Help! Deliver Or Have Them Pick-Up?? And More ??s
Decorating By imartsy Updated 2 Nov 2006 , 11:43pm by finnox
Okay I'm attaching a pic here - I made this cake last night and of course everything that could go wrong just about did....... the people are stuck on by little skewers but a hand fell off and an arm fell off - I glued them back on w/ royal icing.... my problem is that the person was going to pick the cake up today and I'm so worried a letter or a person or something is going to fall off! Do you think I should just follow her and deliver it? It's going to be at a tailgating event for the local college..... so it could be quite a hassel.... but I want to make sure it gets there okay!
Second question - how should I tell her to cut into this? It has one long dowel through the middle and four small dowels in the bottom tier..... she's never had a cake like this so I'm not sure what kind of "instructions" I should give her - I don't want to make it too complicated so she always orders sheetcake in the future.....
Final question - I'm also attaching a pic of the back of the cake - do you think it needs something on the bottom layer? Some different colored circles or something?? I dont want the cake to be too busy - and it is the back .... but I don't want it to look unfinished or empty either.......
(Oh by the way - there is "Happy" on the top of the cake which you can see and then "Birthday" and "Louise" are on the sides sort of wrapping around....)
okay first let me say those people you made are amazing.......the back does look a little plain but like you said "it's the back!" What are the words on the front by the people...maybe you could continue that or write it again or something in the back??? Or even do some red polka dots on the back??? I dunno...just wanted to say it looks amazing and as far as telling her how to cut it. Here is what I do: when I have a cake that's "complicated" to cut into I make a basic drawing, in your case I would draw a figure of a cake stacked on another cake, then make little lines in the bottom one showing all four skewers and a big line from the top to bottom cakes and just put arrows pointing one to the dowel and one to a skewer and put...remove these before cutting/serving! That's all.....people usually figure it out from there.....if the top cake isn't on a cake board I might give her one to slide under to remove the top layer and I'm sure she can handle it from there.......the whole delivery thing is going to be up to you....it's hard to let go of your baby (cake lol) but sometimes you gotta........put it in the car FOR her.....give her some non skid mats or something and don't let her put it on the seat for goodness sake!! lol I hate when people do that! If you load it up and let her know she needs to drive like there is a glass of wine on the front seat it should be okay!
Thank you KHalstead! I'm trying to get off work early so that maybe I can run home and add a couple polka dots or something to the back.... I hope I have some time!!!! She's picking it up from my mother's house (where I do my baking! 
) I'm just so nervous! I don't want her to take it and for one of the people to fall off mid-way and she has no way of fixing it - or a little leg or arm falls of..... ACK!!! I don't really want to drive to the University b/c of all the traffic but I"m so scared...... thanks for your tips and your compliments!!! (And thanks to aine2 for the AWESOME facial instructions) - I'll post more pics of this soon when I can get a "collage" together
Oh and the words are "Happy" at the top, "Birthday" at the right and "Louise" at the left........ kinda had to fit it all around b/c they definitely wanted that on the cake and the people were covering it up at the top or at the bottom -so the words go around!
I don't think I would worry about putting anything on the back, after all it is the back of the cake. I would just tell her that during transportation you always run the risk of the little guys tilting or falling off, expecially as pot holes on roads sometimes just can't be avoided. I would instruct her how to fix them and even send a little royal icing with her or give her the option of you delivering it. By the way your guys look great.
I think your cake looks great!!!!
I would do as said above, I've even handed out non skid mats and made sure they put it somewhere completely level....not the back seat or the front floor board!!!!!
I also have told people to reduce their speed and watch the corners.
Thank you to everyone for your help! I did add some polka dots to the back of the cake and it made it look more complete. I think she was happy with it - she's a friend - but she was taking it down to tailgating for football and was running late so she was kinda rushed..... but I did explain to her how to take it apart and heck if she has trouble she'll prob. just call me.... well let's hope! She said everyone was waiting and ready to dig into it..... so I hope they spend at least 2-3 minutes looking at it and appreciating it first!!! LOL. But I also told her I got plenty of pictures - in case no one has a camera or the lady she was buying it for wants pictures or something. I'll be posting later tonight!!!! You guys can check out my gallery tomorrow for the final pictures!!!
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