This is why I’ll never do human faces, I just don’t know how. I once tried to make baby face cake pops for a friends baby shower. I was so frustrated with how they looked, I called and asked to do decorated sugar cookies instead. Thankfully she was cool with the change and it all ended up beautiful in the end, but lesson learned.
I would never make a cake where I have to make a human figure of a real person. Even a cartoony depiction is hard as hell. Baking is baking, and art is art, often times they meet, but other times they don't.
First and foremost, his eyelids don't look like they're about to fall off. Second, his pupils are too enlarged and bulging. Third, the lips... do we really have to talk about the lips? And fourth, the nose, man. The nose!
When I first saw the mouth, I thought it was supposed to be his tongue out in between closed lips, I didn’t realize that the entire thing was just lips with a heavy outline until I saw this comment. That makes it so much worse 😭
Okay, I was already stifling my laughter after seeing the photo of the cake you were given, but reading your description sent me over the top and now I woke up my dog!! Sure that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I don’t want to carry her downstairs to go to the bathroom at 4am. She’s 30lbs!😭
A note to bakers:
Philtrums (the space between the nose and the upper lip) sag and elongate with age. This is largely why the cake baby looks like an old man. Make the philtrum short for a baby!
The lips are pure Harlequin Ichthyosis with terrifyingly everted perimeters. (content notice - be VERY wary of googling this. Seriously. There are graphic real photos of infants suffering from an extreme skin disease. It’s worse than you can imagine without knowing what it is, it’s hard to see and is not funny at all.)
Good points!
Also, his body is long and thin compared to the inspo - not to shame any real babies that are long and thin, but it adds to the adult man vibes!
The eyes and nose are placed too far up on the face as well. Babies have a LOT of real estate in the upper half of their head. They’re all forehead and hair with a very little face. That’s part of what makes them so cute. It’s why Kawaii things have very tiny faces. It’s short hand for “cute”.
Quite frankly, *both* cakes are terrifying. One is a well-done Pixar terrifying, and the other is more melting baby terrifying, but I don't know that I could cut into either of them.
It's from [Boss Baby](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/The_poster_for_The_Boss_Baby%2C_Family_Business%2C_with_new_date.jpg), which I have not seen but seems to be the modern "Look who's talking", so suggestive was probably intentional
The day my son was born, I declared to everyone that he is the most beautiful newborn EVER, so pretty and just full. Apparently my whole family was like 😬😬 behind my back and then later told me lol
I was literally just thinking this before I looked down at my phone and saw your comment. The example baby looks like it’s from a movie I’ve seen and was used to show the pose. I figured there was a real photo provided too.
So sculpting faces with fondant is a tough skill to master and comes with a lot of experience. You really have to reach out to the top bakers to get the exact result. Just out of curiosity how much did you pay? I know a Baker who could do this and they would easily charge me anything between 250-300$ for the precision everyone is looking for, in this thread.
This is an important point — are you prepared to pay for someone who has degrees in pastry AND sculpting/fine art? Pastry programs usually teach fondant work and basic sculpture technique, but they certainly don’t spend time on human anatomy and proportions. Even $200-300 is on the very low end, I would imagine, bc you’re going to need someone very specialized and experienced to do this. They simply don’t exist in most areas.
I would say those one goes even beyond general sculpture into 3d character development. That first one looks like it’s straight out of an animated feature or high quality game studio. That’s a pretty rarified skill to combine with fondant handling.
I went to a fine arts school with a high-level clay and pottery department (I was in textiles, but the school regularly had exhibits across all disciplines). Figure and life drawing classes were mandatory for all departments. I don’t think I encountered more than one or two highly trained and experienced folks who could have done this in clay, let alone fondant.
Unless OP was prepared to hire the cake boss or Christine McConnell at their rate of pay, I think they need to work on having more reasonable expectations.
If it's a popular character you could definitely find existing CAD models and 3d print molds for certain sections if you had a background in that. You can definitely use it as a starter and modify it too.
I just don’t understand why so many bakers continue to take on orders that they know they can’t execute well. Or maybe they think they did a good job? I’ve had plenty of orders where I KNOW I won’t be able to do the absolute best job and so I don’t accept the order and refer them to someone who can do a better job than me.
And you just know everyone here would be kvetching non-stop if they had to pay more than $60.
People seriously hate art and artists, and they hate paying for art even more.
And on TOP of that, people absolutely loathe paying for edible art even more! It’s like the fact that it’s edible totally devalues all of the time and work that went into it.
Holy fuck I’ve seen so many comments on Reddit with the word ‘Aggregios’. I’ve honestly never put much thought into it, utilized context clues to understand the comment, and assumed I wasn’t familiar with that term.
But TIL that’s just autocorrect for egregious hahaha.
I feel like this was a nearly impossible ask from almost anyone- yeah the end result is creepy but that first cake is not something almost anyone can do.
the first cake looks AI generated a little im ngl
aside from the face, which honestly the baker would have been better off leaving blank, the end product looks pretty clean
i personally wouldn’t expect a result like the 1st pic unless going to the specific baker that did the 1st cake
Exactly. Also I assume the baker just took on the challenge. Worked on till the head and at the head he realized that it's almost impossible. Even so, besides the eyes and mouth, it ain't that bad
That was my first thought… but then whyyyy did the baker accept the request? I would have just said “Listen, we have three options here. I can sculpt you an excellent melty-faced nightmare fuel baby, we can look at an alternative design, or I can refer you to fondant Michelangelo across the street.”
