Arrrggghhhh!!!

We are newb's to decorating. I usually bake gourmet cookies, brownies, banana bread, etc. We also do cupcakes and a few slices of cake here and there. So we already have a regular following. A few months ago we decided to start learning more about making cakes and decorating.

This is mainly "my" thing but my hubby doesn't mind helping with decorating the cakes. He is better at it too. So I bake, he decorates.

This is really pathetic...it was a 1/4 sheet cake!!



I know what happened though.

Joe's days off are Thursday - Saturday. The lady said she wanted it for the 3rd(he was working), and I am new and excited to be getting one of my first few cake orders so I didn't want to say, "Hey, one of those other days will be better."

So Joe gets off at 3. He is tired, but is willing to get this done. SO I figured I could bake and he could get home by 3:30 and decorate and it could be ready by 6:00. No problem.

This is a 1/4 sheet cake but it is 50% bigger than a regular one.

So we get back by 4:00 and I baked and left it on the rack at 2:00. I thought that would be plenty of time, to cool. Well when we return, he leveled it and torted it , but he didn't tell me it was still a little warm.

He didn't think it was a big deal. (Like I said we are new to caking.)

I had heavy whipped cream filling ready & strawberries. I finally got indydebis buttercream recipe right so there was no fussing with the frosting. Yeah! Thank you indydebi!!

This cake is very sturdy, as you can see in my chocolate with strawberry's cake picture.

When we were at Michaels, buying the $140.00 decorating kit, I mentioned,"Maybe we should buy a cake lifter?"

But he said, "WHat do we need that for? I can use those two big knives."

I said, "Okay, you're the decorator."

SO after he torted it, he was using his hands to move it and when he went to put it on top of the other cake, it cracked.

Just a little at first but before he iced it looked like this:



I had that happen a few days earlier on this chocolate cake. I did a 10" and 2 8" rounds for labor day to slice and sell. The 10" cracked practically in half when I got it out of the pan. But it was okay. He still frosted it and everything looked fine and we wound up selling slices off the top. Couldn't even tell this cake was cracked.

So even though this was cracked, I was thinking, once we got frosting, on it would be okay. I wasn't taking into account this was the top layer though, or that there was filling which would make it slide on top of that. Or that we would be transporting this cake. I also didn't know that the cake was still warm and that it would melt the whipped cream.

He was tired and wasn't thinking.

When he was icing, it did keep trying to fall, but he thought he fixed it okay.

Here it is before we left to go to their house:



At 15 til 6 we needed a few extra minutes so I called and her mom answered and said she was out and 6:30 was fine. We get in the car and drive 2 miles. And hit a few unexpected bumps.

Joe opens the trunk and he is pissed!!!!

I was mortified!! The back part of the cake was coming down. It wasn't as bad as you seen in the upper pic but still really bad. I tell him, lets go in with the cake and you go home and get some frosting and try to fix this.

The grandma was really nice about it.

At first I thought maybe I should refund this lady her money. And Joe was really upset thinking they were having a party getting ready to start. But thank the good Lord they weren't!!

The grandma said they weren't, so all I could think is I could remake this and bring it the next day! She said that was fine.

WHew!!!!!

Still very embarrassing but at least my reputation is not completely ruined and thank goodness her and her son didn't see it like that.

Thank goodness these people are easy going!!!

SO we remade it Thursday. Made SURE this cake was completely cool. It did not break at all. I took some extra cookies and brownies today as a peace offering.

Of course we apoligized, she was saying she was sorry too. (Grandma) She said she explained to her dd and she was not mad.

The mom and son were out at an apt.

We delivered around noon. I think he did a much nicer job decorating this one today, course he wasn't just getting off work and rushing home to decorate a cake either.

The grandma and the other kid thought it looked great! We helped her get it in the fridge.

Hopefully they will order from us again.



Sideview:

You guys rock! To keep at it after a disaster is totally commitment to decorating!

The first cake reminds me of "Indiana Jones and the cake of doom"

I love your story. I do not mean any disrespect at all--but it is so funny all I have to do is scroll by the name of your thread, "Indiana Jones cake crashed..." and I start belly laughing.

The part where you just 'mention' about a cake lifter.

"Joe opens the trunk and is pissed."



It's so husband/wifey/cakey and sooo funny. It's a very very cool cake.

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You must know that I admire your spirit and your wonderful work.

Thank you for sharing.

Btw--a spare sheet cake board or a cookie sheet with a flat edge can be commandeered into use as a cake flipper any time you might need one.

