The Great British Bake Off has become a major part of British culture and has become part of Britain’s global identity. With its pastel colours, gentle ribaldry, and delicious things to eat the Bake Off is the perfect calming show for our troubled lives. For an hour per week we can pretend we are in a tent with nothing more to worry about than a soggy bottom.

Despite often digging up obscure recipes for the bakers to try out there are some traditional bakes that we are unlikely to see tried out. Here are ten cakes too weird for TV.

Top 10 Bizarre Food Festivals

10 Witch Cakes

For centuries witches were among the most feared creatures a person could meet. Everything from a missing cow, to failed crop, to bread failing to rise could be laid blamed on a witch and her nefarious powers. To stop a witch’s curses crossing the threshold of the home amulets of various sorts could be hung behind the door. Sometimes these were natural objects like a hagstone (a stone with a hole in it) but sometimes they had to be made by the householder.

One of the ways to keep a witch and her evil out was to bake a special Witch Cake. Each year in Yorkshire between the 1st and 6th of April a small spiky cake with a hole in it was baked.^[1] Whether it was the hole, as in a hagstone, or the spikes that kept the witch out is not recorded. An example of a Witch Cake can be seen in the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford. The researcher who collected it said:

“Witch cakes are to be met with in almost every cottage. These are circular-shaped, with a hole in the middle and with spikes projecting on all sides. If you hang one up in your cottage and once a year burn it and replace it with another you will have good luck.” And no witches.

9 Urine Witch Cakes

Sometimes it is too late for a witch cake to ward off enchantment. If your find yourself bewitched though there is another cake you can make to help – but these Witch Cakes contain urine. In a case from Yorkshire, which seemed to have an inordinate number of witches, in 1683 a doctor with a cursed patient prescribed a cake made from the patient’s hair and urine, mixed with wheat and horse-shoe stumps. Luckily the patient did not have to eat it. The cake was thrown into a fire.

While urine-containing witch cakes were well known in Britain the most famous use of them came in the Salem Witch Panic. When young girls were thought to be bewitched the people of the town turned to witch cakes to try and identify the witch. Their technique was to make a cake from the cursed person’s urine and feed it to a dog.^[2] It was thought that the dog would reveal who was casting the spell.

Unfortunately Tituba, a slave of the family, who made the cake was later accused of being a witch – and her knowledge of the spells used in making a witch cake was one of the pieces of evidence used against her.

8 Whirlin’ Cakes

Cakes are not always useful in keeping away evil – sometimes they attract it. In the city of Ely the fifth Sunday after Lent was given over to the making of cakes called Whirlin’ Cakes. What exactly these cakes were has been lost to history but there is one tale about how they got their name.

An old lady of the area was hosting a party and had put all of her effort into making the most delicious cakes possible. One guest, a stranger, was so taken with the cakes that he could not get enough of them. Unfortunately for the old lady her unknown guest was the Devil in disguise.^[3] He turned into a whirlwind and whipped all of the cakes away – hence the name Whirlin’ Cakes.

Stealing cakes in the form of a whirlwind is an accolade somewhat more impressive than the Hollywood Handshake.

7 Parkin

Parkin is a fairly well-known traditional cake in Britain. A gingery and sweet cake it is popular in Northern England. Yet it is supposedly even more popular with dragons.

At Filey Brigg there is a nearly mile-long stretch of stone that juts out into the sea. There are several stories of how it formed but many involve a dragon and his love of this sticky cake. In the first the locals are annoyed at having a ravenous dragon nearby. So they came to it with offering of huge amounts of Parkin. When the dragon wolfed it down he found his jaws stuck together by the cake. With his mouth glued shut the villagers fell on the dragon, killed it, and its body turned to stone to form Filey Brigg.^[4] Maybe best not to feed parkin to people with false teeth.

In the other version of the story it was the work of a single woman who led to the dragon’s death. The wife of a certain Richard Parkin she invented the cake that dragon loved so much. When she fed the dragon huge amounts of it the dragon became so sleepy that it slipped into the sea and drowned.

