Everyone loves a good slice of cake. Well, even if you don’t have much of a sweet tooth, you probably still take a piece whenever you’re at a birthday party. There’s something irresistible about that super-sweet sheet cake covered with sticky frosting.

You might not have ever tried to decorate a cake yourself. If that’s the case, you probably don’t know just how hard it is. Even just writing on a cake is a huge challenge. Those beautiful professional cakes that you see in bakeries are made by experts. They’ve spent years perfecting their ability to sculpt gorgeous things out of frosting, sugar, chocolate, icing, and fondant.

The bottom line…it’s hard to make a good cake. But when we order one from a professional bakery — for a birthday, baptism, wedding, anniversary, or some other occasions — we expect it to look great. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

Sometimes, even professional bakers make cakes that aren’t what the customer ordered. Some look ridiculous with misspelled words. Other times, the decorator misunderstood the instructions, leading to hilarious results. Here are 50 times cake decorators who took the customers orders just a little too literally.

1. What can we say? It’s a funny name

Apparently, when this cake was ordered, the baker decided to take the instructions literally. At least they got the right name on there…eventually.

2. Something tells me it was ordered from an iPhone

When you try to order a cake in a foreign country, you might want to triple-check it. Non-English speakers won’t know the difference between “Happy 9th birthday” and “Sent from my iPhone.”

3. “We want to have ‘happy birthday’ on both”

What we have here is a failure of quotation mark placement. Or who knows? Maybe the baker was bored and just decided to be a first-class troll.

4. There was miscommunication

For this graduation cake, the customer asked for the bakery to draw a “cap” on the picture of the graduate. Obviously, they misheard their instructions and just decided to roll with it.

5. Someone doesn’t understand flash drives

When you want a picture printed on a custom cake, you might not want to give the bakery the picture on a flash drive. Otherwise, you might end up with something like this.

6. “I want nothing on the cake”

If there’s anything you should learn from these, it’s to be very specific when you order a cake. For example, never tell a bakery you want “nothing” on the cake.

7. Wait, where are we celebrating?

In case you’re confused, they wanted the words “Let’s celebrate” in the middle of the cake. Instead, they got this confusing suggestion that probably prompted a lot of questions at the party.

8. Is this how you speak Spanish?

When you tell the bakery staff you want the cake to say “Happy Birthday” in Spanish, you might get…well, exactly that.

9. Technology and cakes don’t mix

So here’s what happened: the customer had a picture saved on an old phone and wanted the bakery to print the photo on the cake. They left the phone there so the bakers could access it. There was a slight misunderstanding…

10. She’s got to say yes to a severed hand

When you’re going to propose to your girlfriend, the best way to do it is in cake form, of course. But make sure it’s as garish and bizarre as possible, complete with a Halloween hand.

11. Coach Tom might need to go to the hospital

If we’re announcing news about Coach Tom’s big purple balls, I know two things: Coach Tom shares way too much personal information and he definitely needs to see a doctor.

12. See ya

There are so many things wrong with this cake — for one thing, labeling it “Mickey Mouse cake” does not make it a Mickey Mouse cake. Also, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to say “Michael — goodbye.”

13. Don’t email instructions to the bakery

When you email instructions to the bakery, you might think everything’s as clear as it could possibly be. But as it turns out, not so much.

14. “I want it to say ‘Happy Birthday.’ Just ‘Happy Birthday.’”

You have to wonder why bakers don’t question themselves when they’re making cakes like this. Maybe they make so many they become numb to requests that don’t make sense.

15. We’re not speaking the same language

Well…with a cake like this, at least Daniel knows what they were going for. Of course, it wasn’t executed properly. But it’s the thought that counts.

16. No, I can’t

I can’t help but feel like it would’ve been easier to draw some puzzle pieces. Instead, the baker made more work for themselves by writing out the request.

17. Well…at least there’s a flag

Perhaps this baker thought that “50th in the flag” was a golf term. I don’t know, I’m just trying to cut them some slack. I do like how the golf balls say “GOLF.”

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18. For your 30th, you get no decorations

This cake’s a failure in more ways than one. Not only have they completely missed the point of the instructions, but they misspelled the word “sprinkles”…and there are no sprinkles.

19. None of this is correct

This cake was supposed to say “Congratulations, you did it.” Instead, pretty much everything on it is wrong. Ironically, it was for students who had successfully passed their exams.

20. It must be his full name

Maybe the baker thought “With Blue Flowers” was a family name. After all, you never know these days. Some people have strange names.

21. Thank goodness Sheri still has one eye

What started out as instructions for spelling ended up as a hilarious nickname. I really hope that Sheri’s friends call her “Sheri With One Eye” from now on.

22. “This feels right”

This penmanship (frosting-man-ship?) is lovely, but that’s really all you can say about this cake. Let’s admit that they didn’t understand the customer’s vision.

23. When you want to congratulate them, but only a little bit

This is bound to turn into an awkward conversation at the party. They’re definitely going to ask why the congratulations had to be small. What, they weren’t good enough for a big congratulations?

