening...a train wreck of sugar and flour....sort of like Honey BooBoo!
What's really sad is that any one of these cakes could have been made by "yours truly" ME!
I have a confession or two.
I kill plants...I'm so sorry...I know they are living things.
I also kill cakes...I don't know how it happens...it just does... They are afraid of me I think?
They never stand up straight, they fall over, or sink in the middle, they melt their own frosting, or the frosting goes haywire.
When I went through this book it was like looking back at all the cakes I've tortured in my life.
( I feel so ashamed! ) a sweet innocent cake?
Don't let them fool you they have a mind of their own. If you don't follow the directions, just so,They can erupt
and end up as hard as a rock, as flat as a pancake, or even explode in the oven! ( trust me I've seen it all and everything in between)
But to tell you the truth, the cakes in this book are far worse than most of my disasters...no really, they are! Honest!
My only complaint....the photos are less than stellar, maybe it's the subject matter? No, no it's the photographers for sure!
Damn shame, great photos would have made this a full 5 stars.

[CS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

Yeah, I'm kinda reading these books to make my original yearly goal of 130 books - so what's it to ya?!

I found the website when hanging with some friends. We spent hours pouring over the site and dying with laughter. When she mentioned it was a book, I knew I had to buy it.

It was a delightfully funny read. The cakes themselves would be only moderately funny, but it's really Yates' commentary that brings out the real fun. And it's nice to be laughing at something inanimate with no feelings than telling yet another fat joke.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally looked at this book in the bookstore because I have a Facebook friend who likes to share funny cakes from the blog from time to time.

But, after a few minutes, I felt like I needed to buy this book because the kids giggled so much over it in the bookstore and nearly all of them had read so much of it. I was glad I did. It brought much-needed laughter and they loved sharing it with others, particularly family, on our Easter travels. My mid-teen said that it was a new favorite book and took it to school to share with others.

I think one of my favorites is the Pooh-Bear cake, but there are plenty of pictures bringing such laughter that attracts other on-lookers to the book.

There were so many good, funny chapters of clean fun, but I'm not sure I would have bought the book if I had noticed the chapter entitled "Nuthin' to See Here." That's not something I would want the kids to stumble across at home on our humor shelf, even in jest. I cut it out of the book before allowing it to go to school, mainly to protect the teen from school administrators and what they might say about what was honestly the content. They would have been right. The writer herself recommends skipping that section if it's not for you. Nobody in our family was sorry to see that section go.

One of my younger kids wanted to make sure that I would NOT get a cake decorated to celebrate whenever she gets her first period. No worries, there!

[#ReadAllTheBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually looked through this book a few months ago, yet decided to wait to post it so I could check the site out. I've always looked up bad cake design on the internet, yet somehow I always missed the site CakeWrecks. It wasn't until a customer showed me this book that I ended up visiting the site. I almost wish that I'd posted the review sooner- while the book has a lot of great pictures, there's better on the site itself.

As you would expect, this book is full of various funny cakes- many of which aren't done on purpose. Whether it is horrible spelling jobs, word insertion, and/or unintentionally shaped/decorated cakes, most of these will please. It's just that when I compared the pictures in the book to the pictures on the site, I just felt a little disappointed.

I feel a little unfair, comparing this book to its internet counterpart because the site can hold so many more pictures than this book can. With that in mind, I do recommend this to some buyers. This will be best as a gag gift for the baker or internet fan, but it just doesn't seem like it'll be something for everyone out there.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In some ways, this is a picture book for grown-ups -- a picture book filled with images of disastrous professional cakes. Add the commentary of Cake Wrecks blogger Jen Yates, and the result is a hilarious compilation of goofs, gaffes, and gastro-tastrophes. The book is perhaps funniest for those with a reasonably competent grasp of grammar, syntax, punctuation, and spelling, as these folks will most readily recognize the egregious errors on many of these cakes. But some of the most offensive cakes are just a product of their heinous decorations, which can be appreciated by just about anyone.

The book is not entirely work-safe, and one particular section is not entirely kid-safe, but otherwise this book is appropriate for most audiences over the age of 12. Nothing I can say here can really do justice to the hilarity contained within the pages of this book and on the blog. Get your own copy! Read it with someone... it's even funnier that way!

[Tressa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never had the pleasure to glimpse cakes like these in my grocery store's display case or the displeasure to pick up an ordered cake wreck of my own. But I'm glad Jen Yates compiled all these wrecks into one book. Her captions and text are hilarious accompaniments.

Highlights:
Icing carrots and balloons shaped like penises.
A baby shower cake with an exploding custard stomach and a plastic baby inside.
Road kill cakes.
Misspellings galore.
Maniacal Santa cakes.
And too many cakes to count with icing dog turds on them.

[Jan Polep · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tickles me no end. As the victim of a cake wreck, I can empathize yet laugh like hell over some of these misspelled wonders. Years ago, I tried to get a cake from the Cary Bakery on Main Street that was supposed to say, "Happy Lake Forest Day", an annual event on the first Wednesday of August every year. So I pick it up, take it to LF, and when we open the box, it says, "Happy Last Fourth Day". My relatives are still laughing...

