Cakes That Didn’t Quite Get Their Messages Across
Cakes are how we celebrate everything these days. Birthday? We eat cake for that. New baby? We eat cake for that, too. Divorce party? Yes, obviously we eat cake for that. And the most beautiful thing about a cake is that it's completely customizable. You can have a cake made with any message you want on it, written in delicious icing.
Sometimes cake personalization backfires, though. We're talking about times where the cake decorator can't quite create the intended design, or the times that messages are misspelled or butchered in some other way. These cakes are disasters, and we can't get enough of them. Presenting: cake messages that are wrong in so many ways.
A Holiday Birthday
This person obviously has a birthday around the holidays. Isn't that the worst? You get overlooked because everyone’s busy getting ready for and celebrating the holidays, and to top it off they might try and get away with giving you just one gift instead of separate ones for each individual event.
Looks like this 30-year old birthday boy or girl was double screwed this year since their cake was a complete failure. "30 with stars and sprinkles around it!" We don’t understand how the decorator didn’t understand these instructions.
Really Didn't Follow Directions Here
Now pay attention, because this is what we call a double mistake. Not only did the cake decorator mess up by including the directions right in the cake messages, but they also didn't even read the words they wrote out in icing.
"Happy birthday Arika! Plese proffread this kake." Ummm, three out of four of the words in the instructions about proofreading are spelled wrong. Actually, we’d be willing to be that Arika doesn’t even spell their name that way.
Fired For Spelling Errors?
Well, at least the balloons are cute! We hope maybe this one was meant as a joke. Perhaps the person leaving for a "knew" position is a teacher or a copy editor… any kind of job where spelling matters.
If it wasn't done intentionally, it’s pretty hilarious and might make the person feel good that they’re leaving this job for a new one where their coworkers will pay better attention to spelling.
Always "Rember", Never Remember
If there's one benefit to having a cake with such a glaring misspelling, it’s that the recipient will probably "remember" the cake for a very long time. That extra “e” and “m” would have made a world of difference on this one.
Other than that, it’s a pretty attractive cake and looks appropriate for commemorating a somber event, possibly 9/11. It has a nice patriotic theme and looks like it’d be tasty as long as you could overlook the mistake.
Bakery Sabotage?
At first glance, this cake is passable. It's certainly not the worst we’ve seen. The biggest complaint, if you were only giving the cake a quick look, is that the handwriting is a little messy on "Congratulations Laura."
But look closer and you’ll see that there’s something else going on here, right on Laura’s head. It’s a sloppily-drawn cartoonish cat that doesn’t really fit in with anything else on the design. Did a bakery employee put the cat there as an act of sabotage or was the cat part of the original plan? Enquiring minds want to know.
An Angry Engine
Some three-year-old kid got this Thomas The Tank Engine cake for their birthday party. Which is great and totally age-appropriate except for one thing… that train looks pissed off. The cake decorator did a really good job on everything else, so it makes you wonder why the final product ended up with such an angry look on its face.
Considering that Thomas is known for his trademark smile, this cake really is a head-scratcher.
The Nothing Cake
The person who ordered this cake wanted nothing on it, as in they just wanted it to be blank. They did not want the actual word "nothing" printed across it in chocolate icing.
We're willing to bet that the reason they wanted a blank cake in the first place is because they were afraid the bakery would totally goof up their instructions. In which case, their fears were clearly founded. Cake message fail!
Pinhead Hannah Montana
This one certainly wouldn't get a thumbs-up from Miley Cyrus. This cake, which is supposed to show Hannah Montana, instead features a completely disproportionate and bizarre-looking rendition of the Disney character. In addition to the huge hands that seem to be missing fingertips, this Hannah Montana has a teeny tiny pinhead on top of a giant red shirt and blazer.
It’s a good thing they included the words "Hannah Montana" on the cake, because otherwise poor Lara might not have recognized her favorite TV character.
We Know This Adam
You know him too, right? Adam With Blue Flowers? It's hard to miss him – he’s the guy who is always carrying around a bouquet of large blue hydrangea flowers.
