When a cake goes wrong.....

Some weeks you just want to stay in bed, when "Old man Trouble" comes a knocking, it can knock you down, or you can get up and keep fighting.

This week has been one of those weeks here in our family. Everything seems to be breaking. First, the camera, then my phone (it's my business cell!!) and last, my car.... while driving with all 4 of my kids on a very busy road during rush hour.

When trouble comes a knocking we can choose to embrace it and see what we may learn, or we can choose to become frantic and throw in the towel- probably securing more trouble to come your way!

Thankfully, the troubles I've had have not been business related. That is a fear every cake person has, after all, we are only human- and although we can do our best to work with the elements to create wonderful things...... sometimes things just happen. Out of our control.

My worst nightmare would be a wedding. You only have one day and you want it perfect. It would be awful to have a disaster with one of my wedding cakes!

I am pleased to say (humbly however,) that I have never had something happen that I could not repair. I have however had many cakes in which my vision in my head, and what actually works, turns out differently.
One such cake is this 3D Elmo. this was the first one I had ever done, and the piping on his fur took me 6 hrs to complete! Talk about hand cramps! Numerous things didn't work on this design.
When I took him out the day of delivery, his mouth had "fallen" from a cute smile into a shocked "Oh my goodness" look. There was absolutely nothing I could do to help him smile. It was a disappointment for me although I did get a great response from the client.

Maybe we have things happen so that we can learn from them and we should (I should) learn to embrace the unexpected better. After all I'm not the one in control!

Elmo, or something like him

I have to start by saying this one was harder then I thought!
I know all the fur takes FOREVER to pipe. (This one was a full 4 hrs pf pure piping- can you say hand cramp??!)

The body is made from an 8" and the doll pan- stacked.
All the limbs and head are made from Rice Crispie treats. -This is where the problems arose from.
I didn't let these dry nearly long enough before they were expected to hold pounds and pounds of bright red- stains everything icing!

Also, at the last minute, his mouth started to fall open from the weight of icing and lack of drying time so he ended up looking more like a gasping elmo. Maybe he was offended the little 2 yrs old was going to eat him!

This guy was about 1 1/2 feet high, and used and entire 12 C. of my fantastic icing! (That amount usually covers a huge wedding cake!)
3 pounds pure butter and 13 eggs!
Yes, everything in my kitchen is stained red, and I was covered from head to toe, but how can you not love such a cute furry ...um.... puppet/monster thingy.