Shades of Orange. A cake disaster turned cake save...

Ai, yi, yi. This cake...has quite the story of how it came to be and if you read along, you'll see why there are two very different looking cakes before you. But I assure you, they are one in the same. I should start by saying it has been an incredibly rough week...so much going on and to top it off I was sick, sick, sick. Didn't even get to start decorating until 11PM that night. Any way, I was so excited because this cake was made for a really good friends Mom's surprise 50th birthday party. Oh and she gave me TOTAL creative freedom on every aspect. She said she loved my petal cakes and if I wanted to try out a new technique or anything to go for it, no specific colors...surprise her. I love this girl! So I wanted to try out a 'rustic' icing, which I think I need some practice lol. I also have been seeing a lot of these cascading fantasy flowers for wedding cakes, so thought I can do that for a 50th cake. So here's the story: The one you see on the left was the original cake, before we left to deliver it. On the way to deliver my guy hit the breaks a little too fast because another car was coming way too fast. Needless to say, the bottom tier started to buckle. I had the cake covered with saran wrap thankfully and I held on to it for dear life. We made it to my brothers house which was a few streets down from where it needed to be delivered. Took off the top two tiers to be able to salvage them since they were still in tact and took off the petals that were on the bottom tier so I could still use them. Bottom tier however, well while I was able to wrap in saran wrap to save it for cutting I could not use it in the overall design. But it was way too yummy to throw away, that tier had the raspberry filling that went so well with the chocolate cake. *sigh Any way, there was no time to rebake but I really wanted to make sure it stayed a 3 tier. So, I went to the store and bought...gulp...frozen pepperidge farm cake. I cut those bad boys in to two 4" circles and made myself a top tier! In the end, I'm happier with the outcome of the second cake. I kept saying I wished I had made the original 4 tiers because I felt like it needed more height. Caking divine intervention at it's best? I think so lol. ♥ Cake is a moist chocolate cake filled and iced in vanilla buttercream. Bottom tier filled with raspberry buttercream and raspberries. Center flower made from a 50/50 gumpaste/fondant mixture. Rest of petals are fondant.