Emergency Cake Rescue Wth A Happy Ending!
Decorating By Leigh01 Updated 18 Sep 2007 , 9:56am by Leigh01
I was planning on having a quiet, cake free weekend and was happily pottering around on saturday night when my phone goes at about 8pm. The call was from a resuaraunt owner who was asked to make a wedding cake a client for sunday - they made the cake and it was going to be decorated by a chocolatier who dropped them and went away for the weekend, leaving them with a box of chocolate shards and a piece of acetate with melted chocolate on it asssuring them that they could decorate it themselves.
Well, they tried - eventually resorting to buying supermarket fondant and covering the cakes with it - unable to get it smooth and wrinkle free they tried using water on the fondant and that ll resulted in a sticky mess. They found my numbr on the internet and called asking for emergency assistance. And how could I say no!!
The cakes were brought to me half an hour later and it was with great trepidation that I tackled the mess - uneven cakes covered in a sticky mess - youknow what water does to fondant. the cakes were very rich and heavy and chuncks were coming off when I peeled off the fondant. I melted the choclate and covered the cakes completely with it filling in the holes as I went. I then iced them in buttercream and recovered in my own fondant and decorated with royal icing. All this took me from about 9pm till 6am the following morning.
Long story short - the cake was saved and tuned out great (see my latest pic). 
What a beautiful job you did! I hope you charged them an arm & a leg for having to work through the night?! You saved their butts big time!
Thanks! I was very happy with the way it turned out. Felt good to be able to do it.
Am having issues with what to charge them - my material costs are minimal and have not really had to work out what my time is worth because I normally quote per head. All things considered the baking of the cake takes the least amount of time........... and they got someone else to bake it.
I really struggled to find an hourly rate for myself that was not extreme - We all know how precious our own time is and in reality it is impossible to cost.
The way I finally looked at it was this - baking the cake takes 1/3 of the total time and decorating, finishing off, setting up etc etc the other 2/3rds. So I estimated what I would have charged for the cake if I had been asked to quote on it and divided the hours I spent into 2/3rd of the estimated cake cost to get an hourly rate for mself (can't do the currency conversion as I am working in South African Rands). Am not mathematically inclined and maybe don't have the best business brain but what I came out with I felt was fair - I may have done myself in though. who knows. A lesson learnt.
I just have to say, whatever you charged was probably not enough. That is one beautiful cake! Especially, for what you had to work with. I'm sure they were amazed when they saw what they gave you, and what they got back.
I wish I could have seen a before picture, though.
Great work!! Pat yourself on the back, several times.
Holly
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