"magnetic butthole" - definitely the grossest

guys. girls. planktons. i don't even know where to begin on this one.

the anus is as good of a place as any, i guess. 

for fans of grey's, you might have noticed that season 10 was the "year of the butt." we told a lot of stories about colons and butthole surgeries and rectal cancers. a lot of that is thanks to our good friend, dr. ruby, who had quite a passion for telling stories all up in those parts of the human anatomy.

beauty is in the eye of the butthole, they always say.

probably the most memorable of dr. ruby's stories came in the penultimate episode of last season, in which she pitched the "megnetic sphincter." you see, dr. ruby is from wisconsin (go badgers!), and she said a lot of words in a weird way... "megnet" instead of "magnet." where you and i might say "bag," she said "beg." where i might say "something fun to do in my spare time," dr. ruby would say "prostate exam."

back to the magnets.

there is a magnetic bracelet-like device that is used on the esophagus to help patients with acid reflux. basically, the magnetic beads keep the food from coming back up. for our story, we put these magnetic power beads on the rectum to keep all the icky stuff from coming out the poop chute just for funsies.

because it was one of dr. ruby's proudest story pitches, i thought there would be no better way to send her back to wisconsin than with a cake depicting her magnetic sphincter and, of course, an anus.

i can say, it's the most medically involved a cake has ever been. it's also the most disgusting and heinous thing to ever exist on a baked good. dr. ruby was always pushing me past my comfort zone. a job well done, my friend, well done.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2 hours + it is my bed time. i'm too tired to come up with something here.

zzzzzzzzzz,
sassy badger

"tony & joan" - a minor construction project

here's the story of a little booty.

that was laying around in our writers' room.

and that's as far as i got on that brady bunch parody. can't say i didn't try.

this red booty was found in our offices one day, long before i even started working there. no one knew where it came from or what possessed it to appear, but it has become a running practical joke between two of the writers. 

basically the booty gets passed back in forth in a variety of ways, in ways the writer least expects, in ways that involve a lot of work. in one way which i will document below...

i was asked by the pranker to hide the booty inside of the prankee's going away cake. a cake that was going to be shared by a dozen innocent bystanders. obviously. so, first, i delicately cut out a hiding square.

"hiding square" is also what i call a restroom stall when i'm at a party i don't want to go to...

then, i rolled the booty up and filled in the remaining space of the hiding square. 

that took some serious, black-ops, martha stewart-esque engineering, let me tell you. whenever it's convenient, you can send me an honorary masters in pranking crafts from whichever accredited university carries such a graduate program.

i covered that layer in icing, put the other layer of the cake on top, and bam!

the decoration itself is a picture of our two bosses who were leaving grey's at the end of last season, one of whom was the prankee. and they are joined at the head in reference to an episode of our show, written by the prankee, in which two twins were joined at the head. and it has a taylor swift quote because 1. that was the title of said episode written by the prankee, 2. it's like relevant and shit to the situation, and 3. t swift is a goddess and she deserves to be worshipped in every way, shape, or form.

ideally, the prankee would've cut into the cake, found the booty, been so surprised, and screamed very loudly in disbelief. instead, what happened was the prankee managed to cut a perfect piece of cake around the booty and hand it off to someone else, who then had to hand it back to the prankee, who then found the booty, was so surprised, and screamed loudly in disbelief.

needless to say, no one ate this cake because the booty was covered in years of dirt and pranks and, likely, witchcraft. still, for a cake that wasn't eaten, i'm pretty pleased with the result. and just because i'm never going to get to say it again... prankee.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 3 hours + 1 hour of construction +  7 grammy's for taylor swift, you beautiful, majestic unicorn

you go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me,

sassy badger

"cards against humanity" - nsfw

"cards against humanity" and cake are actually very similar, if you think about it. you don't have to think about it, but if you do...

ok, ok, ok, they're both great for parties. especially children's parties. especially children's parties at your local church. especially children's parties at your local church with your grandparents. look, i just planned a week of vacation bible school activities for you!

i will say that "cards against humanity" and cake are both great for the grey's writers' room. those people eat like pigs and speak like pagans... the kind of people you want to spend an eternity in hell with. they are also a bunch of traitors. mostly nancy. because she left us. to go write on another television show. la di fucking da, nancy.

