Natasha Clarke
Food & Wine

“Grandma meant Elmo”: Cake-maker reveals hilarious baking blunder

An American baker has left the internet in stitches after misreading her customer’s custom cake request, instead delivering a baking blunder for the Sesame Street history books.

In a video posted to her TikTok account, Brianna Romero - who is known professionally as Brinni Cakes - confessed her mistake to the world, recounting the story of how a recent order from a grandmother had led her to the creation of her new friend ‘Emo Elmo’.

“So my worst nightmare happened,” she said, with audio playing over a timelapse of Brianne constructing another cake. “Last week a lady DMed me and asked me if I could make her an emo cake, and I was thinking ‘yes, of course, I love emo and I love goth, and I know I’ve been perfecting my black frosting so I’m ready for this’.” 

Brianna went on to explain that she’d gotten all of her customer’s information, and set to work. However, an hour before she was set to deliver the cake, she decided to offer the woman a number candle - an offer that was soon accepted. 

“She said ‘yes, the cake is for my granddaughter and she’s turning four’”, Brianna explained in the clip. “And I thought that that was a little bit weird, ‘cause I don’t know an emo four year old.”

After trying to understand the weird request, Brianna figured that the little girl must just be a fan of something like Netflix’s Wednesday series. Unfortunately, this was not the case. 

“Something felt wrong,” she noted, before describing how she’d reach out again to ask what the theme of the party was, only to find out it was Sesame Street. 

“So my heart sinks a little bit because this is now making sense to me,” she said. It was then that Brianna returned to the original exchange between herself and her customer, and had her worst fears confirmed. 

“I misread emo,” Brianna admitted, “and it said an Elmo cake.”

Luckily, Brianna was a quick thinker in her time of stress and rushed out to find an Elmo topper for her cake, before offering the cake for free.

 

Brianna’s audience were obsessed with her tale, and the video shot to viral heights, with over 11.7 million views to its name. 

“As soon as you revealed it was for a 4yr old I was like ‘oh no, grandma meant Elmo’,” one follower wrote. 

“Praying it’s Elmo with a side bang,” said another. 

Her misfortune drew in over a thousand comments, but there was a recurring thought that stood out among the chorus, and that was a request to see the baked blunder. 

And while Brianna admitted in an update that she hadn’t had the time to snap pictures on the day of delivery, she did her best with her follow-up video, sharing photos of cakes that looked “almost exactly” like her own, to the delight of her worldwide audience. 

“This is so funny,” someone said. “Elmo with a side bang has me in tears.”

Meanwhile, another commenter wanted to know what the recipients had thought about their unique goods. 

“She tried to pay still but I told her everything that happened and we just laughed it off,” Brianna said. “It was just for a small family party anyway.”

Images: TikTok

Tags:
cake, food, fail, Elmo, Sesame Street, emo