Every week we’re delighted to receive plenty of your cakey homages, wreck-creations, and fan art. And, from time to time, I like to both encourage this behavior and share the giggles by spotlighting a few personal favorites. So let’s get right to it, shall we?

First, a nod to Katherine S. for her version of the world’s best baby shower cake:

Let us all pause in appreciation of proper parenting, shall we?

Carmel C. went the extra mile with her Carrot Jockey homage and eschewed the plastic jockeys for handmade ones:

And somehow that is much, MUCH more disturbing.

I think I like it.

Amber A. celebrated her three-year-old daughter’s birthday the old-school way:

With Dino Jockeys!

Usually I only showcase cakey homages to this blog, but Sarah Jane J.’s recreation of the famous cake from Hyperbole and a Half was simply too good not to share:

And for those of you unfamiliar with Allie of Hyperbole and a Half – first, shame on you! – and secondly, here’s the cake we’re talking about:

Next, from our very own J Rose – the genius who brought you that playable dress-a-wreck program – here is yours truly, dressed as a Hogwarts student, and getting a Howler from an irate wizard for making fun of cauldron cakes:

(Ten geek points if you spotted the hidden Mickey before reading this sentence. Five after.)

And because I like to remind the world that I am, in fact, a stellar role model for children, here’s a sampling of artwork made entirely with child labor:

The bottom reads, “We dyed our mohawks green in honor of your birthday!” and the inside read, “Hope your birthday isn’t a wreck!”

Someone get this girl to design us a greeting card line, STAT.

Next, a fine art piece brought home from school by 5-year-old Claudia S., and sent in by her mom, Susan:

Thinking of little Claudia’s teacher’s reaction to this masterpiece makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And for those of you desperate for back story, Colleen T. says,

“Ever since my mother-in-law pointed out that my baby has a natural Mohawk, I’ve been dying to strip her down and sit her on a carrot. The other day, I got my wish!”

It’s been a while since we featured the handiwork our noble and crafty henchpersons, so here, without further ado, is what had us in stitches this month:

Get it? Stitches? Eh?

(Wait. Does crochet use “stitches?” )

Gotta love the ring of “sprinkles.”

Then there’s, uh, this:

This baby shower cake is actually a Wreck to the third power: Sharon K. made the Jockey homage for her sister’s shower, but en route to the party had a brake-slamming incident which resulted in…well, what you see here. Good thing they were already going for a Wreck, huh?

Laura M., ran into the most bizarre problem I’ve ever heard of while trying to order her own Wreck homage: the bakery told her they couldn’t do anything, and I quote, that the “Cake Wreckers do, because that’s a trademark.”

Note to bakers: yes, you can, and no, it’s not. (Well, the name is, sure, but feel free to use the popular stuff like “I want sprinkles” or “falker satherhood.”)

So, left with no other choice, Laura made her own cake wreck:

And what a lovely wreck it is, too.

Next we have Megan T.’s gravity-defying homage:

Megan would like to point out that the jockeys are riding candy corn, thereby making them seasonably appropriate. And also tasty.

By now I’m sure you are all familiar with the classic Good Luck in China/Fireman cake. (And if not, go read Scott’s story immediately.) Well, when Jenni T. got a new job, her colleagues made her some impressively wrecky versions of said classic:

There were actually two more, but these were the most amusing.

If you enjoyed Wednesday’s “What’s This?” post, then have I got a treat for you!

This work of genius is by Joel Bradshaw, a talented Wreckie with mad video editing skilz and even madder taste in blogs. Thanks for making my week, Joel! When our bid for Wrecky World Dominion is complete, you’ll be first on the list for promotion to head henchperson.

It’s been far too long since I featured you, my faithful henchpersons! So, without further ado, here are the Wreckies among you who’ve succeeded in making me smile this past month.

As always, the Naked Mohawk Baby Carrot Jockeys continue to dominate. Here Angela M’s sister made her a whole armada for her birthday:

And “Another Jen” and her friend Darla made this diverse “Cornucopia Rodeo” for their desks:

Banana and corn jockeys? I guess the little guys are branching out.

