Mum fools family into thinking she’d forgotten to cook Thanksgiving turkey with ultra-realistic cake

‘They were disgusted until they realised it was a cake,’ Fernanda Pacheco says

Fernanda Pacheco’s disturbingly realistic confection ( Fernanda Pacheco / SWNS)

A mother fooled her family into thinking she’d forgotten to put the turkey in the oven for Thanksgiving – until she cut into the “raw meat” revealing it was a cake.

Fernanda Pacheco, 50, brought out the hyper-realistic cake and proceeded to cut into what they her family thought was a raw turkey.

It’s not the first time Fernanda has tricked her offspring. Previously she pranked her daughter, Reanna, 15, into thinking she’d got her a Big Mac from McDonalds when it was actually a chocolate fudge cake.

Fernanda got into baking in 2010 after seeing artists create amazing cakes on YouTube.

She used tutorials to teach herself to make the creations and challenged herself to start doing hyper-realistic cakes in 2019.

Now she has made a 24in tall Vecna cake inspired by the Netflix show Stranger Things, Pennywise, a tortoise and many more.

Fernanda, of Whitby, Canada, said: “I love to fool my family and friends with my cake.

“At Thanksgiving I brought out the cake in a little silver turkey tray and just said, ‘Oh my god, I forgot to put it in the oven.’ They were all just staring it at it and I said, ‘I’ll just try cutting it.’

“They were disgusted until they realised it was a cake. I just really enjoy making the cakes.”

Fernanda has been rustling up her masterpieces for 12 years, improving her skills with YouTube tutorials.

She wanted to challenge herself three years ago by making hyper-realistic cakes.

Fernanda Pacheco has been baking for more than a decade ( Fernanda Pacheco / SWNS)

“I made a hamburger cake for my daughter, and she took a bite of it and was very surprised when she realised it was chocolate,” Fernanda said.

“She thought it was a burger from McDonalds.”

Fernanda can spend an entire day making a single cake, using modelling chocolate for the detailing.

Her bigger cakes, such as Vecna, need a structure such as a rod or pipe, usually constructed by her husband, Mike, 62, a retired power washer, and take two to three days to plan and make.

“I pile all the cake onto the structure and then carve them and decorate with modelling chocolate,” she said.

“I make most of my cakes for family and friends so most of them are chocolate fudge flavour as that’s our favourite.

“My cakes make me happy, and I love baking them. It’s great that I can fool my family with them now, but they sometimes know it’s a cake.

“But the more you practice the more you get better. I believe that anything can be made into a cake.”

SWNS