Anyway, it’s his birthday and he’s having a party on Saturday. You’re invited and we hope you can make it. You don’t have to bring anything at all, thank you. But Adam would probably appreciate some blue flowers if you simply insist on bringing something.
Just Happy Birthday
It's easy to imagine that the person who ordered this cake was pretty frustrated when they picked it up at the bakery. They’ve clearly seen a lot of examples of cakes where the decorator wrote the directions on the dessert along with the intended message, so they went out of their way to say "Just happy birthday," meaning nothing else.
However, the cake they got says “Happy birthday. Just happy birthday.” Doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Honesty Is The Best Policy...
… except when it comes to cake. The message on this cake is just rude. "It's 10:30 – I’m tired – here’s your cake." The little heart at the end does very little to soften the blow. You almost wonder why they even bothered to make a cake if they were just going to let the recipient know what an inconvenience it had been.
They could have just bought a cake or waited until they had more time to put into it. Unless this is all a joke, in which case this actually is pretty funny.
Help!
We admire this cake for being unique and creative, but is it kind of weird that Bob the Builder looks like he's been buried alive and is desperately trying to get out of the hole he’s stuck in? It seems like this could be confusing or upsetting to a little kid.
But hey, at least Bob is wearing a big smile as he faces death head on, unlike the Thomas the Tank Engine cake we saw earlier.
Time For A Cleaning?
What a lovely cake with its autumnal color scheme and beautiful roses. Unfortunately for the person this cake was intended for, the cake decorator totally butchered it when they tried to write the message "happy birthday." Instead, the cake says “happy bathday.”
We're pretty sure that whoever receives this cake is either going to be confused by it (“what’s a bathday?”) or offended (are they suggesting I need a bath?!”) but hopefully it will at least taste good.
It Was A Colorful Year
Is purple the name of their town? Their place of work? The school they attend? Just kidding, this is obviously another case where the cake decorator put all the instructions on the cake as part of the message instead of realizing that the person wanted the text "thank you for a great year" written in purple.
We're guessing this might be a cake for a teacher, thanking them for an excellent school year, so we hope she has a sense of humor about the mistake!
Thanks, Mom, It's Just What I Had In Mind
The Star Trek fan that received this cake could have reacted to this in two ways. First, they could have laughed at the fact that the name of the USS Enterprise was totally butchered here and written as "Starprise Entership" instead of “Starship Enterprise.”
Or they could have gone into a rage that the spaceship from their beloved TV series was mangled and refused to eat any of the cake. We kind of doubt that, though. Most Trekkies would probably appreciate the humor in this mistake.
Hope Summer School Is On The Agenda
Oh, the irony. A "school's out" cake with a huge mistake on it is just too perfect. Instead of “school’s out for summer” or “school is out for summer,” the person who decorated this one combined the two into “school’s is out for summer.”
We hope whoever is responsible for this cake plans to attend summer school to bone up on their spelling skills. Bonus points for the rest of the decorations, though – the cake looks delicious.
Spelling Is Important
Marc is obviously a person who cares about how people spell his name. It's a big deal to a lot of people who use a non-traditional spelling. Which makes this cake all the more tragic.
Not only did the decorator spell Marc’s name wrong, but they completely misinterpreted the instructions to use a "C." Instead, they wrote “Happy Brithday Mark With A Sea.” Hoo boy. It doesn’t help that they misspelled “birthday” as well. We hope Marc ended up with the cake he deserved.
No, Woody!
We're not sure that we ever needed to see Woody like this. It’s bad enough that the beloved Toy Story character is sitting on the toilet in the middle of this birthday cake, but the mounds of brown frosting around him are just too much.
The kind of person that appreciates this type of potty humor is sure to find this hilarious, though. And as disgusting as it sounds, that brown frosting probably tastes pretty good.
You Done It, All Right
You have to wonder what this cake is congratulating someone for. Did they graduate? Get their drivers license? Rescue a litter of kittens from a house fire? Whatever it was, they deserve a better cake than this travesty.
"Congration. You Done It" just doesn't seem like a sufficient message of good wishes for someone who has just accomplished something big. At least the cake looks tasty, and it cost less than 15 bucks.
