Cake Wrecks: under neat that, put article
By Lindsey Rivait
Arts Editor
August 26, 2009
 What better way to start your day than with humour and cake? That’s what Cake Wrecks blog creator Jen Yates has done since May 2008 and things have worked out pretty well for her. Besides winning two awards in her first year (Weblog award for the Best Food Blog and the Blogger’s Choice award for Best Humour Blog), Yates will be releasing her book, Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong, from Andrews McMeel Publishing, on Sept. 4.
Cake Wrecks began when a friend of Yates emailed her the infamous Wal-Mart cake—a rectangular creation iced in white with orange and yellow flowers and the message, “Best Wishes Suzanne/ Under Neat that/ We will Miss you.”
Each cake monstrosity is followed by Yates’ commentary, a feature that attracts visitors and keeps them coming back for more. Most interestingly, each wreck on the site is professionally made. These aren’t cakes gone wrong at home—these cakes are displayed and sold in all their glory at a professional level.
What is a cake wreck, exactly? According to the Cake Wrecks blog, a Cake Wreck is any cake that is “unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate.” This includes, but is not limited to: misspellings or a blatant disregard for grammar, an unappetizing colour scheme, inappropriateness, cake made to look like things cake should never look like (the Chinese Lotus [Bound] Foot cake stands out in this category), or even a cupcake cake slathered with a sheet of frosting and topped with a bevy of plastic toys.
The latter, known as CCCs, gets quite a bad wrap on Yates’ site. CCCs are a series of cupcakes vaguely arranged into some sort of shape that is then iced over. Yates’ relationship with CCCs was hate at first sight. “The first time I saw one—ugly little buggers,” Yates recalled.
There used to be a time when receiving the wrong cake or receiving a complete mess of a cake for any special occasion would be a tragedy. Thanks to Yates and her collection of well-meaning but completely bizarre cakes, this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
“I hear from fans all the time who are disappointed their birthday cakes weren’t wrecks, and others who specifically purchase some bakery atrocity because it reminds them of the site. That’s why I think the large chain bakeries should be Cake Wreck’s biggest fans: we are totally helping their sales,” Yates joked.
Yates estimates that she receives around 60 Cake Wrecks submissions a day, giving her ample material to run with, which is great for Yates since Cake Wrecks is a full-time venture for her. She also owns a specialty painting company with her husband John.
The most popular wreck she’s posted to date is the Mohawk-baby carrot jockeys. “Those little guys should run for public office,” Yates said.
Yates isn’t wreck-free herself, having committed minor cake felonies. “I remember for our first cake together, John and I decided that peach and purple was a great color combination. Needless to say, it wasn’t. And the first time I tried out our mini topsy-turvy pans, the entire sorry creation got dumped unceremoniously into the trash,” Yates recalled.
Yates, who is still surprised her site turned out to be such a success, composed the book in just three months. The bulk of the book, to the tune of about 80 per cent, is all new material. The only repeats are fan favourites.
“There are also a few sections where I get to just chat with the reader, and fill him/her in on some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, like the cake controversies I caused (or just wrote about), some of my favourite trolls, and how the baking community has reacted to the blog,” Yates explained.
Now that Yates has completed the book, she’s focusing on her blog with a new redesign and promotion of the book. “Sometimes the daily posts are a challenge, but I wouldn’t give this job up for anything—or not for a good long while yet, anyway,” said Yates.
Catch up on the Wrecks at http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/.
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