"hope" - nerds, beware

remember how i always complain about doing cakes of people's faces? especially when it's just a person i know, not some celebrity? remember how i always swear that i'll never do one of those kinds of cakes again?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

who do i complain to about being forced to do this kind of work? human resources? oh right, here at sassy badger, i am human resources. i'm also the ceo and the entire marketing team and that weird intern i had to hire because i am my own niece...

so, as i go on, let me turn this over to the web content developer/explainer of things/keeper of folklore sassy badger.

this person here on this cake is one of our wonderful surgical residents at grey's, hope. she is a sometimes inhabitant of the los angeles area, but more often is a resident (in the geographical and medical sense) far away, where she saves real lives, while concurrently helping our writers save fake lives and beating me in fantasy basketball. i could probably beat her in real basketball, though, just sayin.

see how i left the g off of "saying"? that's because social media analyst sassy badger said it's a good way to connect with "the youth," our key demographic.

anyway, like a month ago, hope decided to come back to los angeles for like a week. naturally, we had to throw a party.

as we had made the hilarious "you're our only hope" joke before... we are writers in this office after all... it seemed like a great idea for the cake. however, it's actually a difficult idea for a cake.

there was one incarnation of this undertaking where an r2-d2 projected out a hologram hope, like in the movie. but that idea didn't get past quality control manager sassy badger aka i'm not fucking stupid enough to even pretend to attempt to make anything that remotely resembles a hologram out of icing.

so, i just made her princess leia hope instead. and yes, nerds, i get it. she can't both be leia and the one saying "you're our only hope," when she/leia/hope is, in fact,  the hope that she/leia/hope is referring to. trust me, i get it. customer services sassy badger read all of your grievances to me.

for those of you who aren't nerds... don't fucking worry about it. just go back to your boyfriends and your nail art and your .mp3 players and whatever else it is that you're into.

oops. shit. the social media analyst sassy badger just told me that "the youth" don't like to see large blocks of text, and they are, most likely, not even reading this post anymore.

there, youth. are you happy?

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2.5 hours + 0 understanding of fantasy sports... could not be more disappointed with the lack of unicorns in this league.

a wretched hive of scum and villainy,

sassy badger

"mat-two" - surprise!

do you know my boss? do you know what her husband looks like? did you know they were having a baby? no?

sucks for you.

oh shit. do they know they're having a baby? well, i guess they do now... congrats, you guys!?!!

but, for real, of all the cakes on this blog, i'm pretty sure this is the most inside of inside jokes. the deepest of deep cuts. might as well throw some glasses on it and call it a hipster. but, please don't. i don't want it to lose it's street cred.

everybody be cool.

but, for those of you on the outside of this joke, all you need to know is that my boss is having a baby boy. so, i made the baby look as much like her husband as possible because, ya know, he is also a boy. tmi?

and, anyway, her husband's last name is mattoo. so, it was going to say, "congrats on mattoo number two!" because they already have a mattoo number one (coincidentally, that is her name) and "mattoo number two" had a nice ring to it.

however, nothing gets past my eagle eye*, and there was an obvious opportunity to make a pun here. so you know, in "badger's rules of baking," the third rule is, if you have the choice between making a pun or not, you make the fucking pun. rule one is always dance around your kitchen like you're in a baking montage; although, be sure to turn the volume down on the wilson-phillips enough to hear the oven timer go off. and the second rule is beer before liquor.

so, following the third rule, "mattoo number two" became "mat-two." and the cake was a huge success. looks like i set the bar pretty high for the actual mat-two... sorry, kid. no pressure.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1.5 hours +  $9.99 spent on the wilson-phillips greatest "hits" collection.

mattoo number three,
sassy badger

*my other eye is a regular human one

ps - CONGRATS, stacy and kan!

"chicken and pickle getting married" - this f*cking weekend, pt. 2

yes, this is part two of a two-part post. if you want to read part one, just click here...

just kidding. stop being so fucking lazy. scroll down. or read them out of order. i'm not going to tell you how to live your life.

anyway, my boss asked for a cake for her engagement party. again, a bunch of real people (a lot of them my bosses*) were going to be at this party. no sober six-year-olds, but still... it wasn't just me and my friends at some power hour in studio city where you're lucky if you can even find a clean shot glass and you might as well just give up and drink out of some tupperware. this was a real engagement party. at a real place. that served wine... so, classy as fuck.

on top of that, i was asked to make this a cake of cats... her cats... getting married. oh, no trouble, i've made like ten cakes of chicken and pickle - riding bikes, buying their first car, opening a checking account, you name it. but, unfortunately, i'd never done one of them getting married. so, in order to get the coloring of chicken and pickle's coats just right, it took like 3-10 hours of stalking pictures of them on facebook. like, what line of work brings together all my favorite things like this? dream job!!!

now, in my research, i learned that chicken and pickle are siblings. so, not only does this cake promote bestial matrimony, but, also, incest. sassy badger is nothing if not political.

anyway, at the end of the day, i feel like this cake went really well. the happy couple seemed pleased. chicken and pickle haven't returned my phone call yet.

assholes.

but, overall, it was a fairly successful weekend, given the circumstances i outlined in part one. i did learn some things though.

