You know sometimes it's just ain't your day when cake is not turning out. Well, today was mine, first I burnt one of the layers, had to rebake which put me behind, then could not get my chocolate icing dark enough. I kept adding brown coloring to it, but it just was not doing much for the color. Most of the ideas I had for the cake did not turn out. The colors were off, not enough polka dots, the bow on top was turning into a nightmare, had to scrap it all together. Grabbed a wrong tip and the borders are horrific. And what's up with my time management?! It just seems that everything takes longer than it should. No matter what time the cake is due I always run behind. Anywho, I did not even want to take photos of the cake, but my hubby snapped a few just the same. So now I'm staring at these photos and feeling even worse about it then before the delivery. I'm not charging for cakes yet, just asking for ingredient reimbursement, but I don't think I'm even going to do that this time. Oh I don't think I'm cut out for this, cannot work under pressure..... Time to take a break I think...
Thanks for listening me vent,
P

So sorry you had THAT day!

the next time your brown or blue isn't dark enough (like for navy or whatever) start adding a wee bit of black at a time. That will darken it up and not make it muddy.

Next time it will work out fine. I'm sure.

Awwww..... girl dont be so hard on yourself , sometimes even though we dont realise it we have our minds somewhere else and as much as we want to focus, things just dont come out right.

I have said the same thing. I believe I even made a post about it (On cafemom) My tittle was "THIS HOBBY ISN'T FOR ME " lol (No disrespect to all of you professionals I do it as a hobby)

Anyhow like Im sure you have heard before : we are , our worst critics . So cheer up and I bet you will make an even nicer cake the next time.

Next one WILL be better, don't be to hard on yourself...we all have those days!

Jen

I think my worst "one of those days" was when I dropped a 12x12 red velvet cake on the floor at 10:00 at night and had to go to the store to get more stuff and back yet another one that late at night.

I'll leave you guys to guess how many days it took my floor to go back to it's regular color. Warm red-velvet cake WILL stain a floor PINK!!!

Oh Wow, thank you all so much! It's nice to know that I'm not the only one, but it's just so dissappointing when things don't turn out. When I delivered the cake I could not even make eye contact with people, I was so embarassed....

Ugh, I had one of those days today.

I tried my first ganache-under-fondant cake. Iced the cake in ganache last night, but 15 hours later, it was not set.

ThenI opened my last 20-pound pail of dark chocolate Satin Ice fondant to cover the cake, and discovered that it was furry and decomposing. Yuck!!

Sent hubby to cake supply shop and got completely screwed on a 5 pound package of Pettinice for $25, whereas I get 20 pound pails of Satin Ice fondant for $50.

The Pettinice fondant was REALLY soft, so it was more work than usual for me to get the cake covered. One side would not stick at all and kept buckling outward, like there were huge amounts of air in the cake (which there was not).

Oh well, I made do and the guy loved his cake, and now I have 3 hours of the season finale of Survivor, 2 hours of the season finale of Desperate Housewives, and a brand-new cake Challenge, all waiting for me on DVR. Mucho chillaxin' awaits me.

It must be a full moon or something...I had one of those days too today! I had three batches of cupcakes to make for my goddaughter's end of the year school picnic, and NOTHING went right while making them. The chocolate ones were overbaked...then I used the wrong tip with the peanut butter frosting on them and they came out nothing like I wanted them to. Then the liners began peeling away from the white chocolate ones, and tiny pieces of white chocolate kept clogging my decorating tip, so I had to take it off the bag over and over to clean it out. Then my lemon frosting wouldn't set up properly...by the end of the day I was literally yelling "Geez, now what??" Thank goodness for the three hours of Survivor finale last night...I too needed some serious chillaxin' by then!!

Have you tried using Hershey's special dark cocoa? That usually works for me! It's not only darker, but it is richer tasting. Just make sure you add a tablespoon or two extra shortening if you do. I use this in my fondant too...makes it taste like Tootsie Rolls!

We all have had those kind of days I afraid...just had one on Saturday...my last pictures I posted....Top of the wedding cake came off during transport, as I had to place a plate under the fondant to support the very heavy topper the bride insisted on having on it. The center dowel worked it's way up and popped that sucker right off! Dang it!!

Did my best to "patch" it up and make it look respectable, but the damage was done, and very evident. The mother of the groom saw me trying to fix it and told me it was ok, and it was beautiful anyways...that helped a little. It didn't help either that the placement of the flowers wasn't what I had planned, thanks to the bride, but oh well.

I was pleased with the cake anyways, and hope to do more of that edible painting on cake, in the future!