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter and I were practically causing a scene in the bookstore, laughing quite hard at the photos (they hardly need the text). The mistakes - a cake that has "I want sprinkles" or "Happy Birthday Hannah Lg Font / Cole & Alli Small Font" iced onto its surface - are so ridiculous that you can't believe they made it out of the bakery.

[Eliece · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hahahahahahahahaha
By giving this book 5 stars, I do not mean to put it into the same category as say, The Book Thief or The Poisonwood Bible; BUT for what it is (let's call it a "coffee table book") it is great. I started laughing on page one and am still laughing. "May the fourth be with you"

[DelGal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a funny book, not so much for the writings contained therein, but the pictures are a riot. From silly, to stupid and quite dumb to absolutely ridiculous, check out cake wrecks, you won't be disappointed and you may even laugh a little.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

hilarious cakes, but have to say, 'may the fourth' is a real saying! so the r2d2 cake was correct and awesome!

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some funny stuff in here. Some were hilarious, others mildly amusing. It's a quick read, so worth it for the laughs.

[Kelly Lynn Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, silly book, not a must-read, but makes a good humor break.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you seen Cake Wrecks? If you haven't -- click on www.cakewrecks.com post haste. Take a break from my review and hang out there for a while, and if you're at work, grab a towel or sweater to muffle your laughter. Then, forward the site to your friends and recommend the same.

Cake Wrecks the book is very clearly a book born of a blog, but I was fairly prepared for that to be the case. I imagine most readers enjoyed the blog first, so I'm not sure how necessary the education on Cupcake Cakes (CCC) was. Some of the page compositions were a bit, shall we say, loud, and I found the multiple fonts distracting. The cake is the art, not the layouts.

That said, the book had me chuckling just as much as the blog. There were some cakes questionable in nature (and not meant for a PG internet blog) that absolutely had me in stitches. Though the cakes are hilarious themselves, Yates's commentary is what keeps me coming back.

The book is just as good for a laugh as the blog, and for those of you (like me) who check everyday for new content, it is great to sit down and binge on icing gaffes and blink multiple times while asking yourself "What were they thinking?"

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the CakeWrecks blog, and have wanted to see how it translated into a book, so when the chance to borrow it came up, I jumped! I snuggled into my chair, with a hot toddy in hand, and chuckled through the book last evening. While I had seen many of these on the blog, there still were a fair number I'd missed, and some that were definitely worth the repeat. The editor in me loved the frosting equivalent of typos. Some of the others were really funny, too, though I don't know that if it was a cake I had ordered for a minor life event, say, a wedding, that I would see the humor at the moment -- though I certainly would see it afterward! My favorite personal cakewreck story is sadly available only in memory pictures-- a cake for a Hanukkah party, which when it arrived, had the menorah on top of the Christmas tree, and dredels hanging from the branches of the tree. Wish I did have a picture.

[Stephanie Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

CAKE WRECKS: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong, by Jen Yates, grew out of her website CakeWrecks.com. The website won the 2009 Bloggies awards for Best writing on a Blog, Best New Blog, and Best Food Blog. People from all over the world send Yates pictures of cakes with unfortunate errors, disgustingly oily frostings, or just plain weird messes, etc., to which Yates adds her snarky comments. Chapters have titles such as “Literal LOLs”, “Beyond Bizarre”, “Wedding Wrecks”, and “Holiday Horrors”.
When my daughter and I sat down to read this together, we knew it would be funny, but we had no idea that we would end up with our faces hurting from laughing so much!
WARNING! Do not read this book in a public place unless you don’t mind being stared at because of your hysterical laughing!

[Debbie J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cake Wrecks: yet another blog or website republished as a book, in an attempt to cash in on its online popularity. Reader bonus: a surprising amount of three- and four-syllable words, perhaps intended to make it seem more erudite and worth the price

While the cakes shown are funny, I think the author's condescending commentary is off-putting, especially her snarks on grammar and spelling. The majority of the cake decorators likely have unskilled, minimum wage jobs--at best--and educations on the lesser end of the scale. One could argue that someone holding an English degree should check their work but then how would highbrow concepts like Cake Wrecks survive?

Those who enjoy gazing upon the foibles of the presumably less fortunate might be Cake Wrecks’ most fitting audience. I prefer humor which punches up versus down.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Call me old fashioned, but I like a book you can get lost in and has rereadability value. These blogs turned books drive me crazy. Good for them for finding a way to cash in even further on their great ideas. However, down the road when someone is looking to trim their bookshelf down to manageable sizes, this is going to be one of the first to go, with good reason.

With that said, these are good for a very quick laugh before moving on.

[Jbussen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Picked up this book thinking it would be fun. Disappointing. Although some of the cakes are funny, the majority of them are just a simple "mispeilling" or when chocolate frosting looks like a turd. Just so pedestrian. The commentary and captions by the author aren't funny at all. I found the book tedious. Flip through it but I wouldn't even rate this as a BR reader. .