hello everyone. i have never posted andything in a forum before so you guys are my first. my mom actually found this website and i am so glad that she did. i have been a chef for 12 years and taught myself to decorate cakes. well about 7 years ago i decided to start doing wedding cakes, etc.. to make a long story short for health issues i had to quit my regular culinary job and started my own business. now it is just out of my house but still in the past 2 years i have gotten pretty busy, you know how word of mouth is. i have never had an issue in my entire career until today. and it was a big one.
my fiance and i went over to set up a cake (let me state for the record that without him i would have been completly screwed today, aside from the fact that he always helps me) anyway it was a five tier cake. stacked on top of one another, the sizes ranging from 6 to 14 inch. now despite my best efforts i couldn't talk to the bride out of the raspberry jelly filling she wanted, or to make the cake smaller with sheet cakes in the back. now normally i do not work with it, i make it a raspberry cream but she didn't want that, and it is her day. if i knew now what could happen i would have told her no. Anyway 3 layers had that filling and 2 layers had pb filling. anyway we began to stack them and once we where done it didn't look straight to me, so as i have many times before i worked at it to make it level. i began all of the decorating work and as i was finishing it seemed to be leaning, so we atarted pulling layers up and adding more dowel rods, at this time i am sure it was too late. we worked for another hour and it was good. we went to luch and then back to the hall to check on the cake, it still looked pretty good. so home we went. now you know how in your mind you just know that this is not going to work out as planned, 1 hour later i got a call, the cake fell. 45 min before dinner. so the panic began, luckily at that time my mom had stopped and she went to work making frosting, i pulled all the cakes i had in the freezer a lot of supplies and headed to the hall. all i could think of was this poor woman and how i ruined her day. my fiance arrived before me and started damage control, by the time i arrived he had talked to the bride and she said it was alright, accidents happen. we proceeded to pull the cake in and with the arrival of my mom 10 minutes later decorated a two tier as best as i could and put that out so they could cut the cake (which they ended up deciding not to do, which made me feel worse).
having done all of that we decided to stay and cut the cake for them, it was the least i could do. we talked to the bride and groom later, they said they both understood, i felt awful and started to cry, she gave me a hug and said it was ok. i told them i would send a refund and some pictures of the cake before it fell to her first thing this week. i don't know what else i could do. i still feel awful, and i guess i should.
the short of it is it was too heavy, i didn't use enough dowels for the weight, the raspberry jelly slid as we tried to fix it, i should have never put all 5 tiers on, the cake was doomed, you can always think of a million things you should have done. the worst is that i have a cake next weekend that i am scared to do. i know once i am past it i will be fine, but this week is going to be awful anticipating it. i am sure the cake will be built to withstand a nuclear war, this cake and all of my future cakes, but it won't stop the uneasiness.
i do want to say thank you to all of you. reading all of your horror stories makes me feel not so alone, and that you can continue with this. my worst fear is that i am going to start really doubting myself, and once you do that you are in trouble.
thank you all for reading, and i will now be back to read and write often. have a good day.
here is a photo of the cake before it fell.
I'm so sorry, here's a few ((((hugs))))) for you. I hope they make you feel better. Thank God for boyfriend and moms!
Wow! You know, sometimes things just....happen! You did everything you could!
Here is a (((((((((((((((((((((HUG))))))))))))))))))))
You will be fine for next time!
and you cake is BEAUTIFUL by they way!
I am so sorry for your cake disaster! Thank goodness the bride and groom were so understanding about it. And they are right: accidents happen! It sounds like you learned a lot from this cake, so press forward, and keep on baking!
It was a beautiful cake, by the way!
Dianna
Oh my, what a scary story. I am shakin' in my boots now.
I am sure that is everyones nightmare who does wedding cakes.
Best thing to do, is live and learn.
Don't be discouraged.
And I have to say...It truly was a beautiful cake, and you should be proud of that.
Chin up!
I feel for you. i know how easy it is for us to doubt ourselves when something goes wrong, but please don´t. Chalk it up to expierence and take your mom and boyfriend out to dinner. Next time things will go better.
the cake looks very elegant and very pretty.
I'm so sorry! Hopefully your disasters are out of the way now and you will never have one again!!! It is beautiful!
Welcome to CC!
~Heidi
wow, i woke up this morning and was checking my email and saw a reply. i came here and saw 7. you guys brought a tear to my eye with the kind words and wishes, it really helps . it is amazing how kind you are to someone you don't know, it shows how much good there is in the world.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!
