it was looking pretty good. I was going to put the final touches on it when we got there. We did extra doweling and the end . Scott hunkered down in the back with it and we were barely out of the driveway when I hear, "STOP THE CAR! Someone help!"
We lost the cake. It bit the dust. We live on top of a hill in a very hilly part of town. I ran back up the street and got some trays and we took it apart and brought it, but there was no putting it back together. Oh well. This is EXACTLY why I would never be able to do this for money.
I'll post pictures tomorrow. Unfortunately, I don't even have one of it totally done. I was rushing to finish and Scott stopped taking pictures before I put the top squares on the cake.
The party was great, though and my dad loved the idea even though it didn't make it.

OH KAREN I'M SO SORRY, YOU HAVE BEEN PLANNING THIS FOR SOME TIME, I'M GLAD YOUR DAD WAS HAPPY WITH THE IDEA, BUT SO SORRY FOR YOU---THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU COULD NEVER DO THIS FOR A LIVING--YOU WOULD JUST KNOW WHEN TO SAY NO TO SOMETHING THAT YOU WOULDN'T BE SURE YOU WANTED TO DO--I'VE BEEN WAITING TO SEE THE PICS & I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE ONE ONE THAT YOU DID GET--

Here is it...almost finished (the finished one was actually much neater with smoothed edges, etc) and the demolished in the car. At least the figurines survived. LOL!

Oh I am just crazy about this cake. What a wonderful idea. I am so sorry this happened to you!

Would this have turned out differently if perhaps you transported it separate and assembled it on-site? That's the only thing I can think of.

Yes, it definitely would have been better to take the three layers separately, but I would have had to sit at the museum all day probably and touched it up!

I am so sorry! I know how excited you were abut the cake! When it was together is looked GREAT!! Do you have any clues why it may have fallen so quickly? You seemed to have a ton of dowels in there. Don't give up though!

Just use this as a learning experience! Great cake! You will know to do it differently next time.
LouAnn

Hahahaha! I'm NEVER doing it again. LOL!
Black icing is a nightmare!

I think it fell because the layers were just dense. The cakes were really good. Several people came up and said it was the best chocolate cake they have ever eaten. But, there were two, two inch layers for each tier. It was realyl dense cake, too. Really really moist. That would my guess as to why it fell.

I'm confused by your demolished picture and why there are so many long sticks... Did you have each cake on a board? The sticks should have been the height of each cake like table legs for each cake board to sit on. Then maybe three long ones all the way through each of the 2 boards to the bottom. Maybe that is what you did, I don't know.

You have an awesome attitude about this! Yay for you. This was such a cute cake. I'm so sorry it didn't make it and that you didn't get finished pictures. I hope this experience won't discourage you from trying cool stuff again!

KarenOR are going to put you cake in your photos i would like to put it as my fav. but i can't cause it's not in you gallery. i really love that idea

Karen, I know you worked SO HARD on this cake - I'm so sorry it turned out this way. Please don't let this discourage you in future, or make you think you could never do this for money - You're VERY talented, and everyone has occasional disasters!

I know how heartbreaking it can be to spend a lot of time and effort on a cake for someone, and have a disaster such as this. I'm really impressed by your attitude, I probably would have been crying for a couple of days!

Don't give up!

Well that stinks. I was wondering too why there are not any smaller dowels in the pics? (for each of the seperate layers) If there was not any support for each layer, that would explain why it collapsed.

It was a very cool cake - and it is obvious you have talent ~ sorry this one fell apart.

I swear I responded to this earlier, but I guess not. It was all doweled correctly. There are tons of small dowels, but they were buried under the black icing. There were 8 that were short, just in the bottom tier. Then that next layer sat on that and there were 4 more that went from the second layer to the bottom. We precut holes in the middle layer cardboard so that we could get them through and actually made a template. Then the top layer sat on that. Then there was one that went all the way through and went into the foam core. Then there were 3 skewers that went all teh way through for extra strength. If those weren't enough dowels, I don't know what would be. We had pulled some of them out by the time the pic was taken because they were in the way when we were trying to put them on trays.

WoW! I don't know why it wasn't super strong with all that. tooo bad.

Thanks for responding! It was not for lack of support obviously......I am at a loss as to what happened. It still stinks that you lost such a cool cake.

Just sending you a happy wish.

You know your Dad loves you ... I'm glad you all havd fun in spite of the start.

Oh man...what a bummer!
So sorry that happened. It was a really cool cake.

Its a beautiful cake....I am very sorry for you. I think your cake is too moist and it is not about your dowelling... Well, It's happen to me last Saturday. I was making a square birthday cake with the elmo & cookie monster head siting on the cake. At the very last min before being transfered to the car, the elmo's head just collapse backward without any reason. Part of the base fell off....and I Knew the reason, my cake base was too moist. But lucky for me, I manage to put it back with plenty of dowelling and BC to cover up the hole...Pheww!!!!

My advise to you is, Never Give Up.........

that was such an awesome cake! you did an amazing job on it and I'm sorry that this happened to you.