do you want to know how i really feel about it? well, i think i made that pretty obvious. and i think i also made it pretty goddamned delicious. 

forgive me, father, it has been six years since my catholic guilt was strong enough to drag me to confession. i have recently taken the lord's name in vain. very recently. just a few sentences ago. for my penance, i will pretend to say three our fathers and ten hail marys while i'm actually just thinking about how uncomfortable the kneeler is and whether or not i'll ever get this popcorn kernel out of my teeth. trust me, i know how long to stay in the pew to make it look legit. 

anyway, nancy, you traitor/sack of shit. i hope you're miserable on your new show. i hope they never play "cards against humanity," only "apples to apples." and i hope they never have cake, only gluten-free bran muffins. you deserve it!

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1 hour + 7 months to finally post this thing aka 7 months of wondering why i took over nancy's job. i mean, i've seen the names people called her...

a party game for horrible people, 

sassy badger

"jj watt" - performance art

does this look like jj watt? not really. does this look like a cake i made recently? not really. in continuing in my tradition of procrastinating in this blog, i am just now posting this picture of a cake i made in january. at least i'm consistent!

first thing's first... do you guys even know who jj watt is? if you aren't from houston or you don't like sports then 1. i hate you and we have nothing to talk about, and 2. you likely have no idea who this is even supposed to be.

so, jj plays sportsball for the houston sportsball team. he's very good at sportsball. maybe the best. he's also the nicest person who has ever existed.

take that, jesus!

because he has sportsball prowess and out-nices the son of god and has a pleasing face, jj has stolen the hearts of every woman, man, child, and horse in the city of houston. (screw you if you thought we had horses in houston. you're ignorant. i hate you and we have nothing to talk about.)

so, even though i made this cake for one of my best friends*, with some improvements, i could probably sell this cake in mass quantities to every woman, man, child, and horse in the city of houston. i could even make enough money to buy the houston sportsball team.

this is jj:

i guess the cake is not that bad. i got his sportsball costume and make-up correct. i made his hair the right color of bland wheat color in a wheat field. and, most importantly, that blood, dude.

ok, since you dummies thought we had horses in houston, let me tell you now - that. is. not. real. blood. it's red food coloring. go back to whatever liberal, east coast city you were raised in. i hope you enjoy your quality public transportation, you idiots!

but one, that blood allowed for a great pun. and trust me, i know about puns. you can trust me because i've said i know about puns before. two, as anyone posed with the cake, the blood started running down jj's face. just like in real life! it's the first time one of my cakes has involved such an interactive-audience-participation-required component. should've charged admission to this thing...

look at all these amazing business ideas i have! i'll own the houston sportsball team in no time.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2 hours + 10 second google search for "east coast stereotypes"

they call me the milkman,
sassy badger

*it's really a friendship of convenience. she only lives five minutes away. any further and my horse would get too tired to make the trip so many times.

"louis and mowgli" - you're welcome

this cake was made in november of 2013. it's may of 2014. the other day i couldn't even remember my new year's resolution about being a more productive human being, so i'm not even going to apologize for this sickening amount of procrastination.

actually, i'm pretty sorry about it. i'm always sorry about it. onwards...

as an (i thought) established rule of thumb, i do not take requests for cakes from people unless they are'a paying me'a the big'a bucks'a. if you didn't read that with an italian accent, you're'a wrong'a. but, yea, i usually just fucking make a cake and that person has to deal with it. and they have to eat it. and they have to like it. or. else.

oh, you didn't want me to put something embarrassing or completely inappropriate on your cake? don't care.

so, when someone asked me to make a cake of her dog... 1. gross. dogs are the worst. 2. i don't think so. those are not the rules.

instead, i made a cake of her dog and her favorite human being, louis ck. joke's on her! that's what you get for trying to tell me what to do. you get something better than what you even asked for! so... ha!

i know we've already established that dogs are super offensive, but maybe some of you harbor similar feelings towards gingers. if that is the case, i, again, am sorry about it. i didn't mean to subject you to something so horrendous without fair warning. also, men in general, right? they're the worst. this cake is just disgusting.

anyway, moral of the story is, don't try to pressure me into doing something that i don't want to do. don't even think about it. unless you want me to just lay down and take it. i think i'm going to add "standing up for myself" to my new year's resolution. somebody remind me about it tomorrow!

