While most of us can probably scratch together a decent dish or two, baking is a whole ‘nother ball game. There is no touch and go, no feeling, just cold, heartless measurements and temperatures that have to be achieved. Naturally, things tend to go wrong all the time. 

We’ve gathered the worst cake-baking and decorating fails people thought had to be shared online. From decoration “art” that might inspire horror, to cakes so poorly baked they don’t even hold together, get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites, and be sure to share your own cake fails in the comments section below. 

#1 So, There Is Going To Be A Cake Competition Fundraiser At My Little Sister’s School, And She Made This

Image credits: Coldanian

#2 Every Time My Wife Or I Look At This Cake I Made, We Immediately Cry Laughing

Image credits: nieltown

#3 I Made Cake Toppers For My Wedding And Forgot To Check The Oven’s Temperature Before Putting My Fiancée In

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#4 My Friend Made A Danny DeVito Cake For Her Friend. It’s Worse In Person

Image credits: brilliant_fungi

#5 “It’s Going To Look Just Like That!”, It Didn’t Look Just Like That

Image credits: Kizzycocoa

#6 Spider-Man Saving His Own Cake

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#7 The Cake Decorator Was Told To Spell “Marc” With A “C”

Image credits: MrsCatDish

#8 An Attempt Was Made

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#9 The Cake My Wife Ordered From Walmart. She Called Me Upset And Said She Wanted To Take It Back. I Told Her Nahh It Can’t Be That Bad

Image credits: War-Weasel_4798

#10 He Had One Job – To Write “Happy Birthday”

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#11 I Made A He-Man Cake Today. Let The Hubby Decorate. Likeness Is Uncanny

Image credits: HeideAnne

#12 Happy Easter From The Cohen Family

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#13 This Is Just Too Funny

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#14 A Betty Crocker Attempt Was Made. I Tried To Make My Mom A Hedgehog Cake For Her Birthday. For Context, I’m 34 She Was Turning 62. Tasted Great

Image credits: L29MXV

#15 I Made A Cake For My Friend. It’s Pretty Obvious But Just To Make Sure It’s Sonic

Image credits: reddit.com

#16 We Sent This Cake Photo (Left) To A Cake Shop, And This Is What We Got (Right)

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#17 I Tried To Make My Long-Distance Friend A Cake To Celebrate His Birthday. There Were Not A Lot Of Supplies. It’s Really Bad

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#18 It’s My Daughter’s Birthday And I’ve Made Her A Cake. It’s Been Cooling Down In The Fridge. Let Me Just Check On It Real Quick

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#19 The Cake My Girlfriend Baked Me

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#20 When Whole Foods Tried To Make A Little Mermaid Cake

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#21 My Wedding Cake. Yes, We Paid For This

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#22 My Dad Tried To Bake A Cake For My Mom’s Birthday. Tried

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#23 First Time Baking A Cake For Wife’s Birthday. YouTube Shows Make It Look So Easy

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#24 See Those Eggs? They Are Supposed To Be In The Pies. I Made Two Hot Oily Chocolate Garbage Circles

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#25 My Daughter Requested One Of Our Cats As Her Birthday Cake. It’s The First Birthday Cake I’ve Ever Made For Her (Cat Included For Comparison)

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#26 What’s This

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#27 Easter Cake My Friend’s Mom Made. Those Eyes Rub Me The Wrong Way

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#28 I See Your Ugly Hedgehog Cake And Raise You My Hedgehog Cake

My sister made this for my birthday and brought this bad boy into a restaurant for a grand reveal. It was quite the spectacle, and the servers stopped to get pictures of this beautiful boy.

Image credits: itsalivything

#29 It’s My Spouse’s Birthday, So Here’s A Throwback To The Time He Said He Wanted An R2-D2 Cake (His Mom Still Had The Cake Pan From His Childhood) And I Made This Monstrosity

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#30 This Was Way Cuter When I Pictured It In My Head

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#31 Wedding Cake. What I Asked For vs. What I Got, Publix Edition

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#32 I Made A Shrek Cake

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#33 My 17-Year-Old Wanted An Owl Birthday Cake And Sent A Photo Of Her Favorite Design. My Dad (81-Year-Old) Decided He’d Make It

I have no idea why, as he’s a retired power station design engineer. He unveiled his cake (2nd photo) with a flourish, and I laughed so hard, tea shot out my nose. 