You two gals have me cracking up!!! ROFL!!

Mn Snow:

Awww thanx! Well when this happened, all I could think was,"You better offer her a full refund and maybe you should seriously reconsider whether you can do this or not!!!"

When we found out the party wasn't that night. I was extremely relieved and thought, just remake the cake!! Yeah!!

Although I am not very confident is my decorating, I am very confident in my baking. This is something I really love to do and the whole reason I started doing this in the first place, for pay, is because people kept asking me if they could pay me to make them something.

I bake everything from scratch and use only real butter in my baking. Frosting is another story due to heat, etc.

I sent a texas sheet cake and goodies last christmas with my hubby to work and I never heard the end of it til I finally decided to start baking and charging. One gal I even offered to GIVE her the recipe to my sheet cake she loved so much. TWICE.

Nope, she wanted ME to make it! So In Feb. we started selling. We sell about $600.00 in baked goods a month and the response has been overwhelmingly good. A regular buyer recently inquired twice about a Dora cake for her dd and at first backed off cause of our alleged high price. (I say alleged cause we are actually pretty reasonable.)

She finally called that night and said,"Girl, I know you are always over there cooking up a storm and we love everything. It doesnât matter what we buy it all taste so good!! Cookies, cupcakes. It reminds me of when I was a little girl. I donât care what it cost I have to get a cake from you. I want toys on it too and on the cupcakes.â

hahaha I should of called her back and said that will be $500.00 please!!

SO even though I was mortified. I know I can send them out an awesome tasting cake. I know Joe can decorate decent enough and he can get better. I know I can work on it too. We just need to get better acquainted with what works and what doesn't.

I was worried he would not want to try again. Poor guy, went out their back door and popped out a cig to try and calm down. He said, "That's it!! I am never..."

And I thought, uh, oh here it comes, he is going to say he is never doing a cake again!

But he said,"...using that stupid heavy whipping cream for filling again!!"



I told him later I was sorry I got him into that mess. He was blaming himself for cracking the cake. He felt alot better when he realized they were not having a party that night.

We get home and all our kids come running out of the house, I was like, "Don't even say anything!!!" lol

hahahah That is exactly what kept going through my head too!

When we set it on the counter at their house and Joe was trying to think quickly of what to do, he said, "Maybe we can say he is running from an earth quake???"

God bless him!!

k8memphis

Oh no don't worry about it. I am over here laughing with you now that the TERROR is over! They were so cool about it. Thank God! I am still so glad the mom and son weren't there. You know, first impressions and all. It is 1 thing to hear it cracked but another to witness the HORROR for yourself. haha

They got a perfect cake the next day at noon.

The birthday boy and my son have known each other for a few years at school.

My son is 14, he is 15. Chris came home today and told me Jack said the cake was awesome! He loved it! Hooray!!!

I called today just to touch base with the mom and she was out so I talked to the grandma again, she said it was really good and she liked the strawberries.

The mom has 3 boys other boys so I hope they order again.

hahaahahahaha He told me when he was trying to frost it, "I should of listened to wifey!"

I got another good one. The cake we did the week before. A Dora cake. He had trouble with the frosting trying to slide off. I asked him later, "Well didn't you build a dam? Remember the cc ladies say you need to build a dam?"

Ummm....he built a dam alright, out of cool whip!!!! hahahahaahah

He is great, I love him so much. haha

Awww thanx. His day job is land maintenance. But before that he worked in Restaurants for years so he knows his way around a kitchen. He can cook up dinner like no body's buisiness and is better at me with decorating!

But he is not obsessed like I am about baking. He just loves to eat it. I asked him over and over again if he minds helping with the decorating and he says no, he enjoys we have something like this we can share. So cool. EVery now and then he will flip thru cake pics online.

Awww thanx!

I will let him know.

Oh and see the boulder? I wanted to take pics and he wouldn't let me set it on the cake myself cause he was afraid THAT I would crash it!!

He had to do it himself! LOL

No disrespect to you or your husband, but I just love the way the first cake was frosted and put together. Love all those squiggles etc. on the cake.
He did a marvelous job on that cake.

The problem you had with this cake, I think is the worst fear of anyone that has to transport completed cakes. My tummy turns and does somersaults when I have to drive a cake creation.

My hubby keeps saying we should take up Golf together......I'd love to hand him an icing bag and see what he could do with it

You guys are an inspirational husband and wife decorating team It's amazing you were still speaking to eachother after that, nice job with both cakes. Keep up the "couples" cake baking, I can't wait for future stories

nickshalfpint

Awww I hope you get some sleep! That is neat your hubby can help you too. Let me know when your sons cake is done so I can check it out.