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: as if i remember something from 6 months ago +  i am wearing a hat. i forgot how this blog works.

louie, louie, lou-iiii,
sassy badger

"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

"crying dawson" - my favorite

in these next few days, private practice is closing its doors/tearing the whole thing down, and I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT IT. all of them perfectly captured by james van der beek's tour de force of acting in the season three finale of the american treasure, dawson's creek:

i feel you overly verbose high-schooler, i feel you. feelings are hard.

now, obviously, the cake does not come close to doing this scene justice. i couldn't even do his hair justice. don't worry, dawson, that situation gets better in season five when someone at the cw wb pointed out to your stylist that you're a very decent looking human being without the eric matthews haircut. very decent. still, this has to be my most favorite cake ever.

in this scene from the finale, dawson basically yell-cries at suri's mom to run from him and into the arms of one pacey witter. the scene is highly reminiscent of the saddest scene in cinematic history: the one in air bud where the kid throws the basketball so buddy will leave because if you love something you set it free, you know? except, poor joey potter, no one left any pudding on the dock for her.

and that's how i feel about private practice closing up shop. JUST GO. GET OUT OF HERE. IT HURTS TOO MUCH JUST TO LOOK AT YOU.

in all seriousness, that has easily been my most favorite experience ever. not only was it awesome because i got to be around people doing exactly what i hope to be doing one day, but all those people doing what i hope to be doing were super great people. they were the first people i met out here in this terribly ridiculous city (great food, though, los angeles!), and they were above and beyond lovely human beings. 

so, if that's as far as i get in this business, if i never make another pot of coffee*, if i never collate another script, if i never write "c" on another can of the christmas coke to distinguish it from diet, if i never spend another two hours on a giant star of david, if i never glue another puzzle, then it will still be worth it. all of it. i'm terribly grateful for all of it. all the advice and support and free food. all of it.

and dawson leery is obviously the best way to tell you how much it all means to me. he's the best for most things, really. to everyone who i met there, upwards and onwards to great things for all of you. 

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2 hours + the 14 years of my life before i discovered dawson's creek that i want back.

i don't wanna wait,

sassy badger

*who am i kidding?

"frankenweenie" - new job

considering i've still been making cakes for my old internship since like forever, some of you might not know that i actually have a new, different job. some of you, like 99.9-100% of you don't care.

still, this is the first cake i've made for my new place of work, so it's a really big deal. as you can see, i made it for halloween, and we are actually past thanksgiving, but here's the thing about jobs... they make it almost impossible for you to come home and want to do something other than tweet/facebook/fall asleep at your desk/eat cheez-its for dinner/make excuses/rinse/repeat. all for $8 an hour! in this economy!?

people really don't say that enough these days.

anyway, my new job makes fancy "creative content" like behind-the-scenes stuff and featurettes stuff and stuff. i do the behind-the-scenes-behind-the-scenes stuff like making coffee and ordering office supplies and tying bows on boxes. you can call me the lynchpin of the operation. i wish someone would...

anyway, again, we have a bunch of different clients and we work on a bunch of different films, but they are all super difficult to draw except for frankenweenie, so that's what i did. except, and here's how i know i'm a creative type, i changed "frankenweenie" to "halloweenie" because the cake was for a halloween party. can you even believe it!?

people definitely don't say that enough these days.

i obviously didn't completely follow the look of the film, as frankenweenie is all black and white, but i mean, live a little, tim burton! am i right?

people really can stop saying that these days.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1.5 hours + 20 minutes walking around the fox lot looking for ed o'neill because i was in my "icebox" costume from little giants. that would've been a reunion for the ages. am i right?

it's alive,
sassy badger

"donna" - maturing

i made this cake on the same night as the previous post, so i don't remember much about this one either except that this was the first time i've put boobs on a cake. first time i learned what boobs are, too. talk about growing up.

however, i had no choice, as donna is not donna without her donnas, ya know? excuse me while i just go throw up and write each of you a personal apology.