Wow! What an awful shame--your cake was gorgeous!!! I'm so sorry! That said you handled the situation very professionally and graciously. Now you need to look forward and move on. You're very talented and this one set-back should serve as a good lesson, not a confidence buster!
Hang in there!
It is an amazing cake, don't let this scare you. Now you have a great lesson to move forward with. I can;t wait to see more of your cakes you do beautiful work.
Your cake looked great.A tip I found was on foodtv.ca where a german chef was assembling a large tower sponge cake with raspberry filling and he said to sprinkle the top of the rasberry with powdered gelatin in a strainer and it acts like glue so the layers won't shift.He did this everytime he assembled a layer.Also maybe it would have helped if you attached the last 2 layers onto the cake at the hall.
I'm confused w/ the gelatin in the strainer...do you mean the powder is in the strainer and sifted over the raspberry jam?
wow, it was a gorgeous cake!! what a shame
I'm glad the bride was so understanding. That is like my absolute worst fear. At least you have that past you and have learned from it
*hugs*
I'm so sorry that happened to you
i think something was in the air this weekend. this is the 3rd post ive read about stacked construction cakes. i too had 2 weddings with stacked cakes. and one turned out horribly. my 3rd layer wasnt centered and i had to do double borders because the dowels were too high. it was humid here and my icing just wouldnt turn out.
your cake is beautiful. i do stacked cakes all the time with filling. do you think that maybe you didnt have enough dowels?
and the way im feeling at the moment, im getting sick of stacked. thats all they want is stacked!! we need these big designers to make tiered or cascading in the magazines to get these stacked ones out of brides heads.
you arent alone with having problems, maybe it was a full moon!!!
That cake was so beautiful! I'm so sorry it fell! I'm sure the next one will be fine, like you said, it's just getting past the bad experience. At least it didn't happen to a "bridezilla"!!!!
{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}
Brenda
takersgirl....sending a big hug your way, your cake was Beautiful!! So sorry this happened.
I have to ask about your frosting tho', here's why. I have done several stacked, heavy cakes, WITH jam for filling (I actually like using it) and have never had a problem until last month. I made a 5 tier stacked (same sizes as yours) for my best friends wedding. I used strawberry jam and a thick chocolate filling. I have transported stacked cakes before, with jam, and never had a problem. My luck ran out with this one. The 3 bottom layers were stacked and fell in the car on the way. I even had a center dowel and the cakes were cool. It was the frosting. I used the new formula of crisco and the frosting gave me fits. It was soft and soupy and you could see the layers 'jiggling'!!! Normally when the tiers are cool there is no movement!! I ended up salvaging the top tier that was stacked and the top 2 were boxed separate, so her cake was only 3 tiers high. The others were edible, just served from the back. Anyway, I have compared the two criscos, side by side, and there is a huge difference in how they hold up. The dam around the fillings is not firm enough or strong enough to help stabilize the cake. I don't know what you use for frosting, but if it happens to be crisco and not high ratio, then that could be the culprit. I know when I figured out what went wrong I sure felt a lot better
You have so much experience and I'm sure know how fickle foods can be, don't be too stressed!! You do beautiful work and this is just one glitch!
I am SOOOO sorry this happened to you. If you saw my post from a few weeks ago, you'll know I understand how you feel and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Your cake was absolutely gorgeous!!! I am so glad that you had understanding bride and groom. everyone was so encouraging to me on cc when this happened, I'm glad your mom found it for you. don't know what I'd do without it--for the information, inspiration and support. It's behind you now, so keep on producing those gorgeous cakes!! Look at it this way, if it was bound to happen at some time, you're done now!
a HUGE HUG!!! I know how you feel. I had my 1st wedding cake this weekend and was soooo afraid of a disaster that I could bearly sleep. Fortunately, you have wonderful help. Your cake was so stunning, I am sorry.
You have learn from it and I wish that you never have to go through that again.
You manage it very well and lucky to find understanding.
You deserve some rest now!
Creole
That is a beautiful cake. It looks so perfect with the table decoration!
I'm sorry this happened to you though.
That was a lovely cake. Sorry it fell. Don't let it continue to bother you. These things happen.