1. never, ever, ever, ever work without a refrigerator. ever. why even bother living without one, really? you might as well just end it all and look forward to that stainless-steel-top-freezer-Kenmore-with-an-ice-dispenser-in-the-sky. i hear god always keeps the dispenser set to crushed, though, unfortunately.

2. don't ever, ever, ever, ever attempt such a busy weekend without the help of the woman who passed you through her vagina and then, an indeterminate amount of time later, taught you all her cake-decorating wisdom. you'd be nothing without her, and your cakes would suck, and you'd have no friends.

sorry for getting personal there. but seriously, thanks, mom.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 3.5 hours + a quick shot up my dress for the valet as i tried to lug this thing out of the car. who should be tipping who, buddy?

owner of nine lives,
sassy badger

*just realizing i have a lot of bosses.

"spider-man pt. 2" - this f*cking weekend, pt. 1

before i start talking about this cake specifically, i feel as though i need to set up some things about this weekend. "this weekend" as in the one in which i baked this cake, not "this weekend" as in this weekend in which i am writing this. because those are two separate weekends. 

shit, i know, time is a trippy concept, man. do try to keep up. 

so, "this weekend" had many factors at play that destined it to be the hardest weekend in baking history. at least according to wikipedia.

1. i was asked to make two cakes for the same day.

sure. that's happened to me before. really not a big deal. you just hit a point where you tell yourself, "listen, fucker,* you're not going to get a lot of sleep tonight. so, stop checking your facebook and those dawson's creek fan boards and get to work."

1a. i was asked by two of my bosses to make two cakes for the same day.  

alright, this is totally fine. happens to me all the time. that people with real parties and real friends and real requests want something that is nice and presentable for their guests to see. oh, sure, that is what sassy badger is all about. i don't know if you've seen the quality of this free blog i use to promote myself, but my business is nothing if not professional. 

althoughthiswassortofprofessionalbecausetheypaidmeandi'msupergratefultothem...

2. i didn't have a refrigerator.

i have recently moved. don't ask me where. and the refrigerator that was supposed to come the day before the weekend did not... and refrigerators, i don't know if you know this, are good at keeping things cold. and there are a lot of things that should be kept cold while baking. mostly alcohol. but, basically, no refrigerator was bad news bears. the original, not the remake.

also, it's hot in the city where i live. no, i won't tell you which one, so stop asking. but that made it extra difficult to keep things from melting. it required lots of macgyvering of the air-conditioning and fans and ice chests, and it was just so, so, so, so difficult... please let me know if you need my address to send me that medal of bravery. omg, stop trying to figure out where i live. 

3. my mom was in town. 

ugh. moms are the worst, am i right? always asking, "what can i do for you?" "how can i help?" "want me to slave away in your hot kitchen while you're at work so that things are ready for you when you get home?" like, just shut up and make me a sandwich already.

so, that was the situation of "this weekend." once you've all taken a moment to reflect on what a trooper i am, we can talk about this spider-man cake.

now, i've done a spider-man cake before. but, obviously, i had to make this one different. obviously, i had to make things more difficult on myself. obviously, i'll be getting that medal in the mail any day now.

anyway, this cake was for my boss's son and his birthday party of 25 six-year-olds. like i said before, it's kind of terrifying to send your cake out into a situation like that... where everyone is sober. it actually has to look good. and you can't get away with writing snarky, profanity-filled things on the cake because, you know, fucking six-year-olds.

luckily, a cake that feeds twenty-five is massive. it gave me a lot of room to add the details to the spidey suit, which i was actually very worried about. by the time i went to bed, i thought it was the most hideous cake i'd ever made. but, just like no one-night stand ever, it looked way better in the morning. and i'm actually pretty happy with it. 

just a little bit of very specific trivia that you certainly do not care about: there are gummy bears inside that cake. i wish i had gotten a picture, but somebody flipped the cake over and iced it before i got a chance. jesus, ma, you had one job to do...

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 3 hours + one delicious sandwich. thanks, mom.

playing spider-man in the reboot of the reboot, 

sassy badger

*it's okay for me to call myself that. we're close friends.