24. The most underwhelming cake ever

There’s a story behind this cake. After giving instructions to the baker, the customer confirmed: “So you’re doing it?” They said, “Yes.” As you can see, that’s exactly what they delivered.

25. That’s all I want

You’d think that simple would be easier when it comes to ordering professional cakes, but clearly, that’s not always true. The customer said, “Just write ‘Happy Birthday’” and the bakery delivered.

26. It’s the most wonderful time of the year

There’s more than just Christmas being celebrated in December. There’s Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and even some you’ve never heard of — like Chrilmas, a lesser-known holiday celebrated by very few.

27. Well, they technically complied

When a baker asks a customer what they want on the cake and they say “I want #1 on it”…this can happen. At least they got the main message across, sort of.

28. For when you’re celebrating early

Sometimes, you have to celebrate a birthday a little early, which means adjusting the words on the cake accordingly. This bakery didn’t quite understand what they were going for.

29. “Here’s a picture for reference”

This customer gave the bakery a picture of the cake they wanted, with the name “Caleb” instead of “Warriors.” The bakers decided they’d just print the entire picture. Is this cakeception?

30. A beach scene “w/o sky”

When the customer wants a beach scene “without sky” in it, you give them what they want. And if you forget and add a sky, just write the words “w/out sky” on it. Now everything’s fine.

31. When you give the bakery too much creative license

As we’ve seen, you can’t be too specific when it comes to giving instructions to a bakery. But you also can’t give them too much freedom. And definitely, don’t tell them to write “Something really inappropriate.”

32. Musical notes

Here’s my theory with this one: the cake decorator has no idea what music notes look like. I guess not all of us played the recorder in elementary school.

33. They chose image #315

When the customer received their daughter’s confirmation cake, they were perplexed about the decoration. As it turned out, they had chosen Design #315 in the bakery book.

34. I can’t decide which is the worst part

This epic cake fail was for a couple’s 50th anniversary, and the guests certainly had something to talk about. I can’t decide what’s the most ridiculous part: the mucus-colored icing, the words “lime green,” or “anniverscury.”

35. When in doubt, just label it

A smash cake, if you didn’t know, is one made for a baby’s first birthday. It’s small and intended to be, well, smashed. It’s…not usually labeled.

36. Inside jokes don’t translate well to cakes

This customer wanted a cake for her boss that said “So…” with 18 dots. Apparently, it was an inside joke. The bakery didn’t quite understand how to “fallow” her instructions.

37. I wonder who ordered this cake

Everything about this cake is beautiful, from the decoration to the lettering. And hey, who knew you could put a customer’s name and address right on top. All that’s missing is a stamp.

38. Literally

Could the customer have been any more specific with their instructions for this cake? They just wanted the words “wedding cake” written on the top. So of course, they said, “Literally just write ‘wedding cake.’”

39. They made their job much harder

All that was supposed to be on this cake were the letters “CC” with no other words or punctuation. That decorating job was easy-peasy…until the decorator created some extra work for themselves.

40. There was plenty of room

The customer, as you’ve probably already guessed, wanted the name “Seth,” but only if there was some extra room on the cake. I especially love the unnecessary quotation marks around the name.

41. Did I get this right?

This cake — well, pie, actually — had a pretty cute idea behind it. Unfortunately, the decorator had no idea what they were doing.

42. You got it, sort of

The customer just wanted the cake to say “Wendy and Dave” with some cute hearts sprinkled around. What they didn’t want was an extra line of nonsense in the middle of the cake.

43. Best wishes, Suzanne

This was one of the internet’s original cake fails. Clearly, the baker was told to write “Best wishes, Suzanne” — then, UNDERNEATH THAT — “We will miss you.” They didn’t quite manage to get the instructions right.

44. Seriously, just the bat

Once a character is well-known, they don’t need to be identified by name. Everyone knows what the Bat-Signal looks like — especially if it’s unhelpfully labeled.

45. This is oddly motivational

Or rather, it looks like an attempt at an inspirational cake. Ultimately, it just comes across as silly. Clearly, the decorator was told to make a rainbow “as big as it can be.”

46. Maybe her last name is “On It”

The instructions couldn’t have been simpler — just write Margaret, the name of the graduate. But apparently, decorating cakes never goes as planned. I love the pointless quotation marks around the whole thing.

47. Really emphasize her age

Everyone loves it when you loudly proclaim they’re getting older, right? Especially when it also comes across like a crack about their weight. Sorry for your awkward birthday party, Kim.

48. Would a “please” kill you?

This is a rude way to put in a cake order. Maybe the customer was so obnoxious that the bakery decided to respond in much the same way. Regardless, it makes for a horribly bad cake.

49. We’re waiting…

Something tells me this customer wasn’t sure what they wanted on the cake. So, they said they’d call back with instructions. We’ll let you guess how that turned out.

50. When you piss off the decorator

Here’s another cake that comes across like the customer was just unbearably rude. Follow this life rule: don’t swear at someone and then let them take creative license with your cake.

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Source: Buzzfeed, Reddit, Bored Panda, Cake Wrecks