The cake was beautiful. I am sorry that it fell. That is always my worst nightmare. I had a nightmare cake recently. It didn't fall. But the bride was not happy with it. Like you, when I left I thought it was fine, but still had that gut feeling something was going to be wrong. It's funny how when things like this happens, your confidence level is shaken to the core. I felt the same as you, knowing full well that I must go on , yet so afraid of my next cake. The next two cakes I did went really well, and you know, I am not so worried anymore. You will be fine! Hugs and good luck!
O.k ---- Here is my mishap about the bride not liking the cake. (sorry long) Let me preface this by saying it wasn't so much the bride that was unhappy, but the mother of the bride as well. The cake was a four tiered fondant cake, with the top tier a fake tier. The bride picked out an ice blue color for the cake. She wanted it to match her theme
which was a winter theme. The ice blue was pretty bright and took a long time to get all that fondant to match the fabric swatch she provided.
Each tier had a different design on it, from icles hanging down on one tier to dots on others, to royal icing snowflakes positioned at different spots around the cake. ( the bride designed this cake from different pictures of different cakes).
When we got to the reception, we found the table to be a small round bar height table. I knew I was in trouble with this table, but it was up against a wall in a corner and I hoped it would be o.k. We set the cake up one tier at a time and finished all the decorations. When we were done, my fiance and I took a long look at it and really liked it! Everythng looked fine---no lean.
The mother of the bride was there and we said goodbye and she looked at the cake and said goodbye and thank you.
Monday morning, got a call from the bride and said she was disappoointed with the cake . When I asked her what was wrong with it she said it just didn't look like she pictured it. It wasn't elegant enough, she thought it looked more whimsical. She thought the snowflakes would be made out of pure sugar and not royal icing. She said her mother was more upset than she was and wanted some of her money back. (They said that everybody loved the taste. My biggest mistake was that I forgot my camera! So my confidenc level was shaken because I was wondering what I missed. With no picture to look at, I was stuck. They picked apart everything on that cake from my dots to the shine they had asked for with luster dust on it. No-one has ever complained about one of my cakes like this. Agreed to give the bride back $100.00.
Thought everyhting was over and two weeks later the brides mother called and said she got the pictures back and there was definately a lean to the cake. (no one every mentioned a lean before that, and when I mentioned that to her, the lean went from a lean to the leaning tower of Pizza! What a nightmare. I asked if they would please send me a picture so I could see what I did wrong as I thought the cake looked great when we left. She said no problem. Since then the daughter has reurned from the honeymoon . The check has been cashed, but I haven't received a picture of the Leaning Tower Of Pizza!
O.k, thats my nightmare experience. Really regret not getting a picture cause my mind keeps running wild wondering how I could see that cake so differently!
So sorry your cake fell. It was beautiful. Have you seen the Stress Free Support system? I know some decorators who have it and love it. I can't tell you much about it as I don't have one and don't do many cakes anyway.
Here's a link. It's on Earlene Moore's website...
http://www.earlenescakes.com/newringsupportset.htm
I like to read these posts and learn from them. Can someone post the best way to have handled this situation? In terms of how the tiers were done, the filling, etc. Also, what if the table is not level? Wouldn't that cause a problem that is not really the bakers fault? Is that something that should be checked as well? I know about plenty of dowels and a center wooden one right? Stacking on site seems to be preferred....
thank you to everyone for your kind words. it has really helped me through this. i have decided to but the stress free support system, i do a lot of cakes so it will be well worth the money, and hey lets face it any stress you can take off of yourself the better.
to answer a few of the questions, i usually use wooden dowels and plastic cake seperator plates for my construction. i found that the plastic plates help to make it more sturdy. i also never stack layers ahead of time, only at the hall, i am too scared to do it ahead of time. i found when i was repairing the cake at this wedding that the dowels had pretty much given way, as any of you can attest too it is easy to look back and see what you should have done to prevent the whole thing. i am learning from the situtaion, thanks to some suggestions i will now take a level too, i never thought of that. you guys are pretty smart.
i am finally starting to feel a little better though, so far i havn't heard a backlash so that is always good, and that is one of my biggest fears, word of mouth can help you and it can also hurt you. only time will tell.
I know the stress free support system has been widely touted among cake decorators, but I am wondering: Is a vertical rod through the center required as well? I'm wondering how the cake doesn't flip over sideways. I have a 6 tiered cake on a center table due in September and I'm looking into the stress free support system -- do y'all think I would need a vertical support as well?
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