What Would You Never Agree To Do Again On A Cake?
Decorating By Ruth0209 Updated 2 Oct 2009 , 6:26pm by BCo
oh thats a tricky one for me, ive never found anything i really dislike yet, although id rather work with ganash than buttercream , But i wouldnt 'not' do it again lol. guess i need to keep looking haha
Hmmm...let's see...
football helmut cake...face mask is a pain....took wayyyy too much time to do for what I charged!
Pregnant belly cake also...creeps me out cutting into a belly....baby cake too..no way!Too weird.
For those who said they won't use Cream Cheese Frosting, try this one:
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/4153/Decorators-Cream-Cheese-Frosting
It's SO-O-O delicious and easy to use!! You can Viva method it and it pipes beautifully. Trust me, you all are much more talented than I am, so if I can get this frosting to look good, you certainly can!
And can I just say how impressed I am with that Spidey cage -- I've never seen anything like it. It's really, really cool!!!
Individual lego cupcakes. My friend asked me to make individual lego cupcakes with a pan she bought at the lego store(a silicone mold pan). I aldready was working on a cake that weekend for my family so I told her I couldn't.
I referred her to a great local baker. She wanted to try it herself. Panicked call on Fri.(her sons party is Sat. morning). HELP the cake is sticking to the pan. I HATE SOME OF THESE SILICONE PANS- they don't bake evenly and stick no matter what you do. UGH- so panicked she brings me cake mixes , the pan, and those little food coloring bottles(the ones you used to use for easter eggs). and BEGS me to help her.
I am a sucker so I helped. NEVER again!!! I would not do lego cupcakes that way- all the little lego circles(dots, what ever they are called) keep coming off. Also was not doing fondant on all these bad boys. Did poured icing instead. Won't post pics- won't claim I had anything to do with them.
There done with rant- that felt good.
The reasoning for me never to do another cupcake wedding cake is that the only folks that want to order them are trying to get something for CHEAP - they think that because they are cupcakes - they shouldn't cost as much as a cake. I did my first and ONLY one a couple of weeks ago, and the people and the process itself was a PITA. SO not worth it to me.
My "never agains" include:
1. Caramel frosting. Might taste good, but it's hard to work with and weighs a ton.
2. Cream cheese frosting. I don't care what the recipe is. Never. Again.
3. Any support system other than SPS. Dowels = fall waitin' to happen.
4. Red Velvet. Tastes gross. Stains my mixer bowl. That much red dye has got to be extra bad for you.
Won't even do this the first time:
1. stairs, with or without the little plastic people
I would never decorate a wedding cake with shaved chocolate. Very messy and takes forever to even remotely look like the picture the bride gave me.
Caramel frosting. Might taste good, but it's hard to work with and weighs a ton.
I agree wholeheartedly!!! A friend requested it once, and it was like a bad I Love Lucy episode . . . the caramel kept puddling down at the base of the cake and I kept trimming it off like you would fondant. Luckily, enough of it actually stayed on the cake so that I could serve it!
No more ree wedding cakes as their "gift".
From now on if they want a cake from me, I may give them a friendly discount but I am gifting them a crockpot.
will never again do a "castle" cake w/ the wilton Princess castle pillars. a customer called and asked me to do this, she had already bought the pillars, etc. those things are not like plastic dowels that have an open bottom. they have a closed flat bottom , and HOW may I ask are you supposed to insert the pillars into the cake????
glad you asked...."instructions" said, melt white chocolate on the bottom of the pillar, attach a short dowel and simply insert it into the cake. OMG....soooooooooo didnt work! dowel would not stay stuck......had to car deliver this thing to the lady's house, I even sat in the back w/ the cake, "pillars" are falling off everywhere, had to attempt to reattach them at the lady's house. I told her it was Wilton's fault , not mine. They are the one's who created something so dinky. WHY I ask you couldnt Wilton have hollowed out the bottom of the pillar, so it could be make like a plastic dowel rod????????????????????????????? that would've made too much sense HUH?????
If you are dumb enough to ever attempt this after reading my rant.....I suggest HOME use only, do not attempt this for a customer, or in anyway where it has to Travel in a car.
