I am new to all of this and am having a blast impressing friends and colleagues. My husband is having a meeting tomorrow morning and needs to bring a treat. I, of course, volunteered to make cupcakes.
Last Thursday, I tried royal icing letters for the first time, with the intent of sticking them in the top of each cupcake. They turned out beautifully - all 50 of them! I did "ANW," the initials of the hospital where he works. We are in the process of redecorating our kitchen, so I placed them carefully on a cookie sheet and set them in the oven for safekeeping.
This afternoon we got home later than expected and I rushed into the kitchen to start baking. First things first...I PREHEATED the oven...and RUINED all of my royal icing letters!! I am so disappointed. My husband just went to the grocery store to pick up bagels instead. 
oh gosh..thats terrible! if it makes you feel any better, i had a rough cake decorating weekend myself. i made a big batch of sky blue bc..and noticed it tasted funny, very greasy..so i threw it out and tried again..same thing..then i checked my recipe. i had doubled the crisco, but not the butter..its was gross! plus it looked like Drunky smurf threw up in my garbage can.
press on my friend, press on. and check your oven before you turn it on..lol
Thanks treys_girl04! I'm sorry about your wasted BC - I hate having to throw away ingredients!
I am sorry about your letters. I made a duck cake for my nieces baby shower and put it in the oven to keep it safe from the cats overnight. The next morning I went to make rolls for breakfast and preheated the oven... and cooked my duck!!!!! I had to scrape off all the icing and redo it.
[quote="facepainter"]I am sorry about your letters. I made a duck cake for my nieces baby shower and put it in the oven to keep it safe from the cats overnight. The next morning I went to make rolls for breakfast and preheated the oven... and cooked my duck!!!!! I had to scrape off all the icing and redo it.[/quote
Cooked my duck, that made me 
K'ly ^,,^
Oh my goodness! Of course I've done this same thing as well. I know it's so frustrating! It really does happen to everyone though. I leave my oven light on now whenever I have anything stored in there to avoid burnin things up again.
The "preheat" thing hasn't happened to me yet but my day will come. I'm sorry you lost all your letters 
True story -- about 10 years ago I volunteered to bring cinnamon rolls and some country potatoes to an office brunch. I started my cinnamon roll dough and happily stuck it in a plastic bowl, covered it with a towel, and put it in the oven to rise. Then without a thought, I moved on to my country potatoes....frying bacon, check! Chopping onions, check! Preheat oven to 400...check! Well 15 minutes later the plastic bowl melted through the rack and naturally took all the cinnamon roll dough with it. I not only lost a bowl I really liked, but I ended up going to Cinnabon and spending $20 on cinnamon rolls!
It can happen to anyone....so sorry about your letters!
I don't know if it has happened to everyone, but it has sure happened to me. 
My son's first birthday was a few days after the "Northridge earthquake" (6.7 magnitude), so his party had to be delayed until I had a kitchen that could be used and running hot AND cold water. My dh's father and stepmother graciously offered to let us have a lunchtime party at their house on a Saturday, about a month after the quake. (We had water and electricity, but not all of the damage had been repaired, and the house was definitely NOT ready for company.)
I baked two cakes, a Big Bird character cake (lemon cake with lemon BC) and a healthy 2-layer carrot cake with apricot filling and cream cheese frosting. I finished decorating the character cakes around 2 a.m., and put Big Bird into the oven to keep it safe from the cat and from ants. (anyone else have ants that will find something within seconds?) I put the carrot cake in the fridge.
Well, my dh thought he'd let me sleep in, and bring me breakfast in bed. He came into the bedroom with a tray with juice, coffee, and half a grapefruit on it, and asked me what type of bagel I wanted him to toast. Now, we lost our toaster when it fell off the countertop in the quake, so all we had for toasting at that time was the oven. (see where I'm going with this?) He started the oven preheating, then made the coffee, poured the juice, cut the grapefruit, etc.. By the time he finished asking his question, I had started smelling melting plastic. I ran into the kitchen, opened the oven, and found a disaster waiting for me. The "cut crystal" plastic tray that I had put the character cake on had started to warp and melt. Luckily, it was on a cake board, so the cake hadn't come in contact with the melting plastic. On the other hand, BC doesn't do too well at oven temperatures!
After breaking down into tears, feeding the baby, and sending dh out for a new tray, I scraped the icing off the cake, and made another batch of BC to start over again, this time rushed for time and splitting attention between the cake and a newly-mobile kidlet.
For years after that, when I sent food or cake leftovers to work with dh, I would send it on the warped tray. Somehow, he "forgot" to bring it home one day, and the cleaning crew threw it away.
Now, if I have something in the oven, I put a "Turn me on and Die!!!" sticky note over the oven control.
RP
I'm glad I'm not the only one who did this!
When I originally put them in the oven, I made a huge deal about telling my husband and making him REPEAT that he would NOT turn on the oven. I'm lucky he was too nice to remind me of that as I scraped all of my letters into the trash!
I did that this summer too!!!!
I melted all the buildings for my kids superman cake. Fortunately they were choclate so I could make it again before the party that was just 2 hours later!! I feel your pain!!!
Won't get into my bad experience, but I learned that if you mess up your frosting add what you need to make it somewhat presentable and freeze it. You can use it later to make a dark color.
I mix all the colors I don't use and mix them together to get black.
You are all making me laugh. The oven light trick is a great idea. I'll keep it in mind. I don't feel so bad about leaving the iron skillet in the oven almost every time I preheat now. I told my dh that we can't store it there because I invariably forget that it's there and heat it up everytime. LOL!!
I'm truly sorry you lost your letters. I know how much it hurts!
OH I know its heartbreaking but thank God it was just something that you decided to do and not for an order or special event.
Back in 2000, when my children were little I had promised to make a cake for my cousin's babyshower and her theme was carousel. Now she and her husband are both attornies and they had judges and lots of people invited that I would love to have clients so this cake had to be memorable.
I decided to make the horses out of sugar cookie and i cut them out with a knife, i didnt have a cookie cutter for the shape i wanted, i then meticulously decorated them with royal icing and they were very ornate. I made four perfect ponies for my spectacular cake. Being a new decorator at the time, I ONLY made FOUR and I set them aside to dry overnight.
The next morning I went to finish the cake and I found I had 4 pretty ponies, only the legs were missing off one and the shower was in just a few hours. My 2 year old pulled up a chair and helped herself to the cookes while I was busy with my son! Now 2 legs off a horse does not seem like a big deal to most, but this was a very turbulent time in my life (my husband and i split 2 weeks after this and this cake was the only thing I felt I had control over at the time). I Just about had a break down! My other cousin came to rescue the children and pick up the rest of the food I prepared while I quickly made another horse and I wound up drying it in the oven, it was still a little soft but the cake turned out great and everyone loved it. I never did get a picture of that darn cake now that I think of it, and after all that I moved to Mississippi the following month and didn't keep up with my New Orleans contacts!
Tragic as that sounds we are all doing well in MS now and some of my N.O. contacts have even looked me up here...happy ending but you always remember those rough moments and its good to be able to laugh at them later
Keep on decorating, live and learn!
Rose
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