Someone left the cake out in the rain...

So everyone knows that cakes are basically good. I mean, show me someone who doesn't like cake and I'll show you someone who's obviously a complete freak. Since most normal people love cake probably more than their own CHILDREN, cake design is clearly big business AND is also apparently a pretty old business dating back to the 1990s. No joke, people! Witness English actress Jane Asher's Calendar of Cakes:

Please also witness the fact that Ms. Asher is wearing a pair of heart-shaped cookie cutters as earrings in this cover photo. In her defense, it was the '90's--it was crazy like that. We tight-rolled our jeans. Plus, she's apparently one of those lucky women who look better now (at 62!) than she ever has (I'm telling you, people--scroll down on her wikipedia entry--you will not be disappointed), so any cookie cutters on the ears from years past are just water under the bridge, really. Anyway, Ms. Asher seems like a lovely tv personality perfectly capable of making beautiful and enticing cakes such as these:





I don't know how you can go wrong with that. Flowers+Chocolate+Cake=Happily Ever After. I'll be honest and say the second cake is pretty much my dream come true. Of course, I'd probably get too excited, down it all in one sitting and have to throw it all back up, but it would have been nice while it lasted. Unfortunately, not all Ms. Asher's cakes are so alluring. I guess it IS hard hard to come up with theme cakes for every month of the year PLUS star signs, but I think this is taking it a bit far:



Uh, I KNOW. Could Ms. Asher not have used a Scorpio design that was a little less terrifying and realistic? I mean, my first thought when I saw this cake was something along the lines of, "AHHHHHHHH! Oh my God! Run for your LIVES! A SCORPION! THEY STING! 911! " I mean, can you imagine if someone made this for your birthday? Because, you could be a SCORPIO, and your BFF might be thinking it would be all innovative and unique to sculpt your star sign on your birthday cake. So there you are at your party all HAPPY and everyone's SINGING to you and then your BFF walks in with a flaming scorpion cake and everyone starts screaming and falling all over each other to get out the door and in the chaos, your flaming cake falls to the floor and catches your house on fire and then, later, as everyone is standing on the sidewalk across the street observing the smoking rubble that used to be your Home Sweet Home, someone says softly, "But I swear I saw it move."

If you thought an eerily realistic scorpion must be the creepiest idea for a cake EVER, it's only because you haven't seen this next cake:


Yes, folks, that is actually a CAKE IN THE SHAPE OF A VIRGIN for the star sign Virgo. Perhaps Ms. Asher could have done something a little more metaphorical, like a lovely blooming FLOWER or a meadow with a FAWN in it or SNOW or SOMETHING, since pretty much the only way this cake could have been more creepy and literal is if it were molded into the shape of an intact hymen. I mean, unless you're Jeffery Dahmer, it just feels like it would be wrong to even cut this cake, much less eat it, especially with her all sleeping and looking peaceful and everything. Maybe this is intended for middle-aged women to eat for the promotion of youth and beauty, in lieu of bathing in the blood of actual virgins. (So...any word on whether that virgin blood thing actually works? Because...I would try it when the time comes.) Also interesting is Ms. Asher's commentary on this particular cake:

This isn't an easy star sign to portray without causing undue giggles. I decided a beautiful girl alone in her bed sleeping peacefully between virginal white sheets would sum it up quite well (of course, what you and I don't know is that there is probably a handsome icing prince hiding under the bed...)

AHA! So it's really a CAKE IN THE SHAPE OF A DIRTY WHORE. How clever and ironic. Something that really isn't clever and ironic, but apparently intended to be, is this next cake which is supposed to be an idea for a thoughtful Mother's Day gift:




Oh, how considerate. Let's remind mom of her very favorite chore ever in the whole world! So, for Father's Day, are we supposed to make a cake in the shape of a clogged gutter? A stopped up toilet? I myself don't actually have children, but if I did, and they presented this to me for Mother's Day, I'd ship them all off to some filthy Dickensian workhouse jointly owned and operated by Miss Hannigan and the witch from Hansel and Gretel. Bake that, kids. That's right.