A few weeks ago I had an order for a grooms’ cake that was to be carved into the shape of the state of Louisiana.
But that cake wasn’t easy to come by…
You see, early the day before the wedding I baked two huge 14″ square cakes and started to prep. Later that afternoon I filled and frosted the layers, then froze them so that I could carve the shape easier.
I had carved out the state of Louisiana once before, but I was still a little nervous, so I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get it right.
As soon as it was frozen solid enough to carve, I got busy working. After a couple of hours of carving and shaping, I had finally gotten it into a shape I was happy with. I gave it a good crumb coat of buttercream and I was really very, very happy with it! It was sharp and pretty accurate and it looked good.
In this picture, I had placed wax paper on the top and sides of the cake to freeze it initially. That protects it from possibly absorbing flavors or odors from my freezer (not that I have a stinky freezer – I’m just cautious). But see how good the shape was… I was so happy!
The only decoration on the cake was to be a capital “H” and I remembered that it was supposed to be blue. I checked my notes and didn’t see any mention of what shade of blue, so I started scanning back through emails to see if a specific shade was ever mentioned.
That is when I was hit hard in the face with the fact that I had baked the wrong flavor cake. Well, not exactly the wrong flavor… I had baked red velvet cake as requested, but way, way back, months and months before the night before the wedding, my customer has mentioned once that she didn’t want any almond flavor in the cake.
Ugh!!!
At this point, it was nearly 11pm and there was no way I was going to call the mother of the groom that late at night, the night before the wedding, to ask her how serious she was about the “no almond”. She had never mentioned it again in any of our exchanges, but I didn’t know if she had said that because someone didn’t like almond just a little bit or if it was because of an allergy or what, but I knew I couldn’t take a chance… I had to start over.
So, at 11pm the night before the wedding, I started baking again. I was exhausted and frustrated and mad at myself (for not writing down that detail in my notes) and more than anything… I was wondering what in the world I was going to do with this HUGE red velvet cake.
And when I say huge… it was most of a 14″ layer cake… almost 4″ tall… and probably close to 75 servings! It.was.BIG.
For the time being, I wrapped it up real good and stuck the whole thing back in the freezer.
Sometime in the next few days, I was talking with my brother Jake and told him the story of my big cake fail. He didn’t say much at the time, other than agreeing that I had really screwed up (gotta love little brothers!) and he also didn’t have any idea what I could do with this massive Louisiana cake.
I tossed around the idea of doing a giveaway or trying to sell it, but it was such a random and rare shape, I just doubted anybody would really be interested (especially considering I live in Mississippi, not Louisiana!).
BUT… a couple of more days passed and his wife Ariel called me to ask if I still had the extra cake. She had an event at work that she needed to bring a cake to and she wondered if there was any way to use my cake fail for her event.
I sent her a picture of the cake and we both wondered how in the world to make it work for her event. She’s a therapist at a cardiac rehab place… so she asked if I could make it into a heart (not a “real” heart – just a heart) and after using a butter knife to draw an outline in the frosting, I came to the conclusion that I could indeed cut the state of Louisiana into a heart.
I didn’t exactly make the heart cake that curvy… I just wanted you to see what I was seeing in my mind as I came up with a plan!
I was so excited to get that huge cake out of my freezer and she needed it the next day for work so I got busy making it pretty…
and this is what I ended up with:
Pretty cool, huh?
I still had a LOT of red velvet cake that I had carved away (to first get the Louisiana shape, and then more to get the heart), but at least part of the cake was saved and enjoyed!
The lesson from all of this for me was…. always, always, always take good notes and don’t forget even the tiniest (or not so tiniest) details!! Oh… and don’t waste a perfectly good cake!
There’s always a way to make something pretty out of our failures (in life and in cake!).
I was so frustrated that first night that my initial reaction was to go dump it out to our chickens right that very minute. I didn’t want to even look at that dumb cake that had the wrong flavoring in it… it was just so much wasted time, ingredients and work.
But in the end, I’m really glad I saved it and was able to make something pretty out of my big failure.
Have you ever had to re-invent a cake failure? Make something new out of a mistake?
PS. If you’re interested… this is the groom’s cake that did not have any almond in it…
Wife to Richy. Mommy to 6 kids. Homeschool Teacher. Jesus Freak. Good Books. Baker. Friend. Loves to Laugh. Photographer. Chocolate Addict. Mathematician. Pink. Diet Dr. Pepper-aholic. Cook. Flip-Flops. Ponytails. Loud Music. Writer. Budget-er. Chocolate Milk. Pillow Hog. Late-night TV & Junk Food.
