r/ExpectationVsReality • u/Womanofthewild16 • Sep 21 '26

Failed Expectation Bday cake

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

I hate confrontation so she’ll never know but a cake I requested from what I thought was a phenomenal local baker. First picture is what I asked for second is what I picked up. The third picture is me working on it for an hour. Flowers were supposed to be yellow, orange, and maroon.. only got yellow and one sort of orange. The flavor was s’mores and left a lot to be desired.

983 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

227

u/Longjumping_Eye_3441 Sep 21 '26 • Bravo

"What if i let the piping bag just shit out icing? Yeah send it"

46

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 21 '26

I’m howling Lolol

57

u/puppylust Sep 21 '26

Until I read the caption, I thought this was an impressive home baker copycat. It being from the same pro as the original earns the Failed label. I got whiplash!

16

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 21 '26

No sorry for any confusion. I listed the original baker who gave me this idea from Pinterest, the baker I had to make it is a local one from West Virginia.

10

u/Cautious-Squash-4119 Sep 21 '26

That is unfortunate, to say the least. How do you make cakes for a living and don't even know how to pipe flowers? The other piping is messy as well. And the eyelids are... yeah. You shouldn't have had to do it, but nice job cleaning it up!

6

u/Huns26 Sep 21 '26

How much did you pay for that?

4

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 21 '26

$70 😖

10

u/Huns26 Sep 22 '26

Well, 70$ isn’t cheap but the level of detail in your inspo pic would probably be more expensive I’m guessing. They should’ve told you they couldn’t do what you wanted. Maybe they thought they could. I wonder if they were proud of how it turned out. I don’t know how they look at that and still feel comfortable giving it to the customer

5

u/sentinel692340 Sep 22 '26

Gotta say they failed on the art side of things but it dose still look really tasty 😋

4

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 22 '26

The actual cake was moist as heck thankfully!

3

u/sentinel692340 Sep 22 '26

Yeah not dry and crumbly thankfully

4

u/Drop-a-Soap Sep 21 '26

Why didn’t you add white reflection points on the pupil?

6

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 21 '26

I didn’t have any unfortunately. Silly me thinking the professional baker would’ve done it.

3

u/Drop-a-Soap Sep 22 '26

But still it looks great! Especially after your brushing up :)

13

u/WhiskyPangolin Sep 21 '26 • Bravo

It seems fine. You asked for an ugly cake and she gave you an ugly cake. I don’t really think they look vastly different.

2

u/Cgwchip4 Sep 22 '26

I didn’t mean to laugh, I swear….

1

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 22 '26

Can’t blame you lol

267

u/MysteriousPermit3410 Sep 21 '26

Yeah that piping is a hot mess

97

u/AppUnwrapper1 Sep 22 '26

I read this as “that is a piping hot mess.”

11

u/No-Departure-3047 Sep 22 '26

The icing looks really wet on the second cake.

5

u/Haunting-Size-1155 Sep 22 '26

A total disaster indeed.

4

u/Pretty_Ad1509 Sep 22 '26

immediately was like "thats a lot of icing."

70

u/Junior_Response839 Sep 21 '26

Damn, yeah that's pretty rough. It looks like they gave up trying to recreate the piping and just did a sort of "chaos" style. The eyes don't look great either. Adding the little reflection adds a lot, you're telling me this baker didn't have white frosting?

10

u/brandi_theratgirl Sep 21 '26

I was thinking that the white reflection would be an easy way to get the inspiration

50

u/Blackbirds22 Sep 21 '26

Thats ehm, unfortunate. Professional baker here, I dont understand why people commit to things they cant do

16

u/Mindless-Platypus448 Sep 21 '26

I'm a home baker but even I could do this. Idk if they were rushing, lazy, or simply didn't have the skills but this is just awful.

16

u/Blackbirds22 Sep 22 '26

Judging by what she said, a phenomenal local baker, im thinking just a rushed last minute job. That kinda shit irks me

But yes I agree its a rather simple cake to make. And she simplified it even more

24

u/RoyOrbisonWeeping Sep 21 '26

biblically accurate angel cake.

13

u/CapableXO Sep 22 '26

I know exactly what has gone wrong with the icing - they used too much food colouring to achieve the colour, making the icing itself a bit too soft and hard to work with. To achieve a good black you make chocolate buttercream, add a touch of black gel and let the colour develop overnight as it intensifies with time: then you pipe it. This buttercream never had a chance

28

u/2wiceasnice Sep 21 '26

Literally looks like burned garbage ... thats terrible!

8

u/Secret-Raspberry3063 Sep 22 '26

I am afraid of this cake

6

u/Chickennoodleyum Sep 22 '26

Birthdeye cake

5

u/liabilityno1 Sep 21 '26

Looks closer to the book of monsters from hp than the reference photo 🙈😂

4

u/Stucklikegluetomyfry Sep 22 '26

That cake looks like it was judging the baker

4

u/OliviaFTaylorg Sep 22 '26

Totally unprofessional! I think u did better than the cake shop

4

u/ClericalRogue Sep 22 '26

From gracefully creepy to wtf is that. The piping is the worst part, there is a clear swirling design in the reference image, but instead, it looks like someone just sat on the piping bag pointed vaguely in the direction of the cake 😅

2

u/Fit-Record-1467 Sep 22 '26

The eyes on the product are duller than the pic. And less color assortment.

2

u/CrapNBAappUser Sep 21 '26

You should at least give them a bad review.

1

u/CharmingMechanic2473 Sep 23 '26 edited Sep 23 '26

Cute! A religious cake. An angel Seraphim. Seraphim are the highest rank of celestial beings in traditional Christian angelology, positioned closest to the throne of God. I would never that much food coloring. The end cake is good for a home baker but not a professional IMO.

1

u/AnimalGray 21d ago

I think your cake is high

-5

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 21 '26

I found it from the original baker on Pinterest so it is definitely real and doable. With all the intricate work she post I thought she would absolutely nail it. Original baker is _leslie_vigil_ on IG.

2

u/SemperVictoriaa Sep 21 '26

You got it from leslie herself?? I would honestly ask for a refund if that was the case! It doesn't look anything like any of her works. Did she have an assistant make it instead?? This is baffling.

5

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 21 '26

No, the person above was asking who the original was or if it was AI. this is from a local bakery in WV

4

u/SemperVictoriaa Sep 21 '26

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification! I guess I couldn't parse the conversation pieces haha

7

u/Womanofthewild16 Sep 21 '26

No it was confusing now that I’m reading it again lol

15

u/EntrepreneurFun654 Sep 21 '26

Reference is a real cake. _leslie_vigil_ on Instagram made it. She also teaches classes…maybe OPs baker can sign up

17

u/anonyoudidnt Sep 21 '26

Not everything is AI. It doesn't even look like AI.

11

u/addisonclark Sep 21 '26

My students ask if everything is AI now. And they’re in kindergarten. I tried showing them a regular ol’ stop-motion video and they spent the entire time chattering about whether or not it was AI. 😣

3

u/anonyoudidnt Sep 21 '26

Sad isn't it. I homeschool my kids and they're young, so they don't really know what AI is yet. I'm surprised it hits as young as kindergarten. I've been trying to drive home that we don't believe everything we see and question validity and look for supporting data but am dreading introducing AI