Holy Cow! This Could Have Been Very Bad!
Decorating By sweet-thing Updated 6 Oct 2009 , 2:20pm by rosiecast
So I finally decide to get it together and start selling my cakes! WooHoo! I wanted a very small business from home. (SAHM w/ four little ones) Maybe a cake or two a week. First couple weeks went exactly as planned. A cake a week, nothing too stressful. Then I get four orders for this week. One of them is a pretty big shower cake. One is from an ongoing contract I got with a surgical practice. (Yay!) Two are due Friday, two on Sunday. I was so excited. Seemed simple enough. I worked on decorations all week and started to bake last night. First cake came out of the oven and fell in the middle. The top and sides were dry as can be! Okay, start over, next cake SAME thing!! We decide it is the oven temp getting screwy on me. Adjust the temp and try a third cake. It was a HUGE disaster, too! I just cried and cried! I am just freaking out because this doctor's cake is due at 8AM and it is evening by now and I still don't have a cake! So I run to the grocery, buy more ingredients and I tried to buy a naked cake just in case. Well,that is another story in itself but they wouldn't sell me one. I did buy one from the case to scrape frosting off of if I couldn't get one baked. We finally figured out that I could bake thinner layers at what the hell ever temperature my oven decided to be.(Sometimes it was 275 sometimes 375!) So I baked this round, chocolate layered cake, decorated with her gumpaste leaves and fall stuff she wanted. I made a ton of cake balls! 
And went to bed. This morning I was so nervous and was planning on just charging her a portion of what I would have. It was the wrong flavor, size and shape. She didn't even order cake balls! Well, I dropped it off, explained what happened.She loved the cake! Get this, she said her family was going to be gone all day Saturday and she offered to let me use her kitchen to finish all my cakes! 
What! She called later and said she had never heard of a cake ball but everyone said they were amazing! I cannot even believe how this turned out. And my stupid oven is working fine so far today!!! 
Congrats on the business!!! Sorry about your near disaster, but I am glad everything turned out okay for you. Good luck!
Wow, what a generous friend! I'm so glad everything seems to be working out for you now!
So was it truly the oven temp going wacko on you?? I used to have issues with bigger cakes not baking evenly until I read on here about using an upside-down flower nail (or 2 or 3, depending on the size of the cake). How amazing that your customer was happy and even offered to let you use her kitchen....Wow!
Hope your oven issues are resolved now.....happy baking 
)
I had that problem with my oven before and it was a wiring issue. Sometimes the oven wouldn't heat, sometimes it would overheat, when the repairman was there it worked perfectly, and sometimes my burners wouldn't work either. They finally had to take the back by the controls apart and fiddle with the wires in it.
Oh, and sometimes the oven would start out working normally and then heat up really hot halfway through, so be careful if you think that's what's wrong with yours. Mine got hot enough once that my cotton potholder got black marks on it from picking up a muffin tin...and I could feel the heat right through it.
I had that problem with my oven before and it was a wiring issue. Sometimes the oven wouldn't heat, sometimes it would overheat, when the repairman was there it worked perfectly, and sometimes my burners wouldn't work either. They finally had to take the back by the controls apart and fiddle with the wires in it.
Oh, and sometimes the oven would start out working normally and then heat up really hot halfway through, so be careful if you think that's what's wrong with yours. Mine got hot enough once that my cotton potholder got black marks on it from picking up a muffin tin...and I could feel the heat right through it.
This is exactly what is happening! It starts out 325, then ten minutes later it is 275, then 300,then 375 and so on. The first cake was raw in the middle, burnt on top and all dried out on the edges! I thought I was going crazy! I literally sat with my forehead pressed against the door last night watching the thermometers ( I bought a second one last night!) Today I have baked three cakes and they are okay. It finally started getting messed up after that. I have two to go!!
Was this an expensive fix? I may work on DH for a new oven! 
Glad it worked out ok, but am wondering why, if you had to rebake anyway, why did you bake the wrong flavor, size and shape?
Just wondering...
The only size I could get to bake okay was an 8 in. round. So I did those. I had to pick a flavor. I guess I could have baked more rounds and used two flavors. Honestly by that point I was a blubbering mess. It was supposed to be half chocolate, half vanilla. I baked three of those that I couldn't use. The large sheet pans would not bake correctly at all with the oven going crazy. I still used all the same decorations that I would have and she had plenty of servings. I threw in cake balls too.
It was just a loose wire. I rent, so the landlord takes care of repairs, but I'm assuming it wasn't expensive.
My sister had something similiar with her gas oven and it was a bad thermostat and was an expensive fix (but it sure was funny when she couldn't cook the turkey for all of us on Thanksgiving, I'm a mean woman, I know, but watching her check her turkey every 30 minutes until midnight was the best thanksgiving I have ever had).
Did you concider using a fruit filling in your dry cakes you might have been able to save them. But do try the flower nails they work great.
Ya, I'd get it fixed right away, that is just too much stress. I finally got a new oven, was having issues too. I am dissappointed thought that I didn't check the oven out better. Its a beautiful stainless steel convection oven but its too small, I can't fit a 16" pan inside, so thats something to think about.
Lucky you I'ld suggest you work seriously on either fixing or getting a new oven cos even though it seems to be working fine now, the way things seem to be looking up for you in your business it could happen again when you least expect it and not all customers will be as nice about things as the one you just dealt with 
So true...talking to hubby about getting a new one this weekend! I was VERY lucky this time. Fortunately it was for an office birthday so she basically wanted a yummy, fall themed cake to feed everyone in the office. I am sooooo lucky it wasn't some big event that had a definite design like a wedding or something. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because I would have had a stroke from the stress in that case.
My current one has the convection option and that fan thing in the back takes up too much room for a 16 inch pan, too. Just one more reason I should go shopping!
that is so wonderful of your client. I love hearing stories like this.
It sounds like it's definitely time for a new oven, because I think you're going to have some new customers wanting cake balls. They sounded very impressed. Too bad about you oven, but it could have been a blessing in disguise. You know what they say, " The Lord works in mysterious ways". Good Luck.
my oven is frustrating too.. its propane like the dryer and hot water tank (old house etc) and through the past year its had moments where it just stops working for several months then works fine for that same time .... frustrating. at least i have access to a kitchen a few miles away but its not always easy to get there long story lol
I had a similar issue last year, my oven went haywire totally crazy, 3 days before christmas, i was baking some shortbread cookies, and all of a sudden all this black smoke starts pouring out of my kitchen!!! Thinking the oven was on fire i panicked lmao! luckily, it wasnt! but when i opened the oven door, the smell of melted, burning plastic was over powering. luckily my kitchen is small so i only had to open the back door to let the smoke out. after the oven cooled down i checked it over, and the inside walls and bottom walls had burnt through and there was like this black mush. The repairman had never seen it before but said it was the thermostat overheated way beyond what it was ever supposed to! we had been lucky it hadnt burst into flames! i was more concerned it was 3 days before xmas!!! i was like noooooooooooo lol! Safe to say, New oven definately.
If you have a Lowes Store near you be sure to check out their clearence section. Afew years ago I bought my convection oven for 1/2 price because the model was changing.
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