6 Groaning Cake

“Two young men I knew about thirty years ago were taking a walk in West Cornwall; crossing over a bridge they met a procession carrying a baby to the parish church, where the child was to be baptised. Unaware of this curious custom, they were very much surprised at having a piece of cake put into their hands.”^[5] Little did these two men know that they were eating a Groaning Cake.

When a woman went into labour it was traditional for the women of the family to gather and bake a cake for her. Some thought that it was the smell of the baking cake that helped the new mother through her labours, though in Cambridgeshire they were known to add large amounts of gin that may have been even more effective.

After the birth slices of this groaning cake were given out to strangers, as seen above, but also to all single women present at the birth. Taking these pieces of cake the ladies could throw them over their right shoulder and walk backwards to bed. If they fell asleep before midnight then they would have a dream of their future spouse.

10 Bizarre Origin Stories About Your Favorite Foods

5 Dumb Cake

You did not have to wait for a birth though if you wanted to dream of your future love. The tradition of the Dumb Cake could be performed on several nights of the year. One of the most popular times to make a Dumb Cake was St Agnes’ Eve, the 20th of January. As St Agnes is the patron saint of virgins her association with finding a lover is somewhat hard to explain.

To make a Dumb Cake groups of young ladies would gather and bake in complete silence – hence the name of the cake.^[6] The recipe is not a particularly enticing one. One description of the ritual explains how “Every woman is obliged to assist in mixing the ingredients (flour, eggs and eggshells, soot, &c.), kneading the dough and baking the cake on the glowing embers; and when it is sufficiently baked, they divide it, eat it up, and retire to their beds backwards without speaking a word.”

If the ritual worked then their dreams would show their husbands-to-be.

4 Pope Ladies

In Hertfordshire there was a long tradition of serving somewhat horrifying looking buns called Pope Ladies, or Popladies. Roughly shaped like humans and sometimes decorated with dried fruit for eyes the cakes can be a little haunting to eat. One visitor in 1819 described them as “long and narrow, rudely resembling the human figure with two dried raisins or currants to represent eyes and another for the mouth, the lower part being formed rather like the outer case of an Egyptian mummy.”^[7]

The origin of the cakes is ancient and possibly mythical. In one version a group travelling towards St Albans got lost when night fell. They would have spent a long and cold night out had it not been for a light shining from the clock tower in city. Guided to safety the ladies of the group left money for cakes to be given to the poor.

Because the cakes were given out by monks they seem to have been thought of as the Pope’s Ladies.

3 Beltane Cakes

Beltane is a Gaelic holiday that was once widely celebrated in Scotland and Ireland on the 1st of May. It marked the beginning of summer and was a time of celebration when bonfires would be lit. For those who would want to try a bit of Beltane they can make a Beltane Cake.

According to one tradition a cake called the bonnach bea-tine was baked and distributed to all those present around the bonfire. One of the pieces of the cake was marked in some way and the one who received it was called ‘cailleach beal-tine’ – not a name you wanted – for the rest of the year.^[8] The unlucky person was carried towards the fire as if to be burned or pushed to the ground and pelted with eggshells.

Sometimes in place of a sweet cake oat-cakes were used that were shaped like humans. One was made for each person present but one was rubbed in the fire’s ashes. It was the person who pulled this unlucky cake from a hat who faced a ritual, and thankfully only pretend, sacrifice.

2 Bull Cakes

“Fill your cups my merry men all,
For here’s the best ox in the stall,
Oh he’s the best ox, of that there’s no mistake,
And so let us crown him with the 12th cake.”

This rhyme from Herefordshire reflects a tradition that saw cakes being given to bulls in hopes of getting a good harvest. The bull did not eat the cake but was dressed up in it.^[9] A cake with a hole in the middle was placed on the horn of the bull and how it reacted would predict how the coming harvest would go. If the bull tossed the cake forward then it was a good omen, but if the cake fell backwards then there would be slim eating come winter – and probably no cakes to waste on bulls.

If the bull would not toss the cake of its own accord then it could be poked until it did. If it still refused then a bucket of cider was thrown in the bull’s face.