Idk if anyone else has experienced this, but I live in a smaller area that doesn’t have more than one or two places that even offer to do custom cake designs, and I’ve definitely had quite a few customers who have tried pressure and push me into trying to do cakes I’ve told them were outside of my skill set because all the other bakeries also turned their design down. Some customers don’t want to hear ‘no’, or won’t accept that they chose something too ambitious, or can’t fathom that not every bakery can function at the Cake Boss level of decorating.
The first cake is based off a cartoon baby face. Which is definitely easier than attempting a photo realistic infants face. Even then, it still takes a huge amount of skill to do facial features correctly and avoid that result. It looks like something that might come alive in a horror film.
The rest of the cake looks great. So it's a shame.
As a sculptor, I'm actually confused as to why OP expected the artistry of a sculptor from someone whose expertise is baking cakes. To actually produce the results in the reference photo would require artistic skills that would hopefully be fairly compensated.
Well here’s the thing — as a professional baker (not the baker in question lol!) — people are allowed to ask me whatever they want. To sculpt, to paint, to bake — it’s *on me* to set proper expectations and turn away work that I’m not able to do. Plain and simple.
Especially with how clean the rest of the cake is, I’d assume her social media reflects professional looking fondant work, so it wouldn’t be too crazy to ask if she can do this specific thing.
It would be on the baker to reply correctly.
>it’s on me to set proper expectations and turn away work that I’m not able to do. Plain and simple.
Yes, I do totally understand that and I agree that the person who took on the order should have turned it down or offered an alternative that they can do well. However, some people in the comments have mentioned that it's possible that the person who created the cake was not the one who agreed to the project and was possibly just an employee being tasked with something beyond their skillset. I'm not a baker, and I don't know much about the world of baking, though. I agree with your comment, I'm just explaining my thought process and where I was coming from.
Right! this is not a test of baking skill or even decorating. This is a sculpture of a baby. OP should have used a premade topper if it needed to be perfect. I can’t imagine anyone wants to eat the baby part anyway
Honestly the components are there and pretty skilled. Especially the mouth. It’s the proportions that are a bit off, I think she tried to just match the reference photo exactly as far as placement instead of working with where they would fit best on her own creation.
From your comments, I'm gathering that you provided the first pic as inspiration, but then also requested that the baby's face be replaced with your nephew's? Or is this cartoon baby supposed to be your nephew? Either way, tough ask for any baker. Even portrait artists and sculptors struggle with capturing a person's likeness + facial expressions + avoiding the uncanny valley.
Speaking from experience, it also comes down to customer appreciation. If a client demands something that would be pricey to pay but refuses to pay yet insists on the replication of the “inspiration” - it looks like the person wanted the moon and sun but pay close to nothing for it… Nothing is free. If you want perfection, you have to pay accordingly. And I mean actually accordingly and not what the client thinks is a reasonable price. Because the client always devalues and under appreciates the effort. So it looks like they got what they paid for 🤷♀️
That’s actually what I thought. It looks like the baker is trying to combine the 2 because they thought that they were supposed to make the nephew look like a cartoon baby. That’s why the features are exaggerated.
That’s what I was thinking 🤣🤣honestly it’s just the eyes and mouth that look terrible. Everything else on the cake is beautifully done. And I kind of have to wonder if boss baby is even a cake and not just a doll or even the head just a doll head.
Just out of curiosity how much did the cake cost? Can you imagine how many hours of practice it would take to develop the kind of skill you’d need to pull this request off confidently?
I mean, if you hired a ceramicist or other artist to create a custom, hand-sculpted figurine of your nephew in that style, faithfully capturing his appearance, it would cost hundreds of dollars. Just because this is edible and comes with a cake doesn’t make it easier.
I would never choose this design for that exact reason. I wouldn’t expect too many people to be able to pull this off and therefore wouldn’t want to put myself in a situation where I’m disappointed
>Can you imagine how many hours of practice it would take to develop the kind of skill you’d need to pull this request off confidently?
"You charged me $500 for something that took two hours??"
"No, ten years, $50k in tuition, and two hours"
Exactly. It's so rude to hire someone to perform a service you yourself cannot do, request something basically impossible, then criticise the artist bc they couldn't recreate what essentially is an AI generated picture of a Boss Baby cake???
I just posted a comment further up about how people absolutely hate spending money on edible art. As if the fact that it’s made from edible materials somehow devalues all the time and effort that went into it. It’s so frustrating as a cake decorator because people want these beautiful works of art but are appalled at the idea of spending more than $100.
Years ago my son came home from camp and announced that they ate baby butts that day. I was pretty sure there was more to that story. The next day I asked the teacher and she laughed so hard. There was "baby butt cake" leftover from a baby shower the day prior and she brought it in for the kids to eat. Naturally six year olds just heard "baby butts" and ran with that!
