I delivered a golf cake to a friend this morning for her boyfriend's birthday today. It was packaged up in a cake box that had proper stiff cardboard extensions to fit into the corners to hold the lid of the box up as it was a tall cake. It was absolutely perfect when I dropped it off to her this morning and the box structure was sound - solid as a rock.

I've just had a call from her saying that the cardboard extension arms have somehow collapsed and she said something about the tree melting. The tree was made out of chocolate fondant and gumpaste and the branches were dipped into candy melts and then had rice krispies dyed green added to them. This morning they were that nice crisp candy coating you get with candy melts so I am not sure how it is melting!

I really don't understand the box issue either as the cardboard extension arms were taped in place in the corners in four different places for each corner on the inside of the box and once on the outside of the box to make sure the lid didn't move once on.

She has texted as well saying she thinks the cardboard arms just aren't strong enough but they are made from stiff card and they are only supporting the lid which weighs nothing.

I am tempted to think she has not paid much attention when carrying it and not been very careful and is now blaming my support structure. I've asked her to send me a pic of what has gone wrong in case there's something I need to do differently in future but I'm totally confused about what's gone wrong as it was perfectly sturdy when I delivered it.

Upsetting!! What can you do in situations like this??

Sorry.... just realised I should probably have posted this in cake disasters....

I'm thinking it went into the fridge (the melting issue) and someone threw their lunch on top of it. And by "threw their lunchbox on top of it" I mean THREW their lunchbox on top of it.

Thanks for responding leah_s. I forgot to say that I had told her not to put it in the fridge. The more I think about it the more I think she just hasn't been careful when carrying it as she called me from the train to say the problems had started with her when she started to make the journey home with the cake but I had carried it on the train into town myself which was an hour journey and it was absolutely fine.

Thank you for listening to me vent and rant!

I've delivered my fair share of sheet cakes in boxes without any support and have never had a problem. It sounds like some thing was not treated properly after your delivery.

Thanks geri4292adams. It was a two tier cake with a fondant/gumpaste tree on top so it was fairly tall. It was properly dowelled and stacked. Maybe it was just too heavy for her to handle properly. I'm probably stronger than her and I found it quite heavy and she's only a teensy thing really. Still, I managed to get it in on a train and advised her to get a taxi to the train station so just not sure what happened.

I just hate knowing that something bad has happened to my poor little cake that was beyond my control!! Silly, I know!

It certainly sounds like she had problems carrying it and now wants to blame you.
Things like this are why most of us tell customers once it is out of our hands it is no longer our responsibility.
Yes, there are exceptions to the above statement, but this is not one of them.

LOL, Each time I walk away from a delivery I always have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that something may happen that's beyond my control. I've tried to let it go, but because we take such care in the baking, decorating, and tme we put into each cake, it's a little hard. Sorry you're worried about it.