I spent all day Friday making a cake for a friend. She was going to have to travel a long distance with the cake, so I doweled through both the cakes, hammering it into the cake board with a sledge hammer, then doweled the cake so that the top sat about 1/4 inch above the bottom so there would be no pressure on the bottom cake. Well, The cake turned out Beautiful and she loved it .
About an hour or so after she picked it up, I got a phone call from her.
She asked me is there was a way to reinforce the "box" because it was coming apart on one corner. I thought she was talking about the box the cake was in, but no! she was referring to the cake! Then she asked if she could just lift the top cake off so the bottom cake would travel better. I told her no, that might destroy the cake.
Now thinking a corner of the cake had just parted and I grabbed a few tools and ran over to her house to repair it.
When I got there the bottom cake looked like someone had sat on it--like it has imploded! I was mortified. It was bulging on every side and three corners were split and bulging. And the top cake had a finger gouge in it and it had moved.
I thought the doweling had collapsed and was pushing the cake down, so I removed the top cake and the dowels were still in place, although the center dowel came out with the top cake !
I have gone over every scenario in my mind of what caused this, and the only thing I can think of is that someone tried unsuccessfully to remove the top cake inadvertantly pushing down on the bottom cake.
I dont want to assign blame because if this is something I did wrong, I want to know how to avoid it in the future. But I can't think of anything else that would have caused this disaster.
I hate to think my friend would just leave me twisting in the wind if this is something she might have caused. On the other hand, she may have not had the heart to "fess up". When I asked her about the gouge in the top cake, she said she accidentally poked it when she lifted the top of the cake box off the view the cake.
Can any of you think of another reason for this ?? I am open to any suggestions.
Here is a pic of the cake before it left ...

I can't help with fixing it, but I just wanted to say that cake is awesome!
Great job! I'd be heartsick over that one too!!

thats is very pretty.....

Your friend probably tried to remove the top cake before she called you, and when you said not too, it was already too late. She's probably just too embarassed to tell you. You're cake was truly beautiful. I was just admiring it in the gallery. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do at this point. At least you know you can make a beautiful cake.

I'm sorry to hear this happened...It's so pretty...love the colors...I seem to be gravitating towards those colors lately .......

keep on baking!!!!

cindy

Thanks for the support. I have been close to tears all day, racking my mind about what I might or might not have done.
Common sense tells me that this was not my fault, but not knowing the whole story makes me question myself constantly.
I guess I should stop obsessing and just move on.

Cakequake Happens....

sounds to me like your friend probably messed it up. So sorry. Hopefully she'll tell you the truth, if she indeed did do it. (sounds like she did)
BEautiful cake!!

WOW! Is that really a silk negligee or something similar in the box? And a real silk or silk-like bow? If not - HOW did you do that????

No, Imartsy, that is chocolate fondant lingerie.
I cut the bodice from fondant in two triangle shapes, and decorate them to look like lace, the put them over a round form to firm up. I attach the two pieces with gum glue.

Then I cut a rectangle for the bottom and attach to the bodice.

I cut a white ribbon out of fondant and brushed with pearl luster dust. Form a bow and attach to the top with gum glue or water.

The straps are then rolled and added to the top.

And the bow on the box is chocolate fondant also, colored black.

Wow. That's really pretty. I'm sorry it was messed up. I can't imagine what could have happened to make it do that. It sounds like it was structurally sound. Were you able to repair it so she could still use it? If you find out what happened let us know.

Well, I repaired it the best I could under the circumstances. She was happy with it. I wasn't. I pushed in and smoothed the sides, then reattached the corners with chocolate. The top cake didn't survive the move because I had built it on top of the bottom cake. So we removed the lingerie and laid it across the top of the bottom cake. It was all I could do under the circumstances.

Sometimes that's the hardest part for me - knowing that someone is walking out the door with something I've worked on for hours, sometimes days, and HOPING that they get where they're going with the cake still intact! My mom picked up a cake from me last week, and my dad offered to carry it from my kitchen to the car, and my DH told him "oh there's no way she's going to let anybody else carry that cake!" haha! I've seen others here say that once the cake is picked up it's not your problem if something happens to it, but that's not how I feel about it! I worry about it until I hear that the cake made it safely, and hope that it looked beautiful and tasted great!! So far, so good!

That aside, I think your cake was just beautiful - I admire your work tremendously!


Marilyn

I know exactly what you mean, Marilyn. Up until now, I had always chalked that up to sheer nervousness. I didn't realize just how much of myself I invested into one of these cakes!


I guess it is time to step back and take a deep breath.

I can say now that my worst nightmare has happened. And I survived.
What troubles me still is that I still don't really know what happened. If this is something I caused, then it could happen again.

I have two weddings coming up in the next few weeks, and I hope I can get rid of this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach

Thank you for your kind words, and by the way, about the Diva Cake you just posted---Could it get any more stinkin' cute??? That is adorable!!

