I just finished a cake requested by my boss. She wanted a cake with a willow tree on it for the birthday of a friend that is a horticulturist.
Plan was to make it Thursday, but the sink cake took longer then I expected and I then figured I'd do it on Friday. Overall design is simple so I wasn't really worried about it.
Mistake #1 - don't make a cake after taking your 2 year old to see Thomas and Friends Live onstage.. even with DH going it was a rough day for me. Left at 9am to catch train.... got home after 7pm. Had to wrestle bored/tired/thirsty/hungry child more times then not. He was great during the play or in the car/bus... just everything was a lot for him. DH basically sits oblivious to when JP is getting wound up.
Mistake #2 - when making gumpaste and fondant in near equal amounts do NOT leave them in the same area without marking them. As I was kneading together the fondant I didn't realize that I'd grabbed the gumpaste! luckily not a lot went into the fondant so it appears normal. I think it's a little harder then usual though.
Mistake #3 - make sure you put back all your colors or check to make sure you're not missing anything. This was a stupid, stupid error from the last time I'd used my brown color. Could NOT find it for the life of me and it was now about 10pm. Wasted about a half hour before melting down some choc and adding to the cream cheese icing I was using for decorating.
Mistake #4 - not even sure what I did except maybe not paying close enough attention.. but had huge problems smoothing fondant over the cake.. which is when I also realized that I'd NOT put on as even a coat of icing on the cake. Thankfully decorating icing can hide a multitude of errors. At this point last night I almost rerolled another band of fondant to go around the circumference of the cake. Chose not to because I wasn't sure how to make it work and blend to the current layer. Really should have taken off the first layer...made more frosting and should have redone the entire thing. However I wasn't thinking all that clearly at that point.
cake looks 'ok' with some obvious issues. If the cake didn't need to be delivered this morning I think I'd redo the entire thing right now.
I'm with everyone else, I think the cake looks fantastic.
In fact you should be proud of yourself that you could even assemble a cake much less decorate after having a day like you did.
Honestly, I would have had a melt down and quite around your "mistake 1"! LOL
well i like your cake. So what it if has a few mistakes, you got it done. Your boss will be thrilled with it, and the friend will be even more thrilled because your boss cared enough about them to have 
made just for them. It will all work out in the end.
I understand that you are not happy with it, but use it as a learning experience and smile 
Think of it this way: you had an awesome day with your family, esp your DS; your boss is going to get the High-5 from the friend and you made someone elses's day a little bit happier. Kudos! 
oops.. uploaded the wrong pic to begin with... there's another side that you see the fondant errors with.
Boss did like it and I'm counting on her jetlag (got back from Australia Last night) and the cake muggle view of her and her guests to get the cake ooo'd and ahh'd over until cutting, lol.
also dropped the sink cake off at my other friends .. but she knows full well how I get with cakes, lol. I also had her laughing because with the supports and gumpaste accents I told her to just hand me the knife this afternoon and I'll cut and serve that one, lol.
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