"bobo/babu" - it's a weird one

this might be the hardest one to explain because even i don't know the full story here. so, what if i didn't explain anything at all?

what.

if. 

i. 

didn't?

what.

would.

you.

do.

about.

it?

nothing, probably, because you only come here for the pictures. don't you? long story short there is a doll in the grey's writers' room that looks like this:

i know, super cute and not weird or creepy as fuck at all. his/her name is bobo/babu. he/she is a replacement doll for another monkey whose head fell off of it's body, as is typical with creepy as fuck monkey dolls. i am also told that this original doll, umi, died and was reincarnated many times over, as is typical with creepy as fuck monkey dolls. however, despite these efforts to revive umi for good, he/she was never the same as he/she used to be, which is when bobo/babu entered the picture/photograph.

bobo/babu seems to have made his/her home here. writers are knitting him/her hats and scarves and clothing him/her and offering him/her jobs on the writing staff. just when you thought grey's couldn't push the envelope any further, there we go again, letting monkeys write episodes. i apologize in advance for all the banana puns alex karev is going to be dropping in the third episode of the season... bobo/babu is really into those.

anyway, season ten. here we go! 

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 3.5 hours + a 3 page email chain containing the origin story of umi/bobo/babu that i pretended to read but totally didn't. 

"i don't see what yang finds so aPEELing about cardio,"

sassy badger

"grumpy cat" - no.

some might say that "grumpy" is a synonym of "sassy," and some others might say that "cat" is a synonym for "badger." however, one million twitter followers say that "grumpy" "cat" is like the best thing in the world, while only eighteen of you find "sassy" "badger" worth your time. and to THAT i say...

correct. 

grumpy cat beats everything else paws down. four out of four paws for you, grumpy cat! two paws way up. have i beat this thing to death yet? pawsibly not...

maybe if i actually had a badger who helped me bake and stuff, or one who just licked the bowl and then hissed at the camera, this shit would go viral. we'd go on all the morning talk shows and the daytime ones and the late night ones. but, as i learned after picking this moniker, badgers are fucking vicious. and so, i'm already imagining the lawsuit ellen would file after sasser the badger took a chunk out of her calf, making it impawsible for her to dance again, and it just seems like too much paperwork to deal with, you know?

anyway, i made this for my sister's birthday. her EIGHTEENTH birthday!!! voting, cigarettes, porn, chocolate cake LOLZ.

apparently the chocolate icing out of the can isn't good enough for my sister's standards, so i had my mom make some from scratch. new logo, hired* help... we are classing it up in this bitch.

the best** part of this cake was that my dad did not understand how grumpy cat worked and ask that i draw dialogue bubbles to explain who was speaking which part of the wording on the cake. forgive him, grumpy cat, for he is an accountant.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2.0 hours + 2 people asking "isn't grumpy cat more grey?" go fuck yourselves.

no,
sassy badger

*the opposite of that
**the opposite of that

NEW LOGO!

i feel like i am doing this new artwork zero justice. my great friend, jen "jenno miller time" miller has been working on these for like a year... every single day, doing nothing else, ever, with her time. 

but, seriously, they have been in the works for awhile now, and i cannot even contain how excited i am. how awesome they are. look at you go, jenno. 

seriously, i'm going to have to redesign the entire blog around these, which i don't know anything about. so, should be a doozy and a half.

czech out more of jen here: http://cargocollective.com/jenmiller

oh, what a day!

"mike wazowski" - half and half

if this neglected blog was a tamagotchi, it would have shit itself to death by now... 

but, you know, i don't have the time or the money to make a cake every single day just to write about it.  also, my stomach couldn't handle that much sugar... is something i say out loud so people think i don't just eat icing straight out of the bag. 

umm, yea, bags of icing. bags. like a fucking cake boss. legit decorating tools... found at a local michael's near you. it's usually on the aisle between the scrapbooking paper and the yards of lace and beads and other creepy shit that you'd decorate a picture frame with. if you hit the model trains, you've gone too far.

anyway, i made this cake for my current place of work that, as of today, is no longer my current place of work. funny how that works out, isn't it? funny how mike's eye is like a substitute for the letter "i" isn't it? funny how pointing out puns makes them funnier, isn't it? 

comedy!

much like my tamagotchi parenting, i was lazy as possible with this cake. i didn't mix any colors. i just willed them to be in my refrigerator, and there they were, right behind the cheesy blaster i made for the 30 rock finale. in january. the mold and icing were a similar shade of green, and i was caught up in it's beauty for awhile. yolo.

but, yes, this is the second and last cake i'll make for hurwitz creative as the company runner/coffee bitch. thank you to everyone there for everything ever. who knew placing staples orders could be so fun? that's thanks to all of you.

for the next few months, you can find me over at grey's anatomy. at craft services. eating. what a gig.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2.5 hours + 3 glorious seconds on the office-wide intercom where i got to announce "cake," and tens of people answered the call. dream come true.

boo,

sassy badger