Yet another Jennifer had these made for her daughter’s 14th birthday:

[singing] “I believe the children are our fuuuuture.
Teach them well and LET them wreck the waaay…”

Good work, Jennifer.

Duncan S. stayed up just a little too late reading the wreckage, and got inspired to draw a few hilariously wrecktacular pictures:

Hah! Nice job, Duncan.
(And thank you for putting a diaper on the cowboy jockey. No, really. Thank you.)

One of the book-exclusive Wrecks got some love this month:

Katelynn S. made this for her birthday. Since I hear she’s prone to shouting “Nappy Blob Blob!” at other people’s birthday parties, I find this only appropriate.

And here’s Danielle Q.’s version, which she made for one of her fellow pastry chefs:

Wow, that jockey has some seriously orange hair. Nice.

Wrecky henchperson (wrenchperson? henchky?) Cat T. decided to try her hand at cake decorating. So what did she choose to make for her very first decorated cake? Why, this, of course:

Hee. Ahee. Hee.

And finally, I got a real kick out this e-mail from Hannah:

“I am a government employee working overseas, and part of my job duties include acting as chief coordinator when we have VIP visitors in my city. A few weeks ago I was working with a high-level government official…(and) our schedule included lunch with a major world religious leader, who found out that it was the official’s birthday. The religious leader produced a cake that was, by all accounts, incredibly delicious. However, as soon as I saw it, all I could think was CAKE WRECK!!

So let’s recap: I’m sitting at a table with the spiritual leader of several hundred million people around the world and a high-powered go-to guy in DC who could destroy my career in one phone call… and I can’t stop snorting into my napkin in an attempt to pass my laughter off as bad allergies.

I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

Me? Happy?

Aw, you better believe it.

————————————————————-

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: yesterday’s winner!

Actually, your one-liner entries were so good that I decided to pick *three* winners. And they are [drum roll, please] :

Jenniffer (“Now Dolphin-Free!”), Lynn (“Get used to disappointment.”), and
Dolores (“In some foreign countries this is actually a compliment.”)!

Congrats, ladies! Please e-mail me with your addresses & any special requests for the personalization.

And since I’m sure most of you didn’t read through all 1000+ comments yesterday, I’ve added a bunch of my favorites to the end of yesterday’s post. Be sure to check ‘em out!

Our first stop on the third CW book tour couldn’t have gone any better: Changing Hands played the perfect host, we had a fantastic turnout of somewhere between 350 and 400 Wreckies, and there were enough cakes – both Wrecked and Sweet – to satisfy every sweet tooth.

Standing room only, but nothing but smiles all ’round. You guys are troopers!

I have to thank Changing Hands especially for allowing us to stay a full hour and a half past closing to accommodate everyone. (I talk a lot. Heh.) In fact, they didn’t even tell me the store was closed; I didn’t realize until everyone had left! So many, many thanks to Rachel and the rest of the staff: you guys ROCK.

Now, here’s what you’ve been waiting for: the CAKES!!

This AMAZING work of art was courtesy of Breanna of Sugar Dreams. I first featured one of Breanna’s cakes on Sunday Sweets quite a while back, and the encouragement she received from you readers helped spur her on to start her very own company! So this was her way of saying thanks to our whole Wrecky family.

Just look at this detail:

Breanna made one suitcase for each leg of the tour, and she even listed the cities on the luggage tags! Inside the top case are these fantastic CW t-shirts:

It a Gril, Happy Falker Satherhood, and even I Want Sprinkles! So perfect!

Even the back was amazing:

She hand painted our tour logo.

Wow. Just…wow.

Oh, and it tasted as good as it looked.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Vanessa of Amazing Cakes by Vanessa (located in north/central AZ) also provided fabulous vegan and gluten-free cakes:

You’d never even know it was vegan; so yummy.

She also concocted this hilarious “Wreck Creator” contraption:

See, the pipes go from the “sludge” cake and lead to the cupcakes.

Then there were all your Wreckplicas! We had a whopping 40 entries, all of them fantastic. Here are a few of my favorites:

Our three “winners!”

And their cakes:

(She used bacon for the straps. Heh. Aheh. Heh.)

And our grand prize winner:

So cool.