I will never say, "sure, I can make a cake for you" in casual conversation BEFORE they tell me when they need it. One of my coworkers asked in passing if I could do something to go with some birthday invitations. Sure, shouldn't be a problem. That was the end of the conversation. I just found out she wants the cake Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I won't even be in town! 
I won't do a belly cake or a sleeping baby cake. Same reason.
Theresa
I completely agree. Too creepy and - I'll probably get vilified for saying this, but - every time I see one on CC I wish they'd ban them or make them post those things in the naughty section so they're not just out there floating around amongst the other beautiful cake photos. Just EWWW.
will never again do a "castle" cake w/ the wilton Princess castle pillars. a customer called and asked me to do this, she had already bought the pillars, etc. those things are not like plastic dowels that have an open bottom. they have a closed flat bottom , and HOW may I ask are you supposed to insert the pillars into the cake????
glad you asked...."instructions" said, melt white chocolate on the bottom of the pillar, attach a short dowel and simply insert it into the cake. OMG....soooooooooo didnt work! dowel would not stay stuck......had to car deliver this thing to the lady's house, I even sat in the back w/ the cake, "pillars" are falling off everywhere, had to attempt to reattach them at the lady's house. I told her it was Wilton's fault , not mine. They are the one's who created something so dinky. WHY I ask you couldnt Wilton have hollowed out the bottom of the pillar, so it could be make like a plastic dowel rod????????????????????????????? that would've made too much sense HUH?????
If you are dumb enough to ever attempt this after reading my rant.....I suggest HOME use only, do not attempt this for a customer, or in anyway where it has to Travel in a car.
HA HA - so true....Added to my list also - I did this cake the 1st time and did not charge ENOUGH for the PITA that it is!! I did drill out the bottom of the bases to insert dowels but it really is constructed poorly and not alot of thought was given to have to move the thing less then an inch w/ their instructions...I always wonder who comes up with this stuff...did they road test it?? Doubt it...it would never make it 2 feet w/ their directions. I don't like to use this kit. Not difficult just way too time consuming.....
I will not do petit fours ever again.
I will not do 4 inch mini cakes again without charging a small fortune.
I will also not deal with people who say it's just flour sugar and eggs. Well money is just paper, but it still has value.
SPS all the way. Can't imagine doing a tiered cake without it now. Did a cake for my brothers b-day that was a total disaster due to a dowel mishap. My mom had to go out and buy a grocery store cake and then put my decorations on it. *cringe*
1. stairs, with or without the little plastic people[/quote]
SO 90's!! 
will never again do a "castle" cake w/ the wilton Princess castle pillars. a customer called and asked me to do this, she had already bought the pillars, etc. those things are not like plastic dowels that have an open bottom. they have a closed flat bottom , and HOW may I ask are you supposed to insert the pillars into the cake????
glad you asked...."instructions" said, melt white chocolate on the bottom of the pillar, attach a short dowel and simply insert it into the cake. OMG....soooooooooo didnt work! dowel would not stay stuck......had to car deliver this thing to the lady's house, I even sat in the back w/ the cake, "pillars" are falling off everywhere, had to attempt to reattach them at the lady's house. I told her it was Wilton's fault , not mine. They are the one's who created something so dinky. WHY I ask you couldnt Wilton have hollowed out the bottom of the pillar, so it could be make like a plastic dowel rod????????????????????????????? that would've made too much sense HUH?????
If you are dumb enough to ever attempt this after reading my rant.....I suggest HOME use only, do not attempt this for a customer, or in anyway where it has to Travel in a car.
HA HA - so true....Added to my list also - I did this cake the 1st time and did not charge ENOUGH for the PITA that it is!! I did drill out the bottom of the bases to insert dowels but it really is constructed poorly and not alot of thought was given to have to move the thing less then an inch w/ their instructions...I always wonder who comes up with this stuff...did they road test it?? Doubt it...it would never make it 2 feet w/ their directions. I don't like to use this kit. Not difficult just way too time consuming.....
