According to Jen Yates, author of the hilarious new collection Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong, “A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate.” For Yates, the pursuit of the hilariously mis-decorated cake is “about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.”
When she began blogging at CakeWrecks.com in May 2008, Yates’ intentions were modest. She wanted a place to collect photos for baking inspiration, as well as a way to share the occasional laugh with family and friends. She never imagined so many readers would respond to her signature wit, or that in less than a year, tens of thousands of people from around the world would be regularly visiting her site for sugary highs (and lows).
Many of the photographs in Cake Wrecks are taken “on the front lines” in bakeries and submitted by CakeWrecks.com readers. But this book isn’t “just the blog put to paper,” Yates assures us, for there is “lots (and lots) of new, never-before-seen Wreckage” to be had—75 percent of the book, to be exact.
Even better, Yates provides the history behind many of the cakes on display. There’s the story of the one that started it all—it read “Best Wishes Suzanne/Under Neat that/We will miss you”—and this reader’s personal favorite, the sprinkled and space-age wonder that is Darth Vader cradling a sleeping and pink-ribboned baby girl.
It’s all here, each wreck a disaster of hilarity. In Cake Wrecks, Yates proves there’s plenty of the weird, wonderful and truly great to go around.
