Misery Loves It's Company..lol

Decorating By sweet_teeth Updated 8 May 2009 , 7:11pm by cheferyn

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sweet_teeth Posted 7 May 2009 , 1:15pm
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Sad but true... Anyone have some recent disaster stories? Here is mine from last night.. It's pretty bad.

So I had a cake for a coworker due today. I have 4 cakes this weekend (I normally have like 1 a month..) so I tried to be as prepared as possible. I had all cakes baked, pounds and pounds of frosting made, I pre-dyed my fondant, and I even asked my parents to get take out so they wouldn't need to use the kitchen/oven.

The cake was supposed to be one of the duff style cakes.. Tapered edges, bright green, polka dots, loopy bow, and some wires sticking out. I carved the cake Monday (first time that I was able to successfully carve... It looked great!!), then I froze it.. Took it out Tuesday to fill and then last night was going to cover it in fondant. Well... I get home from work and the cake COLLAPSED! I guess I carved it too narrow.. Not too sure. I used 9 8 and 7 inch pans. I decided I'd have to rebake.. So I made the batter.. Baked.. And they wouldn't cook to save my life. I obviously forgot and ingredient but have no clue which one. By this time I was in panic mode!

I decided to get cakes out of the freezer that were for the rest of the weekend. I had two 7inch cakes that were for my boyfriend's bday on Saturday and I used a 10inch cake for a bridal shower Sunday. I carved the 10inch to the size of the 7inch. I didn't have time to let them defreeze so I frosted them right away. That went fine and I figured I would just have to accept the bulge. Well.. As we all know.. You can't/shouldn't cover a frozen cake in fondant (but I didn't really have another option.. It was about midnight by now). So I took my batch of premade MMF and began to roll it out. What a disaster! I scraped that and used some Satin Ice which was way too soft and kept tearing. I then resorted to my Wilton fondant and covered the cake half-assly. Within about 10 minutes little sweat beads were pouring off the cake, it was bulging already, and it was crooked! Ugggh.

By now it's about 2am, my cake looks like poo, I had a paper to finish for my masters class, and I had to get up to go to work by 530am!!

Thankfully my BF got out of bed, no questions asked, and cleaned the entire kitchen for me. But I still cannot believe what a disaster last night was. I mean.. Disaster! This cake was supposed to be really easy and super cute... And it's anything but! So now I'm out 2 cakes that are needed for tomorrow, out tons of money due to wasted fondant/baking disasters, and completely discouraged. I will of course keep caking but I can't believe how disastrous this was. It really killed my enthusiasm.

...Now lets here your stories icon_smile.gif

8 replies
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cakesbytanya Posted 7 May 2009 , 1:30pm
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I'm sure it's not as bad as you think. Do you have a picture?

Last weekend I had an order for an eggless cake. Not something I normally do but I agreed as a favor to a friend. (the client was her friend). I found a choc. recipe with no eggs and decided to try it. I baked to sheet cakes and they seemed to be find but when I went to level and fill they fell apart. Literally crumbled. This was on fri. for sat. pickup. I had to start all over with a different recipe (this time I got it of this site). Didn't particularly like the taste of the cake but I got it done and decorated and it looked good. Still haven't heard about how the cake went over which worries me but I don't want to call and find out.

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JenniferMI Posted 7 May 2009 , 1:36pm
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I think we all have been there, done that at one point. We all have "stuff" happen.... keep your chin up. I think when something goes wrong, THE most important thing is to try and figure out why...and don't let it happen again.

There are huge differences in fondant. I only use a semi-homemade white chocolate fondant. It performs like a dream...

If one fondant tears...acts up...try another. I know there are a lot of people that use MMF, but the horror stories I hear about it, too.

If you have questions, feel free to e-mail me

Best wishes for future masterpieces!!!

Keep your chin up...practice...

Jen icon_smile.gif

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all4cake Posted 7 May 2009 , 1:45pm
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What a pissy night you had! I do feel bad for you. I hope the rest of your week goes smoothly.

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costumeczar Posted 7 May 2009 , 1:49pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cakesbytanya

Last weekend I had an order for an eggless cake. Not something I normally do but I agreed as a favor to a friend. (the client was her friend). I found a choc. recipe with no eggs and decided to try it. I baked to sheet cakes and they seemed to be find but when I went to level and fill they fell apart. Literally crumbled. This was on fri. for sat. pickup. I had to start all over with a different recipe (this time I got it of this site). Didn't particularly like the taste of the cake but I got it done and decorated and it looked good.




Jsut an aside about the eggless cake...You can get egg replacer at health food stores or Whole Foods, it's called Ener-G and is basically some type of vegetable gums that you mix with water and use in place of the eggs. It works really well and it doesn't really change the flavor of your cakes.

About the disaster part...I've had a wonky cake collapse before, I think the cake was too soft to be carved. It was, of course, the middle tier of a three-tiered cake. I baked another tier of the flavor that the bride wanted, then did the crooked cake tier in styrofoam. She didn't care, I just told her not to cut the styro tier!

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bizatchgirl Posted 7 May 2009 , 1:50pm
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I have one cake I call my cursed cake. Everything that could go wrong while making that cake did go wrong. Was trying to bake in a big metal mixing bowl for a belly shape. Baked at my house and cake didn't come out. I'd been having problems with the oven temp, assumed it was that, dragged all my stuff to my BF parent's house to make the cake there.

Baked it again and it still didn't come out AND the small ball pan cake somehow ended up tilted and cake dripped all over the oven.

Came back home and baked again, with smaller pans. This time it came out, just had to do more sculpting to get what I wanted.

Decide to open this brand new clay blade I got. The blade was not in any kind of sleeve inside the packaging. After fighting really hard to get the package open, it opened all at once and my hand went right down the blade. Wrap my hand up in a bandaid and a sandwich bag (didn't have any gloves).

Start doing some clean up, making my bow, ice the cake.

Check out my hand and it's no longer bleeding. Take off the plastic and bandaid. Wash hands crazy good!

Get out my new Satin Ice to use for the very first time. Start coloring it. Keep seeing weird spots in the fondant. Pick it up and look at the counter to make sure there wasn't anything on the counter. Mix some more. More weird spots. Look at my hand and realize I've opened my cut and I
am BLEEDING all over my fondant. I almost puked right then.

Had to throw the Satin Ice away, and it was the whole batch of it. Wash and sanitize EVERYTHING. Re-bandage my hand. Then start over with Wilton's (that I had on hand, luckily).

It was not my only disaster night but by far the craziest one.

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sweet_teeth Posted 8 May 2009 , 6:53pm
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Ugh cake distaster number 2 for the weekend!!

My new tub of satin ice has also come w/ elephant skin galore!! It keep tearing icon_sad.gif

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sweetideas Posted 8 May 2009 , 7:03pm
post #8 of 9

I only bake for a hobby but my well-planned out cake for my DD first bday was supposed to be Elmo. Yeah.... looked more like a demonic red devil. Poor thing. I owe her big. icon_smile.gif

Good thing she got to have one cake for her bday and another for her party. icon_smile.gif She's going to need years of therapy after that. icon_smile.gif

Sorry you had so much trouble, but keep caking and know everyone has been there. (some more than others, like me) icon_wink.gif

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cheferyn Posted 8 May 2009 , 7:11pm
post #9 of 9

Jen, do you mind sharing your recipe for your fondant? It sounds yummy!

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