I'm glad it all worked out for you!!! It surely is an amazing piece of work!!!!!! It's beautiful!!

What a beautiful cake!!

I think your friend was too embarrassed to confess. Now is the time to mention to her what you charge for delivery the next time you do one for her.

I'm so sorry about that mishap to such a WONDERFUL & GORGEOUS cake. You can see that you do put so much of yourself into your cakes.
All your cakes are absolutely marvelous!!
Yes, it hurts when disaster strikes one.
Deep breathing and go forward is what you need to do now.

couturiere

you have to know that sometimes "CAKE" happens!

I bet that your friend didn't realize that the cake was so well attached and figured that maybe she 'could' remove some and keep it for her self..hahahah!

then put the nightie on the bottom cake? lol

not! don't know what could've happened. But my heart bleeds for you! That's why i do what I do, I'm too old for the "cake stress"! lol

But, ...on the other hand...when you get burnt out from making edible undies.....maybe you should start teaching or make a tutorial CD.!!!

I'm buying the first copy! ahhahahaaaaaaaa!

<---to many cakes, not enough sleep!

I did about 50 custom decorated cakes in about 3 weeks!! working 12 hour days every SINGLE day!!! but it sure beats making 50 ice cream cakes a day!!! woooooooooooooha!

Wow. Beautiful cake. So sorry this happened to you, especially "not knowing" what REALLY happened. Although it was probably NOT your fault seeing as you took every precaution, you'll still question yourself. I think it's human nature when it comes to anyone who takes pride in what they do LOL. Just know that you made a BEAUTIFUL cake. This *blech* feeling will pass and you're next cakes will be just as beautiful.

And Sandy mentioned in her post about bringing up delivery charges... LOL, not a bad idea I suppose.

Again, a beautiful cake!!

Your cake is georgeous, I like the design and the blending of the colors. I very seldom transport stacked cakes as it is risky to do it. I had a problem with a 2-layers basket of flowers that I prepared and transported from NJ to NYC. When I arrived there, the cake has shifted against the wall of the box and the filling was visible. What happened next.....just take a guess. Since then, I dowell the bottom cake very well (push the dowels all the way to the cake board); transport them in separate boxes and assemble at the reception site. It's very sad and frustrating to learn this lesson this way, but it won't happen to you again. Again, your cake is very beautiful ....what a shame.....

Yes, I know what you are saying about transporting cakes for a long distance, and I had a lot of qualms about this. and why I really nailed the cakes to the board and doweled them very well.
And if she had called after traveling a long distance telling me the cake had not survived---that I could have understood. --- that it could not hold up to the constant vibration, ect...
But this cake didn't make a drive of less than 20 miles.
That's what I cannot figure out!

Not everyone drives like we do when we are delivering a cake.

Sometimes I think people believe, that because there are dowels in them ,they can drive like Richard Petty.

I'm guessing this was a combination of her driving, the top layer moved and she tried to fix it.

BTW..the dowels are in there to accept the weight of the top cake..maybe because your dowels extended above the bottom layer it made the top move during transport???

Wow! That cake is incredible.... it doesn't even look like cake.

It should have held both together.

I just don't understand what could have happened. Were your dams made with extra stiff BC??

Something made that cake shift. I'm guessing careless driving if you think your dams and support were good. Or she was trying to take the thing apart and gummed it up doing that.

At any rate I doubt if what happened was your fault.

Your cake is totally awesome! When you get the chance, could you PM me with some tips on how to make the fondant so neat and the box so perfect? I really, really struggle on my square cakes and am really hoping for some tips and help. I want to be able to create something that perfect.

ANYWAY...

My two thoughts about what went wrong is probably that the straws were not even with the top of the cake. I always put the straws in even with the cake...then put a piece of parchment or wax paper...then put a thin coating of icing...then put the next cake on. The wax paper then peels off for serving without ruining the bottom layer. Even with fondant, you still want to put the straws even with the cake top and then add a bit of icing like "glue" for the next layer.

Also, for 3D cakes I do refrigerate them overnight. This makes the cake stiff and not wobbly, and also makes it so that the dam of icing is fairly hard and there should be no leakage of filling. The short time the cake is refrigerated does not hurt the cake (even fondant ones) and it helps for stable transportation.

Today I transported a three tiered cake that had been refrigerated (had filling anyway that needed it) and I did not center dowel it, only used straws, and it transported 30 minutes without budging, even with a softer filling in it as well.

Again, the cake is STUNNING!

Thanks, Kitagrl, for your input. I will definately take your advice into consideration!

I haven't tried it, but I think I know what she means.

Instead of building an icing dam on top of the layer, then putting the filling inside the dam, she actually hollows out a bit of the cake, so the filling is inside the cake layer, rather than on top.

Does that make sense? It does to me, but I'm not sure I'm explaining it right.

Laura.