it, of course, was not really a big deal. i mean, i've done naked starfish butt in the past, so this was totally prude-y in comparison. still, it was kind of strange thinking about what i was tracing, as donna is played by a real human being, whose icing boobs i would soon be eating with my friends.

i wish i was seeing a therapist so i could talk about my sexual hangups with pop culture baked goods.

boobs aside, i thought this turned out pretty well. the eyes are judgmental enough, and i like to pretend that she is bugging out over that shitty text alignment. probably had something to do with the fact that i closed my eyes to erase the image of boobs from my mind. i gotta stop saying boobs.

anyway, i'd like to include a previous cake here because i think they make a nice set, and, maybe, some day, i'll do a whole parks and recreation line. collect them all for seven easy payments of $9.99!

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1.5 hours + 1 emmy for you amy poehler. in my heart.

ginuwine's cousin, 

sassy badger

"true blood" - why not?

this cake was made about infinity weeks ago, so i don't remember what super intelligent things i was going to say about it. i do, however, recall that this cake was pretty easy... like all those vampires in true blood, am i right? heyooooo.

i have not seen enough of the show to know if i am, in fact, right. anyone? are they easy lays? do they sparkle?

anyway, this cake probably had the worst ratio of "time spent deciding how to decorate it and then pretending to draw it for a hot minute before giving up and tracing it" to "time spent actually decorating." but, i have to say, like, really, what a payoff. puns like that, fully formed expressions of comedy, don't just reveal themselves for any poser. it takes a real kind of artist to free something so beautiful.

and it takes a really pretentious twenty-something with a blog to regard a vampire pun written in icing as high art. lucky for you, i am a pretentious twenty-something with a blog.

pretentious twenty-something with a blog, coming to your television sets in 2013.

speaking of icing, though, that is legitimately some of the best black icing i have ever mixed, and it was because i cheated and half-mixed-half-bought the pre-made black icing. excuse me while i go pray my 6 hail mary's and 3 our glory be's, the typical fare for crimes against baking. oh by the way, father, while i'm here, we good on eternal salvation?

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 30 minutes + the year of my life i spent reading twilight fanfiction that i would like back. vampires, man, why the have to be so sexy?

i wanna do bad things with you*,
sassy badger

*depends

"breaking bad" - blue cake

although i wasn't the first of my friends to jump on board with breaking bad, i've certainly jumped on said board with a fierce ferociousness, and i'm finding it incredibly difficult to talk about this cake without delving into spoilers, conspiracy theories, or shot-by-shot episode deconstruction. so, i guess i'm just going to talk about random shit, which, i know, is a huge detour from the usual fare here on this blog.

first things first. this cake taught me that i could totally be a drug dealer.

our kitchen sink is broken, so i wasn't able to mix icing colors, as my whole apartment actually fits in the sink, and i didn't want to flood my domicile... kind of just like dogs not wanting to crap where they sleep. well, that led to me mixing as few colors as possible and cleaning out the bowls in the bathroom. in terms of meth scouts, i totally earned my "mixing things" and "working out of tiny spaces" badges. excuse me while i ask my mom to sew the badges onto my sash, which can also act as a stranglehold should you be attacked by a member of a drug cartel. look who just earned her "resourcefulness" badge?

because i had to adjust my original design for this cake, which was so high concept that i won't even bother you lesser minds with it, i decided that i should, at least, make the font as breaking badass as possible. omg, do you see what i did there? so, i set up the font to look like that in the opening credits of the show. i didn't have to research what "h" stood for on the periodic table or what tiny little number went up in the top corner. "basic chemistry" badge? check. however, i did have to look up "bi" or bismuth. now, a lot of people in the internet-verse apparently think it is really funny to say that bismuth's atomic number is 69... bi 69. hilarious. so, i was about to put 69 on the cake, but, luckily, that little voice inside my head, aka my genius, said i better check that. so, i did. after extensive research (a second google image search) i learned that bismuth's atomic number was actually 83. with that, "attention to detail" and "nothing gets by me attitude" become the fourth and fifth badges on my sash, respectively.

i had originally written "perspectively," but then i changed it. there goes my genius again, screaming "nothing gets by me!"