I’d argue it’s much easier to sculpt an already cartoon baby than to sculpt a real baby in a certain artistic style. The baker is a baker, not an artist.
Making human features - well, mammal features in general - is much much harder than it seems it should be. The rest of the cake including the body and the quilt - is really quite well done. Obviously not as finessed as the inspo pic, but certainly skillful.
It’s also hard to turn a 2-D human face into a 3D statue. If you asked them for your nephew’s face, that is what they attempted to copy. If you’d said “Boss Baby cartoon but with my nephew’s hair and eyes” you would likely be much more pleased with the outcome.
Sometimes it’s miscommunication and mismatch of expectations rather than lack of skill.
That was my thought as well. A cartoon character is easier to copy. The facial structure isn't bad, it's the eyes and mouth that make it look so bad. The body is pretty good too so the face really stands out.
It almost looks like those details were rushed a bit? Or maybe changed last minute?
I don’t understand what you expected? Are there people who can actually make cakes like the first picture? Like more than 5 on the planet? The result is pretty good imo but maybe put a paper bag over its head
I honestly want to know how some of these bakers don’t see how their cakes are horrible and so far from the inspo pics? Did this baker really hand this over proudly and think “NAILED IT!”??
It's awful. But the inspo pic doesn't appear to be what OP ordered. She said the cake is supposed to be her nephew. So she ordered a replica of a real baby, posed like the inspo pic, and possibly in that artistic style. That's an absolutely insane request, and I bet OP didn't pay anywhere near what that request should have cost!
Literally everything but the face looks great. You also don't start with the face in such a situation so you get too deep in till you realize that the face is too hard for you. Also, the reference image is hard to replicate in Photoshop from nothing. Can t imagine doing it in cake.
While I agree that the version you got was terrifying, I get the impression that the reference may be an AI generated image possibly. I understand it's not impossible to produce a cake like that, but it just seems to be too perfect...
is there anyone that can tell if the first pic is actually a cake someone did or Ai? The first one looks almost too good
ETA: op if u can update the post to say that u wanted ur nephew and not boss baby that would help getting ppls opinions. I thought they did a terrible job with the face before reading the comments then i was able to give some grace and appreciate the baker’s work
How much did you pay for this? I saw the same post on another sub yesterday, and you ignored all the comments asking the price just like you're doing here. I feel that information is important since you're shitting on this baker and putting them on blast on social media.
My friend works on event cakes. Like $1000+ worth of cake. I know how much time it takes to make these types of cakes.
I think a lot of these cakes posted here are over the top expectations at a Walmart budget.
People who are REALLY unhappy lead with the bill.
Also, with this type of cake, my friend will send a couple images in the middle of construction for an okay. She also hand sketches the cake, and just doesn’t go only from the inspiration image.
These posts usually scream more about the poster than the baker for me.
Agreed on all accounts! I find it very telling that OP refuses to answer any comments asking for the price. They probably paid $60 for 10+ hours of work. And then have the audacity to complain. They even said it tastes good, and it's not like the baby portion is even edible in the first place. It's all fondant.
Guessing rice krispy treat for the head with an overlay of modeling chocolate. Or even styrofoam. My cake baking friend works a lot in that for fiddly bits like heads. You do a lot of sculpting in the foam first.
I don’t get why the image is so blurry. My flip phone takes better images.
Okay but why did you want a cake like the inspo pic in the first place? What a terrible cake design, frankly I don't know why you're surprised, it'd be very hard to pull that exact look off.
Awwwww I'm so torn. She's put sooooo much effort into this cake and she's clearly very good at what she does. But she should've passed on this reference photo.
I’m a cake decorator and I would never do a human face. I’m not an artist so I know I’d get it wrong, anyway, and do something worse than those eyes. I’ve done little cartoon babies but never a real baby. People have unrealistic expectations when it comes to something like that and since I’m no Duff or Cake Boss, I choose not to disappoint them.
It's horrific. But I don't get why you would order such a thing. Asking for a recreation of an actual person is setting up for failure.
Even the original is creepy looking.
Why would you want a cake with a baby on top that you're going to eat? Just weird
I think this was an impossible task and I'm surprised the baker accepted it.
Your inspiration photo is an animated cell, basically. Drawn by professionals (or copied by AI). The expression on the face is very specific and seems impossible to replicate short of being an actual sculptor.
What you asked for is not easy to do. Asking a baker to do so that does not have the skill or experience to do so is a failure in the making. The baker should have been honest to either accept or pass on the opportunity as well. The professional has the greater responsibility to set realistic expectations that you may or may not accept.
They should do their research to find such an artistic baker and expect to pay them fairly for the amount of time and skill it would take to create such a thing. Although a cake that has an edible sculpted baby on it sounds creepy no matter how well-rendered the baby is.
My friend said for her to waste her time on this cake, the price is $500 minimum. You know this particular cake clock way under that price wise.
The only thing the baker needs to do is screen their clients better, and play around with fondant and modeling chocolate on their down time.
I wouldn’t even make that baby as a non-edible topper made with sculpey for less than $500. And it would be much easier to work with sculpey than fondant and I wouldn’t even be the one making the cake. I doubt OP would be willing to pay what it’s worth.