Image credits: PintSizedFarmer

#34 My First Duck Cake

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#35 I Was Told My Cake Didn’t Look Like A Cake

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#36 Asked My Mom For A Hulk Cake. Nailed It

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#37 Drake Cake My Sister Made For My Mom’s Birthday

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#38 Ugly Shrek Cake

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#39 Your Daughter Will Go Far

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#40 The Neighbor Purchased A Birthday Cake For His Wife

Asked the deli lady if she could put her name on it. She replied “Yes, but I’m not the greatest at cake decorating”. She wasn’t kidding…

Image credits: Gandalf031469

#41 This Was For My Friend’s Birthday Last Year: What I Asked For vs. What I Got

I can’t make this up. I bought the cake on my way there and asked if they could add some lettering and the guy said yeah and this is what he came back with. He said it looked like that because the fudge was cold…

Image credits: trendypastry

#42 Shrimp Cake

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#43 Mom Gets Points For This One

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#44 My Sister’s Attempt At A Homemade Caterpillar Cake

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#45 Cake For Our Civil Wedding Ceremony

This was a last-minute order for our marriage signing. We didn’t want anything crazy – just a simple cake to cut. This is what we were given. We just had our actual wedding (much better cake this time around), but we will forever laugh about this one.

Image credits: Unlikely-Display-145

#46 My Sister Sent This Cake She Ordered To Our Grandmother To Celebrate Her Pregnancy

Image credits: __RebelRebel__

#47 An Attempt At A Christmas Cake

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#48 Tried Making A Frog Cake For My Boyfriend, I Think He’s Going To Leave Me

Image credits: reddit.com

#49 My Wife’s Attempt At A Scooby-Doo Cake

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#50 If My Writing Career Fails, I Can Always Fall Back On Cake Baking. It’s Such A Relief To Have A Backup Plan

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#51 It’s My Daughter’s Birthday. Can You Make A Cake Look Like A Switch? Here Is A Picture For Reference

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#52 My Horrifying First Attempt At Using Fondant For A “Phantom Of The Opera” Birthday Cake. It Was A Big Hit

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#53 My Attempt At A Zombie Cake For My Son’s Birthday

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#54 I Hosted My First Football Viewing Party And Wanted To Impress My Guests. Tasted Okey

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#55 Tried To Make A Cake. Not Sure What Went Wrong

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#56 This Cake

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#57 I Tried Making A Birthday Cake For My Friend

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#58 My Beautiful Garfield Cake

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#59 I Made An Elmo Cake For My Fiancée’s Birthday

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#60 Duck Cake

My daughter turned 4 years old yesterday, but I could only make this today since we were over at a friend’s then. I used strawberry cake and buttercream frosting. This was so difficult to make…

Image credits: KittyAddison

#61 I Tried To Make A Baby Yoda Cake For My Boyfriend’s Birthday, But I Didn’t Have Enough Cake For The Ears, So He Didn’t Have Any. Then My Friend Edited A Photo Of My Cake

Update: I left the cake on the side while I showered, and my cat licked all the icing off.

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#62 The More I Look At This, The Better It Gets

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#63 It Understands Its Purpose, And It’s Afraid Of What Is To Come

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#64 My Very Own Disney-Themed Birthday Cake Fail. It’s Horrendously Perfect

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#65 My Friends And I Attempt At A Hedgehog Cake

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#66 My Cake Naturally Formed An Evil Smiling Face

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#67 What I Asked For vs. What I Got

So the first two pictures were what I wanted for my college graduation cake last year. I wanted the graduate wearing a cap and gown sitting on the mini tier, my school’s logo and colors on the middle tier, and music notes on the bottom tier above my name. Fondant all over since it was going to be an outdoor party in the heat.

I got in touch with a bakery in my area that does custom cakes. I have ordered from them before. They are known for making really stunning custom cakes of any design. They said that they could make the cake for me with 40 servings. I paid a deposit, and that was it.

Fast-forward to the day of my graduation party. I get to my party and start helping my family set up. I grab a box cutter and start opening the box containing the cake. The last picture was what I saw. The graduate at the top looked poorly designed, the school logo completely slid off of the cake due to the heat and the cake being made of buttercream instead of fondant as I had asked, blue icing was melting everywhere by the time I cut it, the black ribbons around the base were sliding off, the “music notes” at the bottom looked like Hebrew, and the banner with my name slid off of the cake as well. Just terrible-looking overall and not worth the $500 I paid.

Image credits: blsnbarb

#68 Tried Making My Friend A Birthday Cake. They’re Supposed To Be Frogs

To make it worse, my house was too hot while I was trying to ice it, so it was just perpetually melting and sliding. It’s the thought that counts right?

Image credits: Purdicialle

#69 A Licorice Cake I Made For My Husband 3 Years Ago, And I’ll Never Hear The End Of It

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#70 Cake I Made For My Boyfriend’s Birthday

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#71 In Honor Of Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” Release Tomorrow, We Baked This Cake

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#72 It Needs Some SOS For Sure

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#73 I Tried To Make A Unicorn Cake Once And It Turned Out To Look Like Godzilla. It Was An Angry Unicorn

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#74 Best Eat That Cake, Before It Eats You

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#75 At The Last Minute, Violet Decided A Star Birthday Cake Would Be Cool. Poor Vi, This Is The Ugliest Cake I’ve Ever Made. But I’m Sharing It Because It Is Hilarious To Me

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#76 That Third Layer Really Got Me! Just Add More Frosting Right?

