Cannot Complete An Order, What To Do??
Business By crumbscakeartistry Updated 17 Mar 2007 , 9:41pm by jmt1714
I had a woman place an order for me for an over the top birthday cake for her young daughter. She wants it stacked to feed 125. No problem. It was supposed to be metallic silver, pink, and blue buttercream, no fondant at all. Well I tried and cannot make it the way she wants. I do not have an airbrush and she would not budge on the fondant. It was too gray and not metallic enough. I made a last minute decison and made it just pink and blue. How do I tell her that cake is not exaclty what she expected without her flipping out. She will not be at the party when I drop it off since she will be getting her duaghter for the "grand entrance" to the party. Plus there is a huge snowstorm that I have to deliver this cake in today. I am leaving in 2 hours to deliver, help.
I think I just might email her. I am too much of a scaredy cat to call her....
I would call her and tell her the look she wanted could not be achieved with buttercream, and probably give her some kind of a discount.
In the future, if you have a customer adamant about something like that, I would tell them up front that I can't do it in that particular way, and they can pick another design/color/medium or use someone else.
I really feel for you!!
I think I just might email her. I am too much of a scaredy cat to call her....
Please dont jump on me for this...
If you can't pick up the phone and speak to her, then you should not be taking orders. I'm sorry, but that is a bad business decision. Just call her, be honest about it, offer to give her a percentage off if need be and remind her that even Colette has a mishap sometimes and things need to be adjusted. Just be professional about it.
I would call her too. I agree with the others that you could offer her a discount--and just explain that the cake would otherwise have looked gray--these things happen. And in the future, it would be easier on you to call as soon as you know its not going to work. good luck!
i agree, it isn't always easy to do the right thing, just give her a call, so she won't be dissapointed when she walks in and sees it, this way she'll know what to expect. Just tell her that you tried it and it didn't look good, and you did it another way that looks a lot better, and that you knew that she wouldn't want it looking bad, so you fixed it the best you could.
I sucked it up and called and left a message. When I was setting up the cake her dad was there to check on everything. He LOVED the cake and thought it was better this was. I knew I should call her but sometimes you need to hear someone else say it.
i'd see they way she reacts before i offered her a discount...who knows she may like it!
if she doesn't ...then offer some kind of discount....money off seems to make everyone happy.
i hate when stuff like this happens, bless your heart, let us know how everything turns out.
Since dad loved the cake I never said a word about a discount. I posted the cake in my photos as pink and blue. I only charged $165 so I really did not want to give her any more off since the price was so low.
This is where the hard part of telling the customer "NO" comes into play.. Don't be afraid to tell people getting metalic anything on buttercream is next to impossible to achieve 
and you've got to do the cake days in advance so the BC crusts enough, she can have the fondant with royal icing, or no metalic...
I think you did the right thing by calling to give them the "head's up"... It's a hard thing to do, but you did the right thing.
I had an airbrush problem one time and had to call a BRIDE to tell her "Your white cake is going to be orange (her wedding color) because my airbrush burped and I don't have time to chill and recoat your cake in order for you to have cake at your reception dinner.".. And that was for a freebie wedding gift cake!(I was BAWLING at that point..and 4 hours drive away) I felt so AWEFUL about the whole thing I couldn't make eye contact with anyone because I felt like I let the whole world down.. The bride literally LAUGHED at me because "Oh, it's not the worst thing that has happened to me today" (the drycleaners had ripped OVER half of her skirt off the dress, and she had done two face plants getting off the party bus!).. Then, the caterer said "this is the first wedding that we can remember that we didn't have to clean up ANY cake or frosting" (it was a fondant cake in a small, very NONadventerous with their food town..).. It all worked out and the cake had it's own uniqueness to it...
Of course, moments like this are where we earn our stripes in the Culinary Institute of Hard Knocks... It's just something to be aware of for future designs so that you are comfortable with saying "Hey, it's going to look like 
" and know what is within the rhelm of possibility with any particular frosting..
Can you not press edible glitter into buttercream to get aome kind of silvery sparkle? I don't work with buttercream and admire anyone who does as it looks so hard to me! Do let us know what she thought of it when you find out.
emmacakes- cake was a huge hit and is in my gallery as pink and blue.
Mom was not there when I dropped it off. The Dad, brother, and boyfriend loved it.
chalk ti up as a "whew - close call" but definitely take the lessons away from it. if you can't do something the way a customer envisions, you have to tell them and be firm about it. Many of them don't realize that a certain look is only achievable with certain techniques or equipment and if they don't want something or you don't have something, then the end result will be different.
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