Reinterpreting the Ugly Cake

There’s a bakery in downtown San Jose that has very tasty desserts, and so-so service, that I’ve gone to a couple of times with coworkers. The last time I went, I came across this… creation. It fascinates me. I never thought a cake could be ugly, but here it is.

I honestly can’t tell what they were going for here, between the cross-sectioned slab plastered on the side, those hash marks stuck on at random angles, and that poor sugar decoration that just gave up the ghost. I stared at it for a while and could almost see a reindeer, but not quite. My friend Andrea was equally puzzled. So I took a photo for posterity and mostly forgot about it.

Recently I realized this could be a fun artistic challenge: what is this thing? Something about the layout and the color scheme seems redeemable. So here are three interpretations of it made in Photoshop over the course of one movie (Pineapple Express), and two CDs (Creeper Lagoon, Shivaree). I used a Tablet PC, which is challenging due to the parallax and the inability to easily and precisely nudge things. I’m also using it to write this blog entry via handwriting recognition, an exercise in patience.