1 Biddenden Maids

If you go to the village of Biddenden in England you will be welcomed by a sign showing two ladies joined at the hip and shoulder. These are the Biddenden Maids. Supposedly born in 1100 AD in the village Elisa and Mary Chulkhurst were conjoined twins who left behind a legacy beyond a sign. Each year cakes in the shape of the two ladies were handed out to visitors to commemorate their lives.^[10]

The Biddenden Maids were said to have left land to the local church when they died age 34. The income that this gift generated was to be used to buy food for the poor – and make the cakes that showed the ladies joined together.

While the cakes are still given out each year they are not particularly tasty. Mostly made from flour and water they are hard and mostly kept as souvenirs rather than eaten. Be careful about biting any Biddenden Cakes you may come across however – some of them are made of plaster and made for the tourists.

10 Crazy Myths You Believe About Fast Food

Hyperrealistic cakes started hitting the meme scene a handful of years ago, ultimately culminating in a TikTok challenge to guess if it’s cake or real. And while we “oh and ah” at these cake achievements, sometimes, when you see that cross-section, you don’t really want to eat it. Not to mention that most of these cakes are loaded up with fondant, which isn’t that tasty. That said, let’s start the list. Here are ten realistic cakes that you don’t want to eat.

Related: Top 10 Bizarre Cakes You Won’t See On The Great British Bake Off

10 Cigarette Cake

The war on tobacco, or rather cigarettes, is certainly no deterrent to conjuring up cool by using the image of the cigarette. But it really only works when a good-looking celebrity is the one smoking—and when you don’t see any of the carnage associated with it. Truly, one of the nastiest things out there is an ashtray with smushed-up butts, left out for days, wafting its stale smoke-laden scent into the room. So, why would you want to order or eat a cake with a fondant ashtray, complete with cigarette butts on top?

YouTuber Seller FactG had a reason, and I guess it was to show us all how to make it. Yes, they did a great job, and yes, this cake maker is talented. But no amount of talent would make me want to eat a cake with cigarettes and an ashtray on it. Someone else can fill that niche and their pie (cake) hole.

9 Sneaker Cake

Not going to lie. This next cake is really impressive, way more than the cigarette cake. Cakes StepbyStep shows us how to make a colorful sneaker cake, although I’m not sure how an amateur baker would be able to pull this off, even with the tutorial. More like step-by-step, you suck at making cakes, let me show you how it’s done, okay?

The cake maker manages to make a beautifully formed shoe mold out of a blue cake and adds shoe texture (because that exists) to the fondant. I barely even know how to tie my shoes.

As much as I bow down to the cake Lord on this one, I definitely would not want to eat it. Not only do I have little interest in eating a shoe, but I also have zero interest in eating fondant and ruining someone’s art.

8 Bloody Human Skin Cake

Fondant hatred aside, this cake may be obvious as to why you wouldn’t want to eat it. It is one of the most horrific, gruesome things I’ve ever seen in the baking world. Epic Confections designed this cake to be a Halloween centerpiece, and boy, did they hit the mark!

There is skin sewn together, bones, guts, a slimy, bloody glaze. It reminds me of dissection in Anatomy & Physiology in high school. The baker really did what they set out to do because I’m not touching this cake with a 10-foot pole, let alone eating it.

I do need to talk about fondant, though, because the intestines are made of it. Fondant is this marshmallowy, sugary icing that you can mold and dye to your liking. But it just tastes like this strange, soft, sugar comforter. It really is like eating a cake blanket. Now imagine a tube of that, in the shape of intestines. So if you are going to eat this cake, peel of the intestines first.

7 Cockroach Cake

Cockroaches are a living nightmare and an unfortunate fact for urban apartment dwellers. And you know that where there’s one, there’s hundreds of them lurking in the darkest corners of your house and crawling up your drains. However, with shows like Fear Factor, cockroaches have become less of a threat and more of a challenge. How long can you hold one? Can you put one in your mouth? Can you make a hyperrealistic cake of a cockroach?

Yes, to that last one. The answer is yes.

