A family’s birthday celebration was unexpectedly made sweeter by a cake mishap.
On Dec. 30, Redditor u/weryou91 posted on the subreddit r/ExpectationVsReality about the head-scratching result of a custom cake order for their father. The post has since gone viral, with over 78,000 upvotes.
“Ordered a cake for my father’s birthday,” the Redditor wrote. “The speedometer on the cake was also supposed to be pointing to his age (54).”
The two photos tell a revealing story. In the first, we see the inspiration image: a flawlessly executed speedometer cake by U.K. baker “Cake Genie, Cakes by Elaine.”
The fondant designs include a needle pointing to the recipient’s age, an odometer with their date of birth and a greeting. But that’s a far cry from what the Redditor received.
The second picture in u/weryou91’s slideshow shows the cake they got — and it’s much more, well, rustic. A slapdash icing job with haphazard piping, uneven speed markers inexplicably smushed to one side and messy lettering complete this puzzle of a pastry.
If you assumed it was made by a relative or friend doing their best in their home kitchen, you’d be wrong.
“It was indeed a paid professional — who acknowledged the cake was not ‘her best’ and refunded half of the purchase price ($60),” wrote the Redditor, stressing that they would’ve refused to pay but their dad’s party was in 20 minutes and they had no backup.
As expected, there were strong opinions in the post’s more than 2,300 comments.
“Diabolical. And they had the nerve to take your money?” commented one Reddit user.
“At home baker: so cute! Paid professional: oh hell no!” wrote another.
Many of the comments shared concern for the baker, as the orientation of the letters on the cake reminded them of a failed clock-drawing test used for screening dementia and other types of cognitive impairment. The original poster put the kibosh on that theory, however.
“I appreciate everyone’s concern for the baker, I’m guessing she was in her late 20’s — early 30’s, so I don’t think it was dementia,” they responded.
“Did it at least taste good?” asked another user.
“Unfortunately, it was extremely dry! My mother choked on her first bite and I nearly had to heimlich her,” u/weryou91 replied.
The original poster did not respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment, but they did follow up on the thread to say their father was a good sport about it.
