Ugly Cake, the Making of

Happy New Year ('s eve)!

Jams and Maggs are together and pissed at Tams! (Okay, not really. But she did steal our New Year's Ugly Cake idea...or just got to it first. Whatever).

So, to one-up the Kitchen Ninja, here's a much BETTER Ugly Cake (cuz you don't have to eat somebody's face to enjoy it). And also: a tutorial. Whee!

Step One: Make a cake. Any cake. Ugly Cake is not picky. We chose devil's food. (Maggs says: "Please enjoy my Gramma's antique mixing bowls and my lack of counter space").

Step Two: Gather your decorative toppings. Since we are not as ambitious as the Kitchen Ninja, we purchased our icing. Buttercream. Yum. Usually, we use decorator's icing to make freehand drizzle, but as we were feeling particularly lazy, we went for the candy topping: Milk Duds. The Reese's were for eating. They just wanted to be in the picture. Reese's are such attention whores.

Step Three: Turn cake(s) out of their baking pans. Usually, with cake baking, presentation is key. However, the key to a successful Ugly Cake is impatience. It's best not to wait until the cake is completely cool before inverting. Tonight, we were lucky and the cake came free of the pan without incident. Usually, it breaks into a million different-sized chunks ("all the better to build with," says Maggs), but since both cakes came out of their pans quite easily, we went for a traditional two-tiered structure rather than a more creative approach. If your cake falls into a million pieces, don't fret. Simply paste the chunks together in whatever formation you desire. Icing is the glue of the cake world. It can hide a multitude of sins.

Step Four: Ice that thing! Again, impatience pays off. It's best to ice the cake while it is still warm, so you can experience the frustration of icing slippage and runoff. This will also ensure that your candy topping won't completely adhere to the icing's surface.

(Okay...I guess the icing doesn't cover all sins).

Step Five: Decorate with your choice of toppings. The Milk Duds give it an unexpected chewy texture. We couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not...a tasty thing, yes. But not necessarily good.

(Topping slippage: an unexpected delight).

Step Six: Enjoy the finished product. Remember: the more bizarre the shape, the more fun it is to cut!

We hope this tutorial was a helpful one. Remember: if you are trying to make a cake, but are too impatient to do it properly, make an Ugly Cake. Just be sure to tell everyone you did it on purpose, or else they'll just think you're inept.

Jams & Maggs out!

Happy New Year!