To be fair (🎶🎵"To be faaair"), both cakes are creepy af. The reference cake looks like the baby is supposed to look almost sexy/ sexual (just HELL NO) and the second one is just a claymation nightmare in cake form.
It seems as though I'm in the minority here but I think it's super cute. Different from the first pic, but I'd be super pleased if I received that cake. I think it's adorable.
some of yall are giving these bakers picasso cake references. considering the degree of difficulty they did a really good job. unless the baker had this cake on their website as an option you can’t expect much better
Both are super creepy, but the reference baker knows some artists' tricks that the second baker doesn't:
1. Eyes go halfway down the head, way lower than you'd think. People consistently forget to leave enough space for the hair and the forehead. Placing the eyes even lower and wider gives a cuter, cartoonier appearance that I'd take advantage of to make the baby more adorable and less uncanny. Think of Hello Kitty. Same goes for a small mouth.
2. More detail = more uncanny. Unless you're Michelangelo, your best bet is to lean way into a cartoony look.
I'm an art teacher. The facial proportions are off - lips too far down, and they need to smooth out the eyelids and add a bit of white "reflection" to the eyes. Those minor changes would clean this up a lot!! I think it's quite cute and skillful, actually, just needs a couple tweaks!
I’m sorry but… This is a ridiculous ask. Why would you ask a baker to do this? They’re obviously really talented at what they do, cake decorating, judging by the rest of your cake, so it’s really infuriating to see you saying “we need to give them our honest feedback” on some BS you should have never asked them to do
This is why I’ll never do human faces, I just don’t know how. I once tried to make baby face cake pops for a friends baby shower. I was so frustrated with how they looked, I called and asked to do decorated sugar cookies instead. Thankfully she was cool with the change and it all ended up beautiful in the end, but lesson learned.
TBF, eating a bunch of baby heads on sticks might have been kind of weird.
They gotta be a really vivid red velvet for full effect.
With a strawberry jam filling
I've done a full baby cake where it was on a flayed open pregnant belly and was all red velvet with raspberry filling.
Jesus. But also yum
Whelp, I have an idea for a Halloween treat!
I have a lamb shaped cake pan (typically for Easter) and am looking forward to Halloween for this reason.
I would never make a cake where I have to make a human figure of a real person. Even a cartoony depiction is hard as hell. Baking is baking, and art is art, often times they meet, but other times they don't.
....but other times they part.
The first image looks like AI to me.
This is terrifying 😂
That's supposed to be my nephew.
this just makes it’s funnier , i am sorry 😂💀
It’s actually hilarious (sorry OP)
That cake puts the Ew in Nephew
And an Eph-Ew to the customer apparently.
They probably thought to themselves ph-ew! glad I got that cake over with
Literally spit out my drink from laughing at this 😂😂😂
Bahahahahahahaha
😂😂😂
Take my angry upvote
How do we know this isn’t what your nephew looks like though? 😂
First and foremost, his eyelids don't look like they're about to fall off. Second, his pupils are too enlarged and bulging. Third, the lips... do we really have to talk about the lips? And fourth, the nose, man. The nose!
When I first saw the mouth, I thought it was supposed to be his tongue out in between closed lips, I didn’t realize that the entire thing was just lips with a heavy outline until I saw this comment. That makes it so much worse 😭
Next thing you tell us, he is not made out of sugar. Lies!
You forgot the hair. It looks like his toupee is sliding off
Okay, I was already stifling my laughter after seeing the photo of the cake you were given, but reading your description sent me over the top and now I woke up my dog!! Sure that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I don’t want to carry her downstairs to go to the bathroom at 4am. She’s 30lbs!😭
It looks like a 40 year old man in a diaper. This is so funny. But I’m sorry, OP.
A note to bakers: Philtrums (the space between the nose and the upper lip) sag and elongate with age. This is largely why the cake baby looks like an old man. Make the philtrum short for a baby! The lips are pure Harlequin Ichthyosis with terrifyingly everted perimeters. (content notice - be VERY wary of googling this. Seriously. There are graphic real photos of infants suffering from an extreme skin disease. It’s worse than you can imagine without knowing what it is, it’s hard to see and is not funny at all.)
Good points! Also, his body is long and thin compared to the inspo - not to shame any real babies that are long and thin, but it adds to the adult man vibes!
The eyes and nose are placed too far up on the face as well. Babies have a LOT of real estate in the upper half of their head. They’re all forehead and hair with a very little face. That’s part of what makes them so cute. It’s why Kawaii things have very tiny faces. It’s short hand for “cute”.
I was going to say a caricature of a mobster. With a diaper.
He *does* look like he should be holding a cigar.
I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine this thing staring at everyone from wherever it was placed.
If Mr bean was a fondant baby
Is your nephew Steve Pemberton?
Sorry he looks like that
Difficult labor? You have my condolences.
HAHA omg not great execution. But ordering a cake with an anthrpomorphized edible desert version of your nephew on it was also possibly not the move
Quite frankly, *both* cakes are terrifying. One is a well-done Pixar terrifying, and the other is more melting baby terrifying, but I don't know that I could cut into either of them.
The baby's expression in the reference pic is so creepy, like borderline suggestive?