What A Loser
In a story that went viral, one Missouri bakery royally screwed up a little girl's birthday cake. The child, named Elizabeth, goes by the nickname "Lizard" and the cake was supposed to say "Happy Birthday Lizard." As you can see, the bakery got it way wrong though.
This is a picture of Elizabeth and her cake. Don't feel too bad, though. Her mom said she wasn't actually upset at all. "She can't read so she didn’t know what the cake said," Jones said. “She doesn’t even know what a loser is.”
Under Neat That
Best wishes Suzanne. We will miss you. Wow, that's a nice and simple (but heartfelt) message for a cake. It’s too bad that the cake decorator got it all wrong and included the line "under neat that" right in the middle of the text.
As with a lot of these cakes, the overall appearance helps out a lot when there’s a big mistake. This one is really pretty on its own and we’re sure it tasted great.
Perfect For An Outdoor Wedding
This cake has something going for it even though there's a glaring mistake in the message. Since the wording says "Congratulations on your weeding" instead of “wedding,” it’s pretty perfect that the cake is decorated with what appears to be a bunch of green weeds.
This really would be the perfect humorous cake for a casual backyard wedding. But if it wasn’t actually supposed to mention weeds, we bet the bride wasn’t too thrilled about it.
It's A Command
Aw, this one makes us kind of sad. These people are losing someone close to them, a friend or coworker maybe, and their heartfelt message was all messed up by the cake decorator. The handwriting looks kind of pathetic too, like the baker had never iced a cake before.
Either way, the meaning is clear and the person who received this cake probably got a big kick out of it. Nothing like laughter to soften the hurt of saying goodbye to someone!
Creepy!
This cake is a huge old mess of confusion. We think that the person who ordered it wanted some ghosts, goblins, and booze bottles on it (a play on the word "boos") but that the baker misunderstood the first part and used goats instead.
The cake decorator also goofed by printing all the directions on there. “Its for Halloween so put on IT some goats, goblins AND booze.” You know, maybe they really did want goats after all.
Um, What?
It's impossible to know what’s going on with this cake. Was this the intended message or is this some kind of huge error on the bakery's part? Are those purple roses in the corner of the cake supposed to be balls? Does Tom coach a team called The Big Purple Balls?
None of those seem likely, so we guess this was just a personal joke between the people who ordered their cake and Coach Tom.
En Français
Google Translate would have come in handy here if the cake decorator had understood the instructions they were given for this message. The customer wanted the words "Happy Birthday" written on the cake in French.
What they got were their entire directions: “Happy Birthday in French.” The cake would simply say “Bon Anniversaire” if they'd gotten it right. But we can’t imagine the recipient of this didn’t like it anyway. It’s hard to get mad at a cake.
Yum, Yum
Nothing makes us want to dive into a dessert like seeing the word "bowel." The nauseating brown icing swirled around the border of this cake is also unappealing. And we know from personal experience what green food coloring looks like once it's been digested… so there’s nothing about this design that would encourage us to try a bite of the cake.
We do wonder whether this was an error on the part of the bakery or if the customer did want the cake to say “bowel” instead of “bowl.”
Perfect For A Celebratory Cookout
Hey, this is the perfect cake for a cookout. After all, the message written on top announces that "It's a gril." And a grill is a pretty good thing to have around when you’re cooking burgers and hotdogs.
We know this was supposed to say “girl,” and the pink icing makes that even more clear. What we don’t understand is how this glaring mistake made it through the bakery doors.
Dedication To Perfection
You almost have to wonder if the person who ordered this cake didn't want to thank the recipient in a sincere way. After all, using the word "deadication" instead of “dedication” seems just a little bit grim, or even threatening.
It was probably just a bakery error though, considering how friendly and upbeat the rest of the cake’s decorations are. Those balloons with their curly strings are just about as cheerful as it gets.
Don't Want To Show Favoritism
It looks like there might have been a birthday celebration for twins here, or at least two people who share birthdays that are so close together that they'd split a party. The person who ordered the cakes (which are made of cupcakes, mmmm) clearly just wanted the same message on both of them.