Cake maker Katherine Dey is an expert at hyperrealistic cakes, often crafting unusual picks. Scrolling through her Instagram, you’ll see a snail, larva, a liver, skulls, bats, and a human brain with the spinal cord attached to it. So, of course, she just had to make a cockroach cake.

Presented to a group of Buzzfeeders with terrible cockroach backstories, it is understandable that they freaked out when they first saw it. The detail is so incredible that it actually looks like the cake cockroach is alive. They eventually ate the cake but watching them slice it, you expect bug guts to come gushing out. Blah.

6 Kitty Litter Cake

When I was an innocent fourth-grade student, our class had a Halloween party. Every student had to bring in something to eat, which, in itself, is a potluck disaster. But this one kid brought in a dessert called kitty litter, complete with Tootsie Roll cat poop and all. It looked like kitty litter, all right.

Now, I thought that would be the first and last time I’d have to look at a kitty litter confection, but oh, I was wrong. I present to you the kitty litter cake. Going by a Try Guys “Without a Recipe” rubric, it is definitely a cake. But the cake is in a bin. And crushed butter cookies make the litter. And the poop even has those wrinkles in them. I’m not sure if the end product is supposed to be a cake or an actual litter box.

I don’t even know if we’re supposed to eat this cake or gawk at it and try to scoop out the cat poops.

5 Pig Head Cake

Nobody harmed any pigs while making this cake.

Going back to Katherine Dey, because there’s just so many good ones to choose from, we have the pig head cake, presented with a garnish on a silver platter. Though head cheese, as it’s officially called, is well-loved by some, when you’re literally given the full, unprocessed pig head on a platter, actually eating pig head becomes way less desirable.

It could be a good, somewhat cruel joke, though. As Dey captioned the official photograph of it, “Made a birthday cake for a vegan.”

4 Croc Cake

There are just some cakes you don’t want to eat because you actually don’t know it’s a cake and why would you eat that anyway? One example can only be introduced by a Vine of social media past: “What are those?!” “Those are my crocs!”

This cake looks so real that you’d probably assume your foot goes in it, not that you put the shoe in your mouth. If you skip to 0:26 in the video, you’ll see the full detail the baker, Tuba Geckil, added to the shoe. The croc holes are perfectly round; the texture of the croc sole is perfectly bumpy. So why would you ever want a croc in your mouth that doesn’t belong there in the first place?

(Cue jokes.)

3 Pimple Cupcakes

Most of the reason you don’t want to eat these cakes is psychological. It’s the thought of eating something that isn’t cake that psychs you out. And this cake falls into this category.

Technically a cupcake but still a cake. These pimple cupcakes are so obscene that no popaholic would be able to comfortably stomach the sight and eating process of them. They probably taste amazing, but I won’t be finding out anytime soon. I mean, the head of the zit is even red and inflamed, with some sort of substance oozing out of it. Oh yeah, the baker’s went in hard with this one. You can even squeeze the top, and pus, the frosting, will come out of the zit. And then you’re supposed to eat the frosting. It is accurate, clever, and inedible just by sight.

But tell me how it tastes because, again, it probably tastes really good.

2 Dead Head Cake

If your initial thought is that a Dead Head cake is a Grateful Dead, LSD-laced cake, you’re wrong. Sounds fun, but no. This is a cake literally made to look like someone’s severed, bloody head, eyes rolled back and all. So even though this cake has a buttercream frosting and red velvet cake base, I just can’t get over the idea of eating someone’s head, gushing with fake blood.

1 Human Body Cake

This one takes the cake. Though it may not be the most hyperrealistic, it’s pretty messed up, and one can only imagine the type of cannibalistic fantasies the bakers are trying to fulfill with this one.

A Chinese street food vendor made a cake shaped like a human torso, complete with arms. Then, someone with face paint sits underneath the cake and pretends to writhe as if their body is being eaten alive. It’s savage, mayhem, and someone else’s taste.

Hungry customers ask for pieces of the cake, and vendors dig right on in. You don’t know what it means when everyone wants a piece of you until someone turns you into a cake.