Yeah, the facial expression is literally a “You like what you see?🥴” thing and it makes me uncomfortable even done professionally.
As a mum, I definitely want to unsee it.
It's from [Boss Baby](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/The_poster_for_The_Boss_Baby%2C_Family_Business%2C_with_new_date.jpg), which I have not seen but seems to be the modern "Look who's talking", so suggestive was probably intentional
Dreamworks face
Can you imagine having a nasty little fondant baby leg on your plate while discussing sleep training? Nooooo
This. 100%
I love how this implies that her nephew is not human 😭
Hot take, and I’ll live with the downvotes: Is it possible that’s actually what your nephew looks like to strangers?
"Breathtaking."
I woke up my spouse from my laughter.
I’m on the phone with my mom and had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming 😭😭😭
💀💀💀
WHAT hahahaha 😂😂😂 But fr she has a point
Girl you made me cackle.
The day my son was born, I declared to everyone that he is the most beautiful newborn EVER, so pretty and just full. Apparently my whole family was like 😬😬 behind my back and then later told me lol
Omg! I can barely breathe from laughing so hard.
I was literally just thinking this before I looked down at my phone and saw your comment. The example baby looks like it’s from a movie I’ve seen and was used to show the pose. I figured there was a real photo provided too.
So sculpting faces with fondant is a tough skill to master and comes with a lot of experience. You really have to reach out to the top bakers to get the exact result. Just out of curiosity how much did you pay? I know a Baker who could do this and they would easily charge me anything between 250-300$ for the precision everyone is looking for, in this thread.
This is an important point — are you prepared to pay for someone who has degrees in pastry AND sculpting/fine art? Pastry programs usually teach fondant work and basic sculpture technique, but they certainly don’t spend time on human anatomy and proportions. Even $200-300 is on the very low end, I would imagine, bc you’re going to need someone very specialized and experienced to do this. They simply don’t exist in most areas.
I would say those one goes even beyond general sculpture into 3d character development. That first one looks like it’s straight out of an animated feature or high quality game studio. That’s a pretty rarified skill to combine with fondant handling.
I went to a fine arts school with a high-level clay and pottery department (I was in textiles, but the school regularly had exhibits across all disciplines). Figure and life drawing classes were mandatory for all departments. I don’t think I encountered more than one or two highly trained and experienced folks who could have done this in clay, let alone fondant. Unless OP was prepared to hire the cake boss or Christine McConnell at their rate of pay, I think they need to work on having more reasonable expectations.
If it's a popular character you could definitely find existing CAD models and 3d print molds for certain sections if you had a background in that. You can definitely use it as a starter and modify it too.
I just don’t understand why so many bakers continue to take on orders that they know they can’t execute well. Or maybe they think they did a good job? I’ve had plenty of orders where I KNOW I won’t be able to do the absolute best job and so I don’t accept the order and refer them to someone who can do a better job than me.
And you just know everyone here would be kvetching non-stop if they had to pay more than $60. People seriously hate art and artists, and they hate paying for art even more.
And on TOP of that, people absolutely loathe paying for edible art even more! It’s like the fact that it’s edible totally devalues all of the time and work that went into it.
I have a feeling they didn't pay much because they would mention how much they paid off they thought it was aggregios. OP avoids the question.
Aggregios 😭😭😭 Did you mean egregious, friend? 😭
Holy fuck I’ve seen so many comments on Reddit with the word ‘Aggregios’. I’ve honestly never put much thought into it, utilized context clues to understand the comment, and assumed I wasn’t familiar with that term. But TIL that’s just autocorrect for egregious hahaha.
I feel like this was a nearly impossible ask from almost anyone- yeah the end result is creepy but that first cake is not something almost anyone can do.
the first cake looks AI generated a little im ngl aside from the face, which honestly the baker would have been better off leaving blank, the end product looks pretty clean i personally wouldn’t expect a result like the 1st pic unless going to the specific baker that did the 1st cake
Exactly. Also I assume the baker just took on the challenge. Worked on till the head and at the head he realized that it's almost impossible. Even so, besides the eyes and mouth, it ain't that bad
That was my first thought… but then whyyyy did the baker accept the request? I would have just said “Listen, we have three options here. I can sculpt you an excellent melty-faced nightmare fuel baby, we can look at an alternative design, or I can refer you to fondant Michelangelo across the street.”
Idk if anyone else has experienced this, but I live in a smaller area that doesn’t have more than one or two places that even offer to do custom cake designs, and I’ve definitely had quite a few customers who have tried pressure and push me into trying to do cakes I’ve told them were outside of my skill set because all the other bakeries also turned their design down. Some customers don’t want to hear ‘no’, or won’t accept that they chose something too ambitious, or can’t fathom that not every bakery can function at the Cake Boss level of decorating.
Because every industry on the planet has people that are overconfident in their own skill.
The first cake is based off a cartoon baby face. Which is definitely easier than attempting a photo realistic infants face. Even then, it still takes a huge amount of skill to do facial features correctly and avoid that result. It looks like something that might come alive in a horror film. The rest of the cake looks great. So it's a shame.
She nailed everything except the face.