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#77 My Attempt At Making Bluey Cake. It Turned Out To Be A Bit Of A Disaster. My Icing Went Horribly Wrong, But We Learned And Moved On

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#78 Watermelon Cake. For Mother’s Day. I’m A Disappointment

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#79 I Made A Cake To Surprise My Wife For Her Birthday. I’m Obviously Not A Baker

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#80 She Liked Hedgehogs, So We Made A Cake For Her Birthday

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#81 It Looks Just Like Her

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#82 My Gluten-Free And Lactose-Free Thanos Princess Cake

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#83 That’s Brilliant

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#84 It’s Seen Some Stuff

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#85 My Sister Was Looking At The Facebook Page Of A Local Bakery She Used To Frequent And Saw This. Couldn’t Stop Laughing

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#86 I Thought Y’all Would Enjoy My Poorly Made Birthday Cake For My Dad

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#87 There Was An Attempt To Make A Ghost Cake – Thanks To The Employee For Pointing This Out To Me

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#88 I Told The Child That This Was The Last Time I Would Mix Anything With Food Coloring. I’m Not A Baker And I Don’t Create Any Masterpieces

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#89 The Cake My Wife’s Work Bought For Employee Appreciation Day

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#90 My Coffee Whipped Cream Bears Look Possessed After Spending The Night In The Fridge. They’ve Seen Some Things. I Thought This Was Too Funny Not To Share

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#91 I Thought This Was Thomas The Tank Engine

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#92 Duck Cake Or Portal To Hell?

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#93 Made This Cake For Drake’s Birthday

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#94 My First Try Making An Ugly Hedgehog Cake

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#95 Practice Makes Perfect

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#96 This Is What My “Guitar” Cake For My Boy Looks Like

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#97 Just Your Basic Unicorn

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#98 I Had Never Baked Before Today, But My Wife Said That She Hasn’t Had A Birthday Cake Since She Was A Kid, So I Wanted To Surprise Her. It’s Pretty Awful, But She Loved It

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#99 I Requested A Hedgehog Cake. This Is What My Husband Made

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#100 I Made An R2-D2 Cake

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#101 I Was Told My Failed Instant Pot Cake Attempt Would Be Welcomed Here

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#102 This “Congratulation” Cake That My Wife And I Were Given A Few Years Back. The Whole Foods Employee Ran Out Of Space

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#103 My Dad’s Disastrous Attempt At Baking A Cake

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#104 Don’t Think I’ll Be Going Into Business Making Cakes Anytime Soon

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#105 My Grandma And I Made This Chikorita Cake For My 14th Birthday

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#106 May I Offer You A Frog?

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#107 I Tried To Make A Cat Cake

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#108 That Is The Ugliest Cake I’ve Ever Seen

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#109 Is That You Through The Ages?

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#110 My Mom Made Me A Mercedes Birthday Cake

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#111 My Roommate And Boyfriend Made Me A Cake For My Birthday, But They’re All Funky Looking

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#112 I Present This Monstrosity Of A Birthday Cake I Made With My Own Two Hands. It Looks Like A Child Made It. Be Amazed

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#113 First Attempt At A Layered Cake

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#114 Easter Tradition

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#115 An Attempt At A Cheetah Print Cake For Our Friend’s Daughter’s Birthday

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#116 There Was An Attempt To Make A Lamb Cake For Easter

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#117 My Sister Made My Brother A Birthday Cake

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#118 My Sad Attempt At A Bruno From Encanto Cake

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#119 My First Ever Decorated Layered Cake. I Have Never Decorated A Cake Before. I Ran Out Of Room For The “S”

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#120 I Tried To Make A Cake For Lana Del Rey’s Birthday And I Failed

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#121 My Fiance’s Birthday Is Tomorrow. Icing Is Harder To Write With Than I Thought It Would Be

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#122 My Wonderful Mother Made Me This Cake For My Birthday. It’s Supposed To Be Betty White/Rose Nylund. We Had A Good Long Laugh With Her About This One

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#123 I Made This Messy Dinosaur Cake For My Boyfriend’s 22nd, And I’m Really Proud Of It Even Though It’s Kind Of A Mess. Never Decorated A Cake Before

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#124 That’s The World’s Happiest Birthday Boy Behind It Who Told Me “I Hope Your Love For Me Is Just Like This Cake: All Over The Place, Sloppy, And Sweet.” What A Man

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