Awesome Cakes

Pastry artist Liz Marek of Sugar Geek Show created this awesome checkerboard-patterned cake that looks like a lumberjack’s flannel shirt on the inside and a tree stump on the outside. In this tutorial video, you’ll learn how to make this cake, and also get a glimpse at the edible chocolate axe Liz made to go with it.

While they might not be good for us, Little Debbie snacks are a serious guilty pleasure. Weird History Food delves into the origins and evolution of the company that gave us classics like Star Crunch, Swiss Cake Rolls, and Oatmeal Creme Pies. And yes, Little Debbie is a real person.

This satisfying compilation video from Food Kingdom takes us on a tour of five factories in Korea that make different kinds of foods. We start off with rainbow-colored cake layers, followed by corn chip snacks, deep-fried and stuffed tofu pouches, chocolate nut mini brownies, and chocolate cakes. We’re so hungry now.

If you’ve ever watched Nailed It!, you know that it takes some skill to cleanly frost a cake. This piece of factory equipment from Unifiller Systems does the hard work by squeezing out frosting and smoothing it. The Cake-o-Matic 1000i can ice the top and side of a cake in just 1.3 seconds, and can also fill layers or decorate pies.

Whenever we try to decorate a cake, the frosting comes out an uneven mess. What we need is the Bakon Piston Depositor with the Cake Decorator option. This robotic cake-making machine smoothly applies layers of frosting to a spinning cake, then a second component squirts out perfectly piped frosting flowers.

Pastry and chocolate expert Amaury Guichon shows off another of his masterful edible creations. While this may look exactly like a banana, it’s a deliciously-complex gourmet dessert filled with a banana bread sponge, banana caramel, banana mouse, pecan streusel, and coated with crunchy chocolate.

Pastry artist Lara Mason specializes in baking unusual and realistic cakes. If you’ve got a strange request, she’ll rise to the challenge, even if your idea involves an anatomically-correct bulldog named Dave in a captain’s uniform, or an upside-down Spider-Man hanging from his web.

Pastry artist Natalie Sideserf is known for her amazingly detailed and realistic cake designs. Natalie traveled back to the Cretaceous era to give us this incredible work of edible art, a T-Rex that looks good enough to eat and is sure not to bite back. Would you start with the head or the tail?

From James Beard award-winning chef Stephanie Izard’s bakery Sugargoat comes a delicious treat for lovers of sweet breakfasts. This very special dessert features layers of sourdough pancake cake with maple syrup-infused buttercream and a crumbled oat streusel on top. Serves one or more people depending on your mood.

Do you suck at decorating cakes? This oversize pencil makes it easy to write words and drizzle icing on pastries and plates. Simply fill it like a syringe, then gently squeeze the pencil to draw fine lines on cakes, cookies, cupcakes, and more.

Pastry artist Natalie Sideserf thought it might be fun to make a cake that looks just like a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. Her replica is so spot-on that the only way you could tell the difference is once you cut into it and see the shockingly green buttercream frosting layered inside.

Among other things, Sideserf Cake Studio is really good at baking cakes that look like other food items. Here’s a compilation of some of their favorites, including cakes that look like a lemon, an onion, a head of lettuce, and even a McDonald’s Filet O’ Fish sandwich. If you don’t believe these are real, check this out.

Alexandre Dubosc’s chocolatey creation is an edible work of art covered with images from the world of music, including notes on a staff, piano keys, and sonic waveforms that all come to life when spun in front a properly synced camera or strobe light. The towering treat is topped by a tuning fork.

A look inside the factory where The Piping Gourmets make their gluten-free whoopie pies. While mixing up the ingredients is a pretty mundane task, we loved watching the machines that precisely squirt out the cake batter and frosting. We also love the way the narrator says “whoo-pee.”

(PG-13) Katherine Dey of Deviant Desserts makes realistic cakes and other pastries. She loves to make anatomical – sometimes of the naughty kind – busts, and even insects. She accepts custom orders.

Kaci Hansen aka the Homicidal Homemaker shows us how to make a delightful cake that pays tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The yule log style roll cake features a pattern inspired by the pattern on the rug at the Overlook Hotel, along with a decorative axe.

Want to make a dessert that’s sure to be the talk of the party? Ann Reardon of How to Cook That shows us how to create a tasty salted caramel and chocolate cake that looks like a pot overflowing with popcorn. She makes it look easy, but we’re sure it’s not. Full recipe here.

Always gleeful pastry chef Rosanna Pansino shows us how to create a cake that looks like a computer motherboard from the Nerdy Nummies Cookbook. It’s populated with candy components and circuit traces made from icing. Kit Kats really do look like electronic parts.