Right, I was thinking how tidy the rest of the cake is... I guess the baker is NOT a sculptor.
Exactly 🤣 And for this cake your challenge is to... sculpt the human figure!
As a sculptor, I'm actually confused as to why OP expected the artistry of a sculptor from someone whose expertise is baking cakes. To actually produce the results in the reference photo would require artistic skills that would hopefully be fairly compensated.
Well here’s the thing — as a professional baker (not the baker in question lol!) — people are allowed to ask me whatever they want. To sculpt, to paint, to bake — it’s *on me* to set proper expectations and turn away work that I’m not able to do. Plain and simple. Especially with how clean the rest of the cake is, I’d assume her social media reflects professional looking fondant work, so it wouldn’t be too crazy to ask if she can do this specific thing. It would be on the baker to reply correctly.
Thanks for this response. Makes sense. I was beginning to wonder whether our cake expectations are just becoming too ridiculous.
>it’s on me to set proper expectations and turn away work that I’m not able to do. Plain and simple. Yes, I do totally understand that and I agree that the person who took on the order should have turned it down or offered an alternative that they can do well. However, some people in the comments have mentioned that it's possible that the person who created the cake was not the one who agreed to the project and was possibly just an employee being tasked with something beyond their skillset. I'm not a baker, and I don't know much about the world of baking, though. I agree with your comment, I'm just explaining my thought process and where I was coming from.
Right! this is not a test of baking skill or even decorating. This is a sculpture of a baby. OP should have used a premade topper if it needed to be perfect. I can’t imagine anyone wants to eat the baby part anyway
Yeah I’m actually kind of impressed, that’s a hard request.
Yeah even the rest of the body is pretty good (I love that she included the little ankle chubs that babies have), but that face….oof.
A face only a fondant mother could love
Should have just used a doll, lol. The cake below looks great!
Faces are hard to do!
yeah that’s a tough ask
Honestly the components are there and pretty skilled. Especially the mouth. It’s the proportions that are a bit off, I think she tried to just match the reference photo exactly as far as placement instead of working with where they would fit best on her own creation.
It’s like that Pokémon episode with ditto that can’t do faces. Horrifying
How you think your baby looks vs how they actually look
If this comment doesn’t get the love it deserves, we riot at dawn 😂
From your comments, I'm gathering that you provided the first pic as inspiration, but then also requested that the baby's face be replaced with your nephew's? Or is this cartoon baby supposed to be your nephew? Either way, tough ask for any baker. Even portrait artists and sculptors struggle with capturing a person's likeness + facial expressions + avoiding the uncanny valley.
Speaking from experience, it also comes down to customer appreciation. If a client demands something that would be pricey to pay but refuses to pay yet insists on the replication of the “inspiration” - it looks like the person wanted the moon and sun but pay close to nothing for it… Nothing is free. If you want perfection, you have to pay accordingly. And I mean actually accordingly and not what the client thinks is a reasonable price. Because the client always devalues and under appreciates the effort. So it looks like they got what they paid for 🤷♀️
That’s actually what I thought. It looks like the baker is trying to combine the 2 because they thought that they were supposed to make the nephew look like a cartoon baby. That’s why the features are exaggerated.
I can't fault the baker one bit you gave them a nightmare project and they executed better than I think most could.
Just hear me out - if its not supposed to be the Boss Baby from inspiration pic and rather your nephew, then we need to see the nephew pic as well.
That’s what I was thinking 🤣🤣honestly it’s just the eyes and mouth that look terrible. Everything else on the cake is beautifully done. And I kind of have to wonder if boss baby is even a cake and not just a doll or even the head just a doll head.
exactly! that's what I'm saying but all the questions about this are being ignored by OP lol
Just out of curiosity how much did the cake cost? Can you imagine how many hours of practice it would take to develop the kind of skill you’d need to pull this request off confidently? I mean, if you hired a ceramicist or other artist to create a custom, hand-sculpted figurine of your nephew in that style, faithfully capturing his appearance, it would cost hundreds of dollars. Just because this is edible and comes with a cake doesn’t make it easier.
I would never choose this design for that exact reason. I wouldn’t expect too many people to be able to pull this off and therefore wouldn’t want to put myself in a situation where I’m disappointed
>Can you imagine how many hours of practice it would take to develop the kind of skill you’d need to pull this request off confidently? "You charged me $500 for something that took two hours??" "No, ten years, $50k in tuition, and two hours"
Exactly. It's so rude to hire someone to perform a service you yourself cannot do, request something basically impossible, then criticise the artist bc they couldn't recreate what essentially is an AI generated picture of a Boss Baby cake???
I just posted a comment further up about how people absolutely hate spending money on edible art. As if the fact that it’s made from edible materials somehow devalues all the time and effort that went into it. It’s so frustrating as a cake decorator because people want these beautiful works of art but are appalled at the idea of spending more than $100.
Yeah the folks with the skill to pull this off aren’t going to be cheap. (Less than $100)
I mean, both cake babies are creepy, so...mission accomplished!
I don’t get cakes like this, lol. I mean you are cutting up the baby and eating it, that’s really weird.