So…..did you EVER find out just WHY they didn’t want any almond in the cake? Now everyone is different so you and I would have probably done one thing differently, I WOULD have called the mother of the groom and asked about the almond. The night before a wedding usually just about everyone closely associated with it is definitely still up at 11 p.m. I think you would have been fine. Now had it been 3 a.m., then that would have been a different thing. I know she probably would have thought I was nuts, but at that point imagine if she said if was just a preference but a cake with it would have been fine. But I guess it was somehow to be considering the way it all worked out. The way you salvaged the first cake is nothing short of a blessed miracle. Did you make cake pops out of the leftover cake carved away from both cakes? THAT could have been another way to use that and I’m just curious and it’s none of my business, but, did you charge your sister-in-law for the cake? I also like your idea of covering the cakes with wax paper. Personally I dislike freezing cakes at all but I know for carving and other things it all works so much better if you do. My mom used to freeze cake quite a lot and I was never crazy about the cake afterwards but then she didn’t go to the extent to keep it fresh that we cake decorators do. This was an amazing rescue job and I hope some day you’ll be able to laugh about it with this couple, maybe their silver wedding anniversary?
No, I never found out why they didn’t want almond. I would’ve asked when I delivered the cake but I never actually saw anyone from the family that day.
As for the extra cake – ALL of my family… brothers, sister, parents (except me) loves red velvet cake, so I took the big pieces to them and then I saved the rest for cake balls!
I don’t freeze my cakes regularly. The only ones I freeze are the ones I need to carve and I only freeze them for a couple of hours unless it’s late at night, then I freeze them overnight and carve in the morning!
Rose you are awesome at what you do!
Thank you!!
Hi, I am the mother of the groom and I just want to let you know that the cake was wonderful. It was my bad that I did not specify the particular color, which should have been navy blue, but what you did was fine but the reason I am responding to your post was to answer the question about the almond flavoring. We do not like the almond flavor in any cake and always request it be omitted. I have had several cakes with that flavor and none of us care for it, so we certainly did not want it in his groom’s cake. I too wanted to meet you as you delivered the cake but never got a response in my email I sent as to what time you would be delivering so I could not just sit and wait for you because we had pictures to take! I do, once again thank you so much because it was delicious and there was not a crumb left over. I barely got to taste it at all and the only bite my son got was when they cut it for pictures. Thanks again and you did a great save….also, thanks for not calling at 11:00 because I was in the bed!! lol
Soooo good to hear from you Janet!! I’m so glad you were all happy with the cake… I love to hear that it all got eaten!! 🙂
I would never have brought that cake to you with almond unless I had talked to you first (or not discovered my mistake) and just thinking along the lines of “do unto others you’d have them do unto you”… I couldn’t call you that late! I’m just so thankful that I was searching back through those emails looking for the shade of blue or I’d have brought the cake with almond not even realizing I had done something wrong! It was completely my fault for not noting that detail when you first told me!
And as for missing you on the wedding day… also probably my fault! I thought I replied to you with the time, but things get so crazy around the weekends when I’m trying to finish all of my orders – it’s entirely possible that I wrote the email and never sent it or just *thought* I wrote the email… so sorry about that! Maybe we’ll get to meet one day in the future if you ever need another cake 🙂
Congrats to your son & his new bride!! Hugs!!
No problem at all by not meeting up with you the day of the wedding it was crazy anyway and I will and have recommended you to others!!
WOW!!!
That is amazing!!!, hehehe 🙂
LOVE your work 🙂
LOL!! Rose, you’re just simply a rock star!
Great job and a great save!!
I once made a 3-tier baby shower cake for a friend. As it “settled,” the top tier totally whacked out. Massive leaning. There was nothing I could do to save it so I had to remake it at the last minute. Stress, at it’s finest. I put the leaning tower of Pisa cake in the freezer and when my daughter-in-law came into town she happily took it off my hands. I still don’t know why it happened. It was a red velvet cake too. I have a love/hate relationship with red velvets now!
🙂 I had a similar situation recently with a baby shower / gender reveal party. The downside was, by the time the cake started collapsing and falling apart, there was no time to repair it OR redo it… most of the damaged happened on my way to deliver it and within minutes of me leaving it. The customers were upset and disappointed and so was I. It was heartbreaking and I nearly quit doing cake because of it. Like you, I still have no idea what went wrong that day… other than it was the biggest cake disaster of my “cake” life. The only positive thing I can say about it all is that my customers, while clearly upset, were the most gracious and forgiving people. I felt like I ruined their shower (the gender was revealed BEFORE the party started thanks to the cake tearing), but they were so kind. I think sometimes God just lets things like that happen to humble us and draw us to Him…
Oh my Rose, I can’t believe this happened to you. I don’t do cakes of your magnitude but even my small wrecks cause me major stress. Just can’t even imagine the stress from the gender reveal experience. Thanks for sharing this. I am happy you didn’t quit cake – you are way too good at it!