Hi all! First of all I'm going to do a little disclaimer here since I'm really just a novice baker. I stopped baking and decorating for about 4 years and recently started again when my 7 year old daughter expressed an interest in cake decorating.

So, after a 4 year hiatus, my first cake was definitely ambitious to say the least. My nephew Noah was turning 4 and so I volunteered to make his cake. I asked his mom what he was into and she immediately said "Captain America". ooo-kkk. WELL, I was up to the challenge!

My idea was to do a 2 tier round cake with Captain America shooting out of the top tier. Sounds easy...NOT! I had never sculpted anything ever nor had I ever worked with modeling chocolate before so I'm not sure why I was so confident in my abilities to mold Captain America. Took me 2 nights to mold him but I was pretty happy...I actually surprised myself.

Onto the cake....baked beautifully, iced well (of course I had to try icing with chocolate ganache for the first time), fondant was a little dry and cracked in some places but hey, I was out of practice so I wasn't too worried about it. I could always cover bad spots with decorations.

Anyhoo....got the cake iced, stacked (with supports) and decorated. My cousin was coming to my house the morning of the party to pickup the cake so I thought I'd put Capt America just before she got to my house.

About an hour before she came, I went ahead and placed capt america on top tier and made it look like he ripped the top of the cake as he was shooting out. Hmmm...I didn't realize how heavy he was. Oh well, he'll be ok I said to myself.

30 mins later I go back to check on him. Uh-oh, cake is starting to sag! Badly! I reposition him and hoped for the best. At this point the cake is already sagging in front but nothing too bad. My cousin came and was very happy with the cake and said her son would freak out when he saw the cake. Just as she was leaving I said "Keep him away from direct sunlight and heat, he might melt". 20minutes later I get a call...."Captain America's hand fell off! The decorations are falling! The cake is dying!" What in the world could have happened? Everything was secure when they left my house.

Well, after much prodding, I found out that the cake was sitting in my cousins lap and she didn't realize that the heater had been blowing warm air straight into the cake. It had melted! At the end of the day, I walked her through how to fix everything and it turned out ok. The cake sagged and the decorations had slid towards the bottom of the cake but the joy in my nephew's face when he saw his cake was priceless!

Oh wow! First of all, BRAVO! I would have freaked for every little mishap! I'm a complete novice.

Did you take any pictures? I would love to have seen it (before it started dying, of course)!

thanks! yes it is in my pictures...i tried to include it here but had trouble including the attachment

I never would've thought to warn customers about the car heater! Yikes!