But as we keep seeing, the baker here put the instructions on the cake instead of the intended message. Why do they have to go and make things more complicated? How hard is it to just stop at the "happy birthday" part?
A Legit Victorian
Someone who is a "Victorian" is a person who lived during the time of Queen Victoria, so from 1837-1901. That means that the recipient of this cake, a Valid Victorian, is really really old. They must have discovered the Fountain of Youth because as far as we know, not many humans have ever lived that long.
Truly, though, this is a funny cake mistake. We bet the Valedictorian who received it got a good chuckle out of it.
It's A Skill You Should Have By Age 35
There are kinds of developmental milestones that humans go through as they age. By two years of age, most children will be able to speak in two-word sentences. By five, they can give someone their name and address, and can also count to ten.
Apparently, when you turn 35 you're supposed to be able to draw a unicorn. The person who ordered this cake just wanted to make sure their 35-year-old friend was on track with their motor skills.
Blowing In The Wind...
Ack! This has to be one of the most gorgeous cakes in the collection, aside from the message which we'll get to in just a second. Take a look at those gorgeous flowers in a nice autumn color theme… so pretty. This cake decorator knows their stuff.
Until you get to the text. Yikes. Didn’t they think that was an awful lot of words for a cake this size? And they even left the word "the" out of the intended message. But you gotta hand it to them for the artistic way they wrote “like it’s blowing in the wind” down the cake.
Resigned To It
You know when you're arguing with someone and get to a point where you’re just tired of fighting and give up on it? That seems to be what happened here. Someone is leaving, either transferring to a new job or maybe even moving away, and the people being left behind aren’t too happy about it.
However, they know the person is leaving anyway so they’ve given up on talking them out of it. This one isn’t a fail at all. It’s the perfect message for the situation.
Good Bless You, Too
Here's another cake that is super confusing, but the general message gets across. "Good bless you on your baptism Cainom Hayes Lebold" is what the message says. Since it’s a white cake with a pair of baby botties on top, it’s pretty clear that this cake is intended for a baptism celebration.
It’s too bad that the wording was messed up on this one because it was a really cute cake before someone butchered it with a messy and misspelled message!
These Directions Are Unclear
Usually when a decorator mistakenly includes the customer's original instructions on the cake, we can tell what they meant for the cake to look like. But not with this one. "Fill with 18 dots/periods following."
It seems like there’s something missing from these instructions. What are the 18 dots/periods supposed to follow? Other than this pretty glaring error, the rest of the cake looks great though! Extra points for the ribbon decorations.
That's Quite A Baby
After seeing this cake, which features a rather interesting icing drawing of a baby named Tristan, we really want to see the real baby this was based on. Is Tristan really green? Perhaps it's a frog and not a human baby? Or maybe a Muppet, even.
This is a pretty terrifying cake to serve at a baby shower. We think we’d request a piece from the top right corner, and none of the part that has the creepy baby on it.
What Is Even Going On Here?
"My graduuaccion G od bless you." We can't quite figure out what this one means other than the fact that it’s a cake for a graduation party.
A lot of the time we can’t tell whether the customer actually bought the cake and used it in their celebration or if they refused to pay and ordered another one. But this person clearly bought the cake since we see it all set out with the party decorations. Maybe they understood the message that has us so confused?
Maybe The 32rd Time Is The Charm
Overall this cake scores pretty high. The sprinkles all around the edges are colorful and festive, and the cake just looks delicious. The cake decorator has pretty good handwriting, too, and we like the pink color of the icing. This cake is what you'd picture if you had to imagine a birthday cake.
But hold up one moment. 31rd? What on earth? Everyone knows that it’s supposed to be 31st… everyone except the person who decorated the cake apparently.
That Model Didn't Help At All
Buzz Lightyear to the rescue! Not really… You can hardly tell who the character on the cake is even supposed to be. It's good that someone stuck an actual Buzz Lightyear toy behind the cake so that the three-year-old recipient could tell who it was.
We just wonder if the cake decorator had that toy to use as a reference when they drew the Toy Story figure or if the customer added it later for clarity.