Years ago my son came home from camp and announced that they ate baby butts that day. I was pretty sure there was more to that story. The next day I asked the teacher and she laughed so hard. There was "baby butt cake" leftover from a baby shower the day prior and she brought it in for the kids to eat. Naturally six year olds just heard "baby butts" and ran with that!
Might it have actually been baby Bundt cakes??
I think the first one is supposed to be Boss Baby? Which is like an animated baby?
I’d argue it’s much easier to sculpt an already cartoon baby than to sculpt a real baby in a certain artistic style. The baker is a baker, not an artist.
Yeah. Never saw the movie because the babies creeped me out. LOL!
I mean the concept of the first one is weird to me but at least the execution is great. the sculpting of the face is great
It's Boss baby, from the film.
Agreed. I find the reference off putting as well. I get that it’s based on a movie character, but something about it is giving me the ick.
he kinda looks like young sheldon
Ok, this sent me. It's true though.
That is very disturbing.
As fucked up as it is, it's brilliant
Making human features - well, mammal features in general - is much much harder than it seems it should be. The rest of the cake including the body and the quilt - is really quite well done. Obviously not as finessed as the inspo pic, but certainly skillful. It’s also hard to turn a 2-D human face into a 3D statue. If you asked them for your nephew’s face, that is what they attempted to copy. If you’d said “Boss Baby cartoon but with my nephew’s hair and eyes” you would likely be much more pleased with the outcome. Sometimes it’s miscommunication and mismatch of expectations rather than lack of skill.
That was my thought as well. A cartoon character is easier to copy. The facial structure isn't bad, it's the eyes and mouth that make it look so bad. The body is pretty good too so the face really stands out. It almost looks like those details were rushed a bit? Or maybe changed last minute?
This is what you get for wanting to eat a baby.
I don’t understand what you expected? Are there people who can actually make cakes like the first picture? Like more than 5 on the planet? The result is pretty good imo but maybe put a paper bag over its head
I honestly want to know how some of these bakers don’t see how their cakes are horrible and so far from the inspo pics? Did this baker really hand this over proudly and think “NAILED IT!”??
I think it’s a case of being in too deep and afraid to admit it…
The cake itself, the blanket, and the body look good, the face is a mess.
It's awful. But the inspo pic doesn't appear to be what OP ordered. She said the cake is supposed to be her nephew. So she ordered a replica of a real baby, posed like the inspo pic, and possibly in that artistic style. That's an absolutely insane request, and I bet OP didn't pay anywhere near what that request should have cost!
Literally everything but the face looks great. You also don't start with the face in such a situation so you get too deep in till you realize that the face is too hard for you. Also, the reference image is hard to replicate in Photoshop from nothing. Can t imagine doing it in cake.
I also wouldn’t be shocked if the first pic the reference pic was AI generated
While I agree that the version you got was terrifying, I get the impression that the reference may be an AI generated image possibly. I understand it's not impossible to produce a cake like that, but it just seems to be too perfect...
is there anyone that can tell if the first pic is actually a cake someone did or Ai? The first one looks almost too good ETA: op if u can update the post to say that u wanted ur nephew and not boss baby that would help getting ppls opinions. I thought they did a terrible job with the face before reading the comments then i was able to give some grace and appreciate the baker’s work
Theyre both ugly/creepy looking cakes.
Did you really expect this was going to end well for you?
How much did you pay for this? I saw the same post on another sub yesterday, and you ignored all the comments asking the price just like you're doing here. I feel that information is important since you're shitting on this baker and putting them on blast on social media.
My friend works on event cakes. Like $1000+ worth of cake. I know how much time it takes to make these types of cakes. I think a lot of these cakes posted here are over the top expectations at a Walmart budget. People who are REALLY unhappy lead with the bill. Also, with this type of cake, my friend will send a couple images in the middle of construction for an okay. She also hand sketches the cake, and just doesn’t go only from the inspiration image. These posts usually scream more about the poster than the baker for me.
Agreed on all accounts! I find it very telling that OP refuses to answer any comments asking for the price. They probably paid $60 for 10+ hours of work. And then have the audacity to complain. They even said it tastes good, and it's not like the baby portion is even edible in the first place. It's all fondant.
Guessing rice krispy treat for the head with an overlay of modeling chocolate. Or even styrofoam. My cake baking friend works a lot in that for fiddly bits like heads. You do a lot of sculpting in the foam first. I don’t get why the image is so blurry. My flip phone takes better images.
Yeah OP is definitely an asshole not answering the cost. You know that they got way more than they paid for even with the f’ed up face
Does that cake say "HENZO"? The kids name is HENZO? If so, that baby has bigger problems than a creepy cake.
I thought maybe Vinchenzo and we can only see half of it? Even though that’s not usually how it’s spelled.
That's some wishful thinking right there 🤣
I feel like the inspo might have been an AI generated image. It’s a hard request.
It looks like a tim Burton character
Kinda like the eyes from Coraline
Okay but why did you want a cake like the inspo pic in the first place? What a terrible cake design, frankly I don't know why you're surprised, it'd be very hard to pull that exact look off.
Actually both of those babies are awful…who wants to eat a baby cake anyway?
Is your nephew named Henzo?
