Zoiks. This is why you shouldn't bake sheet birthday cakes during dinner hour at home!!

I had two perfect sheets for my DD's friend's b-day, baked and iced and sitting out waiting to ...crust..? I never use crusting icing, but the kids love it, so there they are...sitting on THE STOVETOP, looking great, waiting to be smoothed. I'm cleaning up the mess so I can get in the 'zone' and finish them.

(Background info for this week: I'm losing a war of weeds with a 5600 sq ft veg garden that I can't get to, the beets are are big as baseballs, I have spent 2 days cutting back 140 roses, I'm covered in thorn scratches, I have a wedding for 300 tomorrow, AND my oldest friend from AZ called to say she's coming for the weekend. I'm tired and behind and frazzled, and THEN I told DD's friend's mom that "sure, an Asian theme sheet cake with painted fondant and chinese lettering should be NO PROBLEM" I'm an idiot.)

Fast forward to DH coming home with "Hey, I'm starving, what's for dinner?" I'm up to my elbows in cake mess and dishes, so I have DD make him a plate of cheese and olives and call around the corner to the living room "I got some oysters--if you want, I'll throw them in the oven"--reach over the sheet cakes and hit "ON" for the oven temp, without even thinking. Which promptly starts heating to 350, meanwhile blowing excess HOT AIR out the vent on the top of the back of the stove, and RIGHT ONTO THE CAKES.

The oven beeps that it's preheated, and almost simultaneously I scream "OH NO! #@^$~!" And before I even look, I know what the back of those sheet cakes will look like. Yep--melted to liquid, puddling and dripping right off the cake boards.

I yank them both off the stove, swear a bit more for the benefit of my two kids who are staring wide eyed at their mom and the cakes, and skoosh the ruined icing off the ruined corners and the boards and into a cup, sputtering and muttering about how late I'll be up tonight fixing this mess...

It has a happy ending, though: I learned that you can fix a total mess like this. I scraped them as clean as I could and put them in the fridge for a long time, then took some of the remaining BC and, you wouldn't believe how easy it was to smooth it right over the bare corners and cold but melted mess, and they looked good as new in just a few minutes.

So--the moral is:

1. Never work on cakes at dinner time!
2. Yes, you CAN fix a melted puddled BC cake (as long as you're still at home when it happens...)

If I can survive the rest of this weekend, and no day off (the friend from AZ will be here tomorrow, and I'm driving her an hour away to see another old friend, so there goes the 'family day'), I'll be doing great.

Have a great weekend, all. ciao

I feel your pain-I would always put my finished cake in the oven for safe keeping (stupid to begin with but my cat loves icing and there was no where else) and more than once I or DH have turned the oven on to make dinner and @#$%$#$ I have to say the worst that has happened is the cake board has started to bend and I grab it in time!!! Since then I have added a laundry room with a door and counters to avoid this !!!

UGH! At least there was a great save.

I frequently bake during the actual eating of dinner, but my "works in progress" cakes don't go anywhere near the kitchen - it's too small. My cooling / iced cakes tend to sit on the enclosed porch.

I'm sorry, I laughed, especially at the extra swearing. (i get what my BF calls "cake rage") it was an interesting time 2 weeks ago decorating in a church!

Thanks for swearing...I mean sharing your story...good luck this weekend!

homecook, I'm glad the story had a happy ending! Lesson learned, I'm sure.

And, dee-lite, I've had more than just a cake or two ruined by that practice of putting stuff in the oven to keep it away from our three cats. I actually have a GOOD habit now where whenever I reach up to turn the oven on I always check inside. I also use my small portable oven, like a large toaster oven - with the glass door - to put stuff out of cats' reaches or else they go into the apartment attached to my house.

So I feel your pain, but again, I'm glad to hear that the cakes were able to be fixed so well.

Ya'll are nicer than me!! When I am decorating and it becomes meal time -- I cook -- and I wouldn't dare put a finished or iced cake on my stove because the exact same thing would happen -- but my family (usually just DH now) just has to find 'someplace' to eat - since I will have the countertop, eating bar and dining table covered with cakes, gear and supplies!

But I usually try to wait to decorate until after supper (and my kitchen has cleared of all other humans!) before I start decorating -- I don't do well with bystanders! LOL!

I have stored cakes in the oven before too only I take the knob off of the stove panel so no one can turn it on...of course I have to remember where I hide the knob!

Paula

hehe,srrry its not that ur disaster is funny,its jus amazing to me to know that im not the only one who gets crazy when something goes wrong with my cakes[seriously,sometimes its worse than pms!]
but i am soo glad that it all worked out for u!