Okay, I Have 2 More From The Vault...lol!

Decorating By cakesdivine Updated 5 Dec 2008 , 3:55am by all4cake

cakesdivine Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
cakesdivine Posted 4 Dec 2008 , 4:44pm
post #1 of 4

Back when I was in my late 20's, my son was 2 years old. I had just finished a wedding cake for a family friend. I told my at the time hubby...lol to watch the baby and keep him out of the kitchen while I took a shower to get ready for the wedding (being a family friend I was also invited to attend the wedding). Well when I came out of my bedroom to load the cakes in the car, there was my son covered from head to toe in cake and sitting in the middle of the largest tier (an 18" 2 layer round)! It was 2 hours before the wedding. I knew I had to rebake so I did so. The cake was too big to put in my freezer at home and I didn't have time to run to my mom's and put in her deep freeze and make it in time to at least set up for the reception. So I took icing, tools and my oldest daughter with me (she was 9 at the time) to decorate on site. The groom's cake was perfect, but as we were lifting it out of the box the cake board folded in half, and so did the cake! The brides aunt commented "welcome to the Bonaventura Wedding". Supposedly everything that could go wrong was going wrong at this wedding. So now I not only have a warm large bottom tier to ice & decorate and build on top of, but now I have to fix the grooms cake as well, and I didn't bring any chocolate icing, only icing for the wedding cake.

Well my DD seeing me in such a panic, took it upon herself to "help" me.

I walked into the area that the grooms cake was sitting and she had reiced it (actually quite well, it looked marbled with vanilla & chocolate buttercream) But she thought she could write the monogram on the top. She used the baby blue icing for the monogram (which originally was originally a royal icing monogram)...I freaked a little more. I ended up refunding 100% of their money (they only paid for the cost of ingredients) because the bride was so dissappointed, and rightfully so.

I took a sabatical from doing wedding cakes for family in friends for about 10 years, told them if they wanted a cake to go to the grocery store I worked for and order it there because I would not do one at home until my son was old enough to stay out of the kitchen! To this day I am a bundle of nerves if he comes around me while I am decorating, and he only gets that opportunity when I am decorating something for a family function! I never even let him in my commercial kitchen...poor kid, he's 17 and a budding chef in his own right, and I can't get that pit out of my stomach when he is there. I still see that baby in the middle of my cake! icon_redface.gif

Story 2.

I offer fundraisers for local non-profits. My daughters were on their highschool drill team and they elected to do my gingerbread house fundraiser. I had 100 gingerbread houses ordered. I hired a few interns and my oldest who is now and was then an excellent decorator in her own right to assemble. I baked the houses from scratch with a self made pattern as well.

We had all 100 done, packaged and ready to deliver the next day. Well a few days before, a bolt of lightening hit our shop and shorted out the AC, I didn't think much about it, we just hooked up fans as all the baking had already taken place, we were just decorating with royal icing, and it was December and quite cool anyway. The evening before a heatwave hit Houston and when we arrived the next day (about midday) all but 4 of the houses had collapsed! icon_cry.gif Somehow condensation occurred inside the packaging and weakened the gingerbread, caused the hard candy windows to melt, and weakened the royal icing. I delivered the 4, tried to get the rest delivered within the next week, but ended up giving at least 10 people gift certificates for double what they paid for their product. So now I NEVER decorate and leave anything in an unairconditioned building overnight... icon_wink.gif

3 replies
KHalstead Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
KHalstead Posted 4 Dec 2008 , 9:06pm
post #2 of 4

oh wow!!!!! Too funny about your son!1 I could just picture it, like a little baby with only two little bottom teeth covered in frosting and cake!! LOL too funny! You're braver than me, I don't know that I would have even bothered to bake another cake with only two hours to go!

chutzpah Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
chutzpah Posted 5 Dec 2008 , 3:43am
post #3 of 4

For sale: one husband, slightly used, and one baby, slightly bruised.

all4cake Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
all4cake Posted 5 Dec 2008 , 3:55am
post #4 of 4
Quote:
Originally Posted by chutzpah

For sale: one husband, slightly used, and one baby, slightly bruised.




for me, it'd be ...

for trade: one husband used, bruised, and abused for a case of velcro(to stick the baby to the wall!)

Quote by @%username% on %date%

%body%