Cake Wrecks

So begins one of my favorite guilty pleasures, the Cake Wrecks blog by Jen Yates. According to Jen, she features "any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Cake Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places."

Since its inception in 2008, this blog has become enormously popular--so popular, in fact, that Ms. Yates is now on tour supporting her recently released book of the same title.

Jen Yates has always enjoyed crafting, and in 2007 she mentioned to her husband, John, that she would like to learn the art of cake decorating. That Christmas, as a gift, John signed them up for a 4-month cake decorating class. During the training course, they had the opportunity to view both masterpieces and disasters of cake creation.

One photograph they came across that stuck them as being particularly funny was of a sheet cake which read “Best Wishes Suzanne… UnderNeat that We Will Miss You”, written in uneven cursive with brown frosting. Jen found this so hilarious that she wanted to share it with others, and Cake Wrecks was born. When she first started posting cake disasters on her new blog, she had no idea what a following would develop, nor how many awful cakes she would discover to feature on the site.

Ms. Yates strives to feature cakes made by professionals--professional Wreckerators, as she calls them. Therefore, she tries to include only cakes made by people who get paid for such work. If you're an amateur cake decorator and find a picture of your handiwork on her site, she will take it down at your request. Some people, however, are good sports and let her keep the picture up, but do request that she annotate the photo noting that the creation was not professionally made.

Even in the case of professionals, Jen does not believe in making fun of people who do not want to make fun of themselves. If you find a picture of your cake on her blog, you can request that she take it down; however, I would beg you to get a sense of humor and let her keep it on display.

The pictures are only half the fun--Jen's captions often have me in tears. Although the snapshots would be great individually, when she puts collections together and writes narratives for them, my wife and I often end up rolling on the floor laughing. To get an idea of her talent for storytelling, I would recommend that you read The Story of Amber.

In conclusion, if you ever go to the bakery to pick up a cake you ordered and it isn't at all what you expected, you might have a Cake Wreck on your hands to submit to Jen. Visit Cake Wrecks today, or buy Jen Yates' book, and find out!

The Cake Wrecks blog can be found at http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com or http://www.cakewrecks.com.