I've done 2 of these castle cakes and both of them i travelled fairly far with and had no troubles keeping the towers in place. I did drill holes in the bottoms and fed a 1/4" dowel into the tower going all the way to the top, then I ran a bead of hot glue around the dowel and the bottom of the tower securing them to eachother. When it's time to put them on the cake I figure out where they are going and dig a 1/2" hole into the cake (kinda like you assemble topsy turvy cakes) and then stuck the dowel followed by the tower into the hole. They didn't budge a bit!! I did wait until I was at the venue to place the cone toppers on just because they were heavy and I didn't feel like dealing with gluing them down well enough to travel.
I knew as soon as I pulled those suckers outta the box they weren't going to work as is!
1. stairs, with or without the little plastic people
SO 90's!! [/quote]
Actually .....
These came out in the late 70's and were really big in the early early 80's. My best friend, who got married in '77, was the first in our town to have a fountain/stairs cake.
I will NEVER EVER EVER do mini cakes without charging oh $15-$20 each. 2x2x1 little squares of pure HELL! And poured fondant you ask? UMMM NOPE! dont think so!
Oh and i dont think Ill do another FBCT... although i said that before and ending up with two orders with one.....
DianeLM,
How DID you do that crazy Spiderman cage?
It's awesome!
Ugh. It was a design from a Wilton yearbook. Can't remember which one.
I didn't have the pattern book, so I had to measure around the cake manually. I used my Wilton dividing mat to help me.
The instructions called for making the cage out of royal icing, but I opted for chocolate so if any pieces broke I could remake them immediately. That was the smartest thing I did all day.
Measuring is nice, but no cake is exactly perfect in diameter. Every single web piece had to be remade to fit it's particular space. It took over an hour to finish ONE row of webs!!
Once I got something that resembled a rhythm going, I was able to finish without having a nervous breakdown.
Oh, and to make matters worse, I covered the cake board with clear contact paper. Guess what chocolate does NOT stick to!!!! Arrgh!!!!
Thanks for making me relive this nightmare. LOL 
I will never NOT use the SPS system with any cake....2 tiers or 10 tiers I will ALWAYS use SPS!!!!
This is what happens if you don't.....
Lesson Learned!oMG! Did you just curl up and cry or WHAT!!!!
I pulled over b/c I could smell buttercream more-so then usual and I just knew something must have happened!! I took one look and I DID cry!! 
LOL I then called the customer to let her know what happened and she said, well, the party is not for 2 hrs, just fix it and we'll see you then!!! 
I don't know what I expected her to say (maybe, oh, forget it we'll just run to the store and grab a cake?!?!? LOL) So I drove 1/2 hour back home (the venue was 45 mins away from me) Grabbed the camera b/c I knew I had to document this one and dismantled the whole thing, luckily non of the flowers broke, I whipped up another batch of buttercream, tried to repair the bottom tier as much as possible (I'd hate to be the person who go the chunk of mostly icing that I used to patch a hole! 
) re-iced the entire thing and somehow managed to get the swags on there evently, those were the most time consuming and it had taken me a long time trying to figure out how to space them perfectly in the first place. I packed all the tiers up SEPERATELY and off I went to the venue. I made it there only 1/2 hour into the event and the customer was super nice about the whole thing. I assembled the cake there (with a million eyes watching me - ugh, hated that part, just made me more nervous)- which amazingly looked just about identical to the original and then got the heck out of there!! I was a mess! I can't believe I actually got that all back together in that short time frame.
And the funny thing was that the customer called me a few days later to tell me how much everyone loved the cake and there wasn't a bite left, then she told me that wasn't the only issue that day, the toilet broke in the middle of the event and her guests had to go next door and use her neighbor's bathroom!! LOL
I learned my lesson that day for sure!!! I still think about that day every now and then and wonder how I kept it together. Something inside just kicked in b/c I knew I had no other choice!
When you have your WORST disaster ever, just remember ...... everything after that is (as we say in the trade) "a piece of cake"!
So true- now I have the confidence to know that under a stressful event such as this I can pull it together....after a 5 min cry!
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