Had my first disaster today. I made a three layer stacked cake covered in fondant for a party to celebrate 23 kids going on a trip to Australia. The customer picked it up and loved it. 10 minutes later I get a call "Is there anything I can do to salvage this?". I rush over to her house and the bottom layer has exploded and her husband is holding the top two layers up. Since the cake had a dowel down the middle, we had to raise them up and off. The party started in 30 minutes but fortunately wasn't at their house. I felt horrible when I saw what happened but I told her it was no problem and we'd fix it up. I got the address of the party and took the cake home to fix it.

The top two layers were in good shape but the bottom layer was totally gone. So I grabbed some buttercream and taught DH how to make cake balls, newly named "Austalian truffles". We ran out of chocolate so DH was off to Michaels while I re-did the fondant flags and "vegemite". Two hours later, we deliver everything to the party and they were so thankful. I was so relieved that they were happy with the new version.

Wow any idea what went wrong? did you not have enough dowels? I think it looks really good - you can't tell there was a "disaster"!

imartsy - Research & development has determined a couple potential causes:
1. Bottom layer was a new chocolate recipe that was not very dense.
2. Customer driving. (She told me it was leaning when she got home and she tried to straighten it when it exploded.)
3. Humidity - temps in the 90's today.
4. Cake was stacked the night before and should have waited until today.
5. Not enough dowels on bottom layer.
5. Should have let customer stack it at party.

I sell my cakes at cost to help me learn so this was just another learning experience.

Yes you're right Cake Princess. Didn't think about it that way.