This One Really Did Fall Apart, and I Almost Did Too

So the other day at work was quite a nail-biting