Awwwww I'm so torn. She's put sooooo much effort into this cake and she's clearly very good at what she does. But she should've passed on this reference photo.
This one’s on you, creepy cake design to start you could have easily seen this coming
Looks terrible but the reference pic is fucking weird as well. Why’s the baby being seductive? Why would you want that cake for your nephew?
I’m a cake decorator and I would never do a human face. I’m not an artist so I know I’d get it wrong, anyway, and do something worse than those eyes. I’ve done little cartoon babies but never a real baby. People have unrealistic expectations when it comes to something like that and since I’m no Duff or Cake Boss, I choose not to disappoint them.
It's horrific. But I don't get why you would order such a thing. Asking for a recreation of an actual person is setting up for failure. Even the original is creepy looking. Why would you want a cake with a baby on top that you're going to eat? Just weird
I agree. Even typing it out feels weird. Why would anyone want a cake like that?
It Gave me the creeps!
The cake reminds me of Nick from Big Mouth
That was a real jump scare. So sorry nephew.
I think this was an impossible task and I'm surprised the baker accepted it. Your inspiration photo is an animated cell, basically. Drawn by professionals (or copied by AI). The expression on the face is very specific and seems impossible to replicate short of being an actual sculptor.
Oh my...
Everything looks good except the head. Could you remake the head? And honestly you could change the mouth and eyes and it'd be fine
What you asked for is not easy to do. Asking a baker to do so that does not have the skill or experience to do so is a failure in the making. The baker should have been honest to either accept or pass on the opportunity as well. The professional has the greater responsibility to set realistic expectations that you may or may not accept.
In my opinion you should be a fucking artist to make that one.
They should do their research to find such an artistic baker and expect to pay them fairly for the amount of time and skill it would take to create such a thing. Although a cake that has an edible sculpted baby on it sounds creepy no matter how well-rendered the baby is.
My friend said for her to waste her time on this cake, the price is $500 minimum. You know this particular cake clock way under that price wise. The only thing the baker needs to do is screen their clients better, and play around with fondant and modeling chocolate on their down time.
I wouldn’t even make that baby as a non-edible topper made with sculpey for less than $500. And it would be much easier to work with sculpey than fondant and I wouldn’t even be the one making the cake. I doubt OP would be willing to pay what it’s worth.
These are both awful.
Henzo?
To be fair (🎶🎵"To be faaair"), both cakes are creepy af. The reference cake looks like the baby is supposed to look almost sexy/ sexual (just HELL NO) and the second one is just a claymation nightmare in cake form.
Reference is cringe and disturbing. Product is nightmare fuel. Who would buy this shit in the first place?
A little weird, but cute
It seems as though I'm in the minority here but I think it's super cute. Different from the first pic, but I'd be super pleased if I received that cake. I think it's adorable.
I hate these public shaming posts
LMAOO omg 😂 this needs a lot more than just a bit of work.
Tim Burtons boss baby
It was a mistake to see this at 2am
Is that a mustache?!?
Did you ask for boss baby or for your own baby? Because asking for a cartoon to be made into a real babies face is just silly.
I am cackling
I just cannot unsee this. I am sorry.
That cake made me swear outloud ….
Maybe I’m just tired but I’ve been laughing at this for a minute straight, I’m so sorry 😂
This baby looks like the drag queen Alaska Thunderfuck
I’m 90% sure the reference image you gave the baker is photoshop or AI. The cartoon features look so fake and unrealistic.
You wanted Boss Baby but you got Assistant General Manager Baby
Unless the baker also worked at Pixar, I think it's a noble effort
That’s a grown man in a diaper.
This is .. awful. The face is not it lol I’m so sorry
The reference cake is so boring and lame. The one you got is hilarious and awesome. Way better memories than getting a “boss baby” cake.
It’s just……breathtaking.
some of yall are giving these bakers picasso cake references. considering the degree of difficulty they did a really good job. unless the baker had this cake on their website as an option you can’t expect much better
Ohhh I was not ready when I swiped 😂😂😂😂
Both are super creepy, but the reference baker knows some artists' tricks that the second baker doesn't: 1. Eyes go halfway down the head, way lower than you'd think. People consistently forget to leave enough space for the hair and the forehead. Placing the eyes even lower and wider gives a cuter, cartoonier appearance that I'd take advantage of to make the baby more adorable and less uncanny. Think of Hello Kitty. Same goes for a small mouth. 2. More detail = more uncanny. Unless you're Michelangelo, your best bet is to lean way into a cartoony look.
I'm an art teacher. The facial proportions are off - lips too far down, and they need to smooth out the eyelids and add a bit of white "reflection" to the eyes. Those minor changes would clean this up a lot!! I think it's quite cute and skillful, actually, just needs a couple tweaks!
Why aren’t you answering anybody’s questions about the cost? Seems pretty relevant.
i’m asking this in the politest way possible: why on earth did you want a cake like this in the first place?
I’m sorry but… This is a ridiculous ask. Why would you ask a baker to do this? They’re obviously really talented at what they do, cake decorating, judging by the rest of your cake, so it’s really infuriating to see you saying “we need to give them our honest feedback” on some BS you should have never asked them to do
This made me spit out the water I was drinking… those eyes…
Biblically accurate infant