This weekend I delivered my first solo wedding cake (gift for my husband's long time best friend) and let me tell you it was full of tears, hyperventilation, and relief, then panic, problem solving, then relief, the panic problem solving, than relief all over again.

I already had some issues prior to delivery, like being overly ambitious and using ganache for the first time (I had so much trouble smoothing it), running out of MFF, no time to make more, and no store open to buy premade (2am) so I had to "stretch" the fondant by rolling it thinner, causing cracks and showing all the flaws of the "almost" smooth ganache, and attempting my first tall tier (let me tell you, square tall tiers are a PITA to cover in fondant).

Well, after all the tiers were boxed up & loaded in the SUV, we headed down to the hotel we were staying at the night before (100 miles away). I've never had problems delivering prestacked 3 tier cakes before so I didn't think twice about letting DH drive with an unstacked cake in the back, especially lined with non-slip liner.

When we got to the hotel, we opened the back and the first thing I see is the tall tier leaning & collapsing against the box. I start freaking internally but I try to keep calm until I asses the damage when we get to the hotel room. When I opened the box sides, I saw how bad it was leaning since the design had stripes, plus the bottom edge was really bulging. I thought the whole tier was a gonner and the tears started to fall, but I thought, what the hell, there's a separator midway through the tier, maybe part of it could be saved...

So I commenced the "emergency surgery" and cut the fondant where the board was to try and salvage what I could. When my MIL and I lifted the top half, the bottom crumbled and collapsed all over the desk and floor, but the top half didn't look half bad.

When I assembled it in the ballroom, I covered up the edge of the cut with a 1.5" wide satin ribbon rather than the originally planned thinner ribbon and the bride and groom were so ecstatic about the cake since the design was left up to me, and only a select few knew what had happened..

The final result.. http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1738178

I know what to do next time and even more drama happened between the assembly and the reception, but this story's already so long so I won't get into further details. =P

Awesome save!!!

What was your support system?

You're my hero!!! I, too, had a major disaster this weekend. I threw in the towel, though, while you ended up with a GORGEOUS cake!!!

Looks deeeeee-lish though, I must say!

Congratulations on not only producing a gorgeous cake, but being a cool & collected professional to salvage it.

Nobody in that room (except you and your fellow travelers) would ever suspect you had any issues at all. It looks wonderful and I'm sure you blew the couple away with this cake!

Wow! WHAT a save! Congratulations on your professionalism - the bride and groom still got a sensational cake!!

Ok, I don't know how many cakes you've done, whether you're a professional or hobbyist, etc. but the way you handled that makes you an absolute PRO in my book. I would defy ANYONE to handle it any better than you did. And the final outcome is gorgeous. You did an awesome job! I can see why your friend would be so thrilled!!

I saw this post and my heart broke..I saw your cake in the gallery and thought it's just gorgeous...I think I left a comment too...of course I had no idea what you went thru to get that! Congrats on the save!

Cat

Leah,

How do you use SPS with a tall tier like that?

Vibration is the enemy of every cake and a 100 mile drive over any road and in any car is a LOT of vibration time!

I'd venture to say that the large tier--essentially a 2 tier cake, stacked-- would have been fine on a short ride, but it just vibrated to death over that car ride.

I try to dampen the vibration using several layers of memory foam (the stuff Tempurpedic matresses are made of) under the boxes. I think it really helps.

Great cake and fantastic save. I'm sure the B&G were delighted.

Rae

what are the tier sizes in the photo " top half" ??

What a fantastic save! To keep your cool like that over 100 miles away from home etc. That's what a professional would do in my book. And the cake looked like it tasted great too.

Great save! I think we should charge an extra fee for wedding cakes that pays our hairdressers to cover all the gray they cause!

BTW - how many people did you plan on serving? The cake is HUGE!!!

You did an awesome job saving it! Beautiful!

Yeah, you're right, it probably could have stood to use a few more dowels, but I grossly underestimated how heavy this baby was. Plus, there was another dowel that went through the center to stabilize the two layers.

Yes there was absolutely a board between the tiers, which is why I was able to save the top half. I used foam core because I didn't trust a regular cake board from getting soggy.

Next time for a cake this large, I'm using SPS all the way. I'm not gonna mess with trying to figure out the optimal number of dowels. The SPS just didn't arrive on time (it arrived yesterday - go figure) so I had to make do with what was readily available.[/quote]
darn shipping service!!! haha! chin up dear... you did great .it turned out to be a beautiful cake!
Good luck for the next one!!!
- h

I, too, had a cake disaster this weekend. It was a gift of a post-wedding cake for a couple married in May. It was my first tiered cake of any kind, and I used separator plates because the top tier was vegan and I didn't want to mix the two. I am sure my lack of knowledge of how to do the stacking was the problem, because the top tier slid off of the stacking plate, causing damage to the bottom tier. I somewhat fixed it, but the picture in my gallery is the before, not the after. I like the before a lot more!! LOL The cakes were delicious, but I suppose everyone has to "live and learn". Yours was beautiful!

Floral-I saw your before pic and it's beautiful. I see you used a separator plate-did you drive with it stacked? Always assemble that type of cake on scene.

Thank you, Darlene. I appreciate the kind words, and the tip. I actually was planning to transport the tiers separately, but thought "This is sturdy...it'll be fine". Famous last words....

I think your cake turned out fabulous. You have what it takes to go professional if you can hold up under that kind of pressure. Sorry this happened to you, but if it does ever happen again, you can take a deep breath and say "ok, you've worked your way through this before and you can do it again."