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I’ve long been a fan of the ugly hedgehog cake – a trend that started years ago when people proudly displayed their attempts at a beautifully rendered hedgehog on social media.

Or, even better, their children sucked it up and plastered on a smile, posing with the cake at a birthday party.

It’s arguably one of the easiest animal cakes to get right, yet somehow it almost always goes horribly wrong.

Observe the image above.

It looks like it’s coming for your soul.

Despite this, the appeal of the ugly hedgehog cake was simple.

Not only is it hilarious (many bakers had no idea that they’d failed), but it’s also a nice break from those irritating posts on Instagram where people bombard their followers with endless snaps of expertly arranged food, or coffee, or whatever else is edible, looks good and is in range of a smartphone.

The trend has expanded, and there’s no better example of the drive for weird-looking food than what VICE describes as “the lurid side of cake Instagram”.

Leading the pack is artist and designer Sara Sarmiento, whose Instagram account @hoe_cakes celebrates the weirder side of cake snaps on social media.

“I don’t want to say ugly, but just like, messy in a visceral kind of way,” she said of her preference. Ugly isn’t a negative to her—in fact, “the uglier, the better”—though she isn’t sure how other people might feel about it.

“They are ugly and messy and just like, slutty. I don’t know why ‘slutty’ is the word that I would describe these cakes as, but that is one.” These cakes are Big Fondant’s worst nightmare.

And there it is in the bottom right-hand corner – the majestic ugly hedgehog cake.

The term ‘Instagram food’ is used to describe food designed to go viral, with perfect lighting and perfect presentation.

The energy in this part of the Instagram cake scene is different. Its lack of veneer is irreverent, like a shitpost selfie, the flash illuminating every pore. A corrective to the idea of “Instagram food,” these are cakes nonplussed with perfection.

Ceramic-artist-turned-hobbyist-baker Alli Gelles, who makes cakes that would most certainly earn themselves a spot in Sarmiento’s visual collection, describes the cakes she shares on @cakes4sport as “fairly chaotic”.

“A lot of the imagery, I think, is based on my Y2K bedroom… When I started working in this ‘anything goes’-mode, I started reverting back to that,” she said.

In ceramics, Gelles prefers when she can create without obsessing over technicality, and that approach extends to cakes. “Because I’m working from an artist lens as opposed to a professional baker lens, [it’s] almost like the rules don’t apply.”

Sure, keep telling yourself that that’s the reason your cakes look the way they do.

Overall, it’s a nice break from the often unobtainable standards created by influencers and brands.

I’ll leave you with one last ugly hedgehog cake:

Stunning.

[source:vice]