anyway, my next meth scout badge, "hiding things in secret places," is hard to show you in the first picture, so here's a look at the cake before it was baked:

if you've never seen breaking bad then you might not know that the main dude makes blue meth. this looks nothing like meth, but it is blue cake. oh, that's another great badge, "knowing what meth looks like." i was able to hide this blue cake like walt is able to hide his blue meth in SOMETHINGSPOILERY... i won't ruin anything for anyone, but, if you really want to know, the letters to the answer are sprinkled throughout this post. 

wow, that's really something. i made one of my easiest cakes to date, and, yet, i still came away with eight meth scout badges. two more, and i will be upgraded to master cook! can't wait to get my "lying to my wife and kids" one out of the way.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1 hour + 1 joke stolen directly from tina fey's bossypants, the letters of which are sprinkled throughout this post.

in the empire business,

sassy badger

"dr. sheldon wallace (in a purple suit)" - just because

guys, in case you were worried that i was going to branch out and try new things, this is yet another private practice cake.

the italics make it seem like there is a show called another private practice. same characters, just set like twenty years from now, when they all move to florida together and open a practice on the beach. oh, don't mind me, coming up with super innovative ideas over here...

also, to answer the question that i know you all have been dying to ask, yes, this is a pun riffing on brian benben's name. puns are the pathetic underbelly of jokes/humanity, but i can justify it because it's on a fucking cake and you can fucking eat it. i mean, that's like a well-known, totally not made up rule about comedy, of which i am not an expert.

on imdb, this website on the internet, they describe brian benben as a "charming, compactly built, extremely affable american actor."

charming? yes. compact? yes. affable? yes. american? who can say?

but seriously the guy is 100% charming and affable and translating that in icing sucked. i'd say i semi-failed. i gave him a little eye light to try to capture that twinkle he gets, but have you ever tried to wrangle a rainbow? can't be done.

similarly, when he smiles he gets these wrinkles up in the corners of his eyes, so i tried to do that too at first. well, the "wrinkles" made him look like an old man geisha... that's a thing.

so, basically, this looks like brian benben because of 1. the hair part and 2. he's in a suit, which, unfortunately, came out very purple. i swear on old man geishas everywhere that this was the result of mixing black dye with white icing. i skipped color class in kindergarten (i had to see a guy about a thing), but i'm pretty sure black + white = grey.  whatever, sheldon might own a purple suit. i don't know! i hardly know the guy!

finally, i made this honestly because i was starting to feel out of practice, and i was like, "sorry chris*, i'm going to have to cancel our date because i would rather spend three hours in my hot, tiny kitchen." that's partially the truth!

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2 hours + 30 minutes being distracted by mindy kaling and b.j. novak's twitter fight last night.

married to madeleine stowe,
sassy badger

*hemsworth. obviously.

"apples to apples" - super specific

i'm really craving pizza right now.

anyway, what else do you bring to an apples to apples party for your soccer team? i would ask jeeves, but i recently learned that that's not a thing anymore. rest in peace, 90's internet.

so, rather than bringing wine, because apparently people my age like to drink(?), i brought this cake. 

spitfire f.c. is the name of my soccer team. f.c. stands for "football club," but this is america, so i like to pretend it stands for funky cold and then, understood, medina.

i'm not going to even bother explaining the quote. i'm not even sure that i understand it, but it was a huge hit at the party, along with the wine(?).

now, i've played my fair share of apples to apples over the years, but the amount of times i've played since moving to los angeles is like infinitely greater than what i was expecting. literally, infinity, because i thought i would be playing zero times. i mean, we weren't even playing it ironically. 

each time i play i learn something new, like how funny i am and how unfunny everyone else is... i also like to throw down my own name for the green "humble" card. obviously. 

quick question, and, again, i really do wish i could be asking jeeves about this, but - why are the apples on the cards sweating? they're clearly running. so, have they been running for a long time? is it hot outside? where are they going? where are any of us going? i mean really?

come back to us, jeeves. bring my sixth grade geocities website with you. keep the xanga though. 

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1.5 hours + 6 strange looks from party-goers when i pulled a can of tea out of my purse after turning down a glass of wine (?). not sure what that was about.

the game of hilarious comparisons,

sassy badger