I had my very first cake disaster and now I am scared to do more cakes for other people.

I was asked to make two baby chicks for a baby shower for someone I don't know (a friend of a friend kind of thing). I make the cakes out of the ball pan and then attached marshmellows with toothpicks and made them look like chicks. It was totally cute.

Well, I made the cake on a friday, the shower was on a Saturday. I had the whole thing done, I put it in its box and went to bed Friday night. The next morning when I looked at the cake, everything was shmooshed. My cat had sat on the box at some point in the night. So I scrape all the frosting off, put the heads back in place and re-decorate the cake. It looked fine when I left the house.

So on the road, I am waiting at a stop light and turn to look at the cake and see that one of the heads has fallen off! I didn't bring extra frosting so there is no way I fix this. I get there, tell the lady how sorry I am and that I am not going to charge her and walk away in shame.

This was last weekend.

So yesterday I get a call from a friend who wants a cake for his family and I am honestly thinking about turning it down because I don't want that to happen again.

Any Advise?

Whispering,
I am so sorry that this happened to you. That is an absolutely terrible feeling.
I can sympathize. I turned a corner too fast and an entire wedding cake fell over. I had to refund $1000.00, and that doesn't include the $300+ it cost to make the cake. I was wrecked! I still can hardly breathe when I have to make a turn.
Learn from your mistakes. Bring a repair kit in the future.
Don't let this stop you from caking though.

Duplicate post, please also see:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-642259-.html

HTH

Please don't give up, make sure you put the finished cakes in a room that you can shut the door & the cat can't get in.
Always take a repair kit with you.

In the immortal words of Forrest Gump--shit happeneth, CakeBuddy. It also hapeneth to all of us at one point or another.

It's gonna be ok.

I vote go 'head and do the the next cake and the next and the next and...


(((big hug)))

I have my biggest cake of my life this weekend...it's a five-tier complete with mechanical, working model railroad going through the bottome tier (thank God it's styrofoam).

I am scared to death....I have spent 25 hours or so on this cake, making chocolate rocks, sugar moss, decorator icing, 50 gumpaste flowers in 6 colors, and I had a hand in the train and the styrofoam blocks.

NO WAY would I give up this oppurtunity to cake butterflies. I've messed up before, and in no way am I Duff or Margaret or Kerry....no way. But I am going to give it my best, and I am hoping it works.

Every chance at a cake is a chance to succeed. I may fail, but I will fail trying. ***Cue the song from "Chariots of Fire"........

No way do you give up! Never! Things happen to everyone - no one is exempt. They dropped a fantastic cake on the Cake Boss; the tree from the Cake Alchemy girls fell smooth apart; they are constantly doing HILARIOUS things on Ace of Cakes. That's why this is the most wonderful medium in the world to work in - we get to eat the uh-ohs!

I have found that all people want is your best and your honesty. Who hasn't had mishaps. We get worked up because of the importance of the special occasions, but that's what they are - special, happy occasions. In instance after instance you see examples on here of mishaps and about 98% of the time, by the end, everyone is satisfied. Just make sure you have some toothpicks, gum paste (terrific glue) and extra icing to get the best possible pictures. Outside of that, they'll eat the evidence that anything ever went wrong!

Now, this doesn't account for the small cross-section of society who are self-important and never step in poo - but screw 'em. Better yet - let them eat cake!!!