Charmaine49

Thanx. There are different things I liked about both cakes.

Obviously the first one crashed so I didn't like that. haha But decorating wise ~ I liked the border design better on the first one. The 2nd cake he said he wanted to do a straight border and since he is the one decorating, go ahead. He is alot more artistic than I am to a point.

Like for instance when we were going to do a cake for a potluck for his work. The people all work at the parks doing land maintenance. All I could think of was , lawn mowers, the sun, maybe some grass. LOL If I had to draw something it WOULD look like a 4 y/o did it. Art is not my strong point. haha

He said, "Nope. I got it all in my head." Then he went and frosted & decorated the cake with the company logo. I had the "City of..." edited out in photoshop. It was simple and perfect and so much better than what I had in mind. IMO



I am still undecided on the orange. The 2nd cake does look more "cheerier". I do like the plants on the second one and the leaves on the sid of the border. But it wouldn't of looked right on the green border and design.

I think maybe if we made it darker next time. Like the dark green from the first cake and maybe instead of orange, a rusty red.

Hey wait a minute, rusty red IS the color I told him to use!! hahaha

Okay the top of the first cake. I do think the second one could of used more squiggly lines but I think he got too carried away on the first cake and it started to look too "messy " to me.

He screwed up on the Happy Birthday on the first one so kept trying to fix it. so he did more squiggly lines to cover up and re wrote it over the top. That was actually written twice So he did try to put more lines to cover up.

I think maybe next time a rusty red border and a mix of rusty red squiggly lines and a darker green top of the cake, more like the first one and some darker green squiggly lines, more than the second cake, less than the first.

No offense taken, we are new to this and it will be a series of trial and errors and seeing what works best.

Definately! We were really nervous. We were driving so slow too. I think I heard recently someone said to never put a cake on your lap! We did that in July driving 70 miles down to my aunts. The cake looked great(Hawaiin Pineapple cake in my pics) but when we cut into it, it just fell apart. No one cared and everyone love it! I have that cake disaster thread running around somewhere too. lol

dkelly27

Awww do it! It is great to find things you both enjoy doing together. Maybe he could decorate great and you would have free help! LOL

Awww thank you. We talked about this alot before doing it. I am a SAHM and I love baking and coming up with new recipes. The fact that people pay me to do this is awesome. Before jumping into the cake part of it, I really wanted to make sure he would really want to do this.

Cause we would be spending out alot of money and I can handle everything else, pricing, accounting, shopping, customers, new recipes, new techniques, finding out How to's, etc. There is just so much stuff that is involved in this. I know you all know this. haha But I actually love doing this.

I can make great tasting baked goods, but I just know that he decorates better and until I get better, I would need to rely on him to decorate the cakes. He said as long as I handle the other stuff, he is fine with decorating and thinking up new ideas. He said if we get busy and I need his help in the kitchen, other than decorating he will help too if he is home, but he prefers to just decorate.

And another bonus is I have been completely obsessed with the baking stuff since Feb. and now the cake stuff and he has not gotten sick of hearing about it yet and even likes going shopping for new stuff!!! yeah!!

He told me he wants to get a pirate ship cake pan too. hahaha

Thanx! I was surprised he still wanted to do this after that too! I was like, "I am sorry I got you into this!!" Like we just had some huge catastrophe or something.

He was like, "No! This is OUR thing. We both wanted to do this and we are going to learn more and be fine. Trial and error."

Gotta love him!!

My best guess for what happened would be a combination of things. The broken cake for one, the whipped cream filling (not very sturdy...very slippery) and the heavy plastic boulder piece on the side.

From what I read, you said the boulder had slid down the back and took the rest of the cake with it (I think that's what I read). My guess would be that you probably didn't dowl under the boulder to keep it's weight off of your cracked and slippery cake and the weight of that heavy thing, coupled with the bumps you went over, were enough to cause it to slide and take the rest of the cake with it.

If you did dowl under the boulder, then I'm at a loss...

RobzC8kz

Thanx for commenting. I think the BIG thing was the cake being cracked. Secondly was the cake still being warm and melting the cool whip.

Joe said the boulder wasn't heavy enough to do that. These are light weight plastic toys and it is decopac so it is meant for cakes.

My hubby joked that the boulder cause the earth quake. But no, it didn't slip out.

No we didn't dowl. WIth the cake being cracked and warm and slippery the bumps sure didn't help. I thing they the last straw. lol