Just Add Ranch Dressing

Some of you may remember my post last year about Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa Celebration Cake. For those of you who don't, you might take a minute to look over THE WORST RECIPE EVER CONCEIVED, if only because it will make the rest of this post a little more funny. For whatever reason, this Kwanzaa cake has been coming up a lot in conversation lately. I think it's because my brother loves the sheer absurdity of the whole recipe and the various steps it takes, each worse than the one before, so it's often at his cajoling that the story is told again and again. Really, it's only a matter of time before someone in my immediate family or friend group makes this cake and brings it to a gathering for a joke.

And just looking at the recipe, you would think that that would be the case everywhere: that the only instance someone would actually purchase ingredients and spend time making this cake would be for a really big joke. But this world is a sad place, and it turns out there are people who have made this recipe for real. And brought it to social gatherings. And fed it to their loved ones.

Last night my phone rang, and from the other end I could hear my brother on the verge of exploding with glee. "There are reviews!" he said, and proceeded to tell me that he'd found the recipe online and discovered that not only had many people made this cake, many people were NOT HAPPY they had made the cake.

Here is a sampling:

I found this offensive to my heritage.

Inexplicable...Why is there popcorn on the cake? It was picked off before any one ate a piece.Who would find this delicious? Truly strange.

It was very easy to make but it tasted awful. Most of it went in the trash.

It looks like its mocking an ethnic group.

Just add a packet of ranch dressing. It's the only thing that could make this recipe any worse...Corn nuts? Are you crazy?

It didn't sound so bad to start but then it became obvious that this was a ridiculous recipe!!!

Wow. I thought this cake would be an interesting thing to take to our multi-cultural party at work. Well, needless to say this cake sat relatively untouched after the first person who tasted it almost gagged. I would recommend that you not waste your money on this concoction.

All my guests came to same conclusion I did and that's this cake has strange ingredients. This item just did not go over well and I had 12 people at my home who agreed. I wish this had worked and felt badly for my guests and family

When I watched this show I thought this might be a good cake for a "change of pace", but after putting in together and serving I now realize how much of a mistake I made.

When we saw this cake on line it looked rather interesting, but when prepared in real life, it looked very sad.

I tried this with an open mind. I just didn't get the popcorn on the cake.

I like salty + chocolate as a combo, but this was just too sweet, and the apple/chocolate/salted corn/creamy/angel food grouping was...not right...This one just wasn't a winner.

The best ones are the ones you can tell have a little story behind them. I think a lot of Sandra Lee's followers are people who desperately want to impress people with their cooking skills, but don't actually have any. They turn on her show and see a perfectly turned out woman creating elaborate dishes with ordinary items, and they think this is their free ticket to praise and glory in the kitchen. Then, when canned frosting and corn nuts don't turn out to be a crowd pleaser, they feel betrayed. Which makes for hilarious comment-leaving. After the Kwanzaa cake reviews, we went searching for more and found a couple golden ones buried in the Christmas Crescent Ring recipe.

My best friend Colleen made this for our weekly card club. She said she spent hours on it to get it just right with the icing and all. I didn't have the heart to tell her how "thrown together" and cheap it tasted, but there was another newer member who did just that. I offered to ride Colleen home and told her that the new member was correct, but we all appreciated her effort.

My office had a pot luck and I brought this in. The only people who took a piece were myself and my closest coworker/friend. She confided to me that this tastes like a combination of cheap rolls and corn syrup laden jelly. I thanked my coworker and quickly removed this item from the pot luck table.

I wanted to make an impression on my mother in law because she's such a cooking perfectionist. Unfortunately I should have not chosen this recipe in attempt to make that impression. Let me just say this indeed made an impression on my mother in law, but not in a positive way. We were both all smiles while sitting at the tale drinking coffee and getting gift ideas from holiday catalogs. Upon her first bite, my mother in law's smile immediately changed to a frown followed by her asking me where on earth I got this recipe. She immediately knew these were crescent rolls and told me it was the worst tasting breakfast treat she's ever had. This is a terrible thing to make - please skip this mess.

Sometimes I think of Sandra Lee sitting around with her buddies at a bar and just slaying them all with the newest thing she pulled over on the public. "And then!" she'd gasp, "I had them use a store-bought apple pie...as an ingredient!"