And finally, a few honorable mentions go out to these especially devoted readers:

This is the Philips family. They live in Pasadena, CA. When they realized they’d be out of town during our CA appearances, though, they decided to drive to Tempe instead. Yes, just to see us. And they even seem mostly sane!

Plus, Christy crocheted me one of my favorite Wrecks:

She even let me keep it.

And these girls got crafty with their custom t-shirts:

“Snape wants Sprinkles” – Hah! I think CW and Harry Potter make a great combo, don’t you?

And that was the show! Watch Facebook for the rest of the Wreckplica entries: I’ll be uploading all the photos there within a few days. Also stay tuned for reports on the rest of our three stops; I’ll be uploading and posting as fast as I can!

Every month we get literally hundreds of thousands* of e-mails from people who have made cool Cake Wrecks tribute cakes, and once in a while (i.e. when Jen makes me) we like to post a few.

(*Ok, that’s kind of a guesstimate. [On a side note, my spell checker didn't flag the word "guesstimate," which clearly means that the English language is doomed. DOOMED!])

Behold!

Jessie M.’s sisters combined her two favorite things here: Napoleon Dynamite (“Decroded”) and CW (“Falker Satherhood”). The best part, though, is the bakery decided to “fix” the Satherhood spelling to the far more appropriate “Satherloud.” Fabulous. It’s like a nesting wreck.

And lastly, Sonya D. took a cue from our April Fool’s post and pulled a fun prank at her hubby’s birthday party:

Those little egg salad sandwiches are actually cake filled with cream cheese icing and marshmallows. Pretty convincing, huh? Oh, and of course that means the birthday “cake” is…

…meatloaf!

And finally, I thought we’d end with the mother lode of Wrecks tributes. Check this out:

Awwww yeah. Can you name all the Wrecks here?

Megan M. writes:

My favorite angle:

[snicker]

And lastly, most of your e-mails make us smile, snort, or guffaw. This one did all three:

Sara writes:

And finally, Sharon Evans from Sharon’s Edible Art decided that there weren’t enough Cake Wrecks tribute songs in the world, so she wrote a few of her own. This one’s my favorite.

We’re looking for a Queen cover band to sing this for us. Know any? We can’t actually “pay” you with “money” but there just might be some “cake” in it for you. [winkwink] [finger gun]

Nothing to see here, non-University of Chicago people! This is a special post just for the UC scavenger hunt, so these are NOT the Wrecks you’re looking for. Move along, move along.

What, you’re still here? Ok, fine, here’s some background info:

Well, this year I was honored to have Cake Wrecks included on the famous list! Here it is, clue #79:

And here are the submissions! [drum roll, please]

From the GASH Team, a “My Little Pony”:

Or so they claim.

From Breckinridge House’s team: a “thrillin‘ failure” (their words) of Michael Jackson:

(True story: When John & I first saw this he asked who it was supposed to be, and I guessed “Edward.” I’m not sure who that insults more: Twi-hards or Team Breckinridge. So…sorry, everyone.)

From Sonia A.’s team, a “wooden labyrinth game”:

In Sonia’s words: “We tried.”

Stop the press! Someone on the Snell-Hitchcock team actually has a working knowledge of fondant:

Not bad! Definitely the nicest cake you’ll see here today, although I haven’t a clue what all the stuff is. (Other than the sombrero. [Assuming it IS a sombrero])

The Federation of Independent Scav Teams claims this is a wreckplica of several items on the list:

Which frightens me. What else is ON this list, anyway? 0.o

From Macpierce’s Master Chef Allison:

“Scab Hurt” Heh. Heh.

From the Burton-Judson Team (aka “Dr. Scodel’s League of Atrocious Wonders”):

Christine tells me they were going for cute, “but I think something might have gone wrong.”

From the Glass Panopticon:

Ah, classic Wreck elements. I like it.

And finally, the Max P Team used real honest-to-goodness carrot jockeys, in addition to “misspellings, left out numbers, poo swirls, ant sprinkles, a rainbow of various other sprinkles, and an umbrella, all to top off a CCC shaped like a furby“:

Yep, I’d say we have a winner!

Best of luck to all the teams who participated.

(Naturally, any team that didn’t submit a Wreck should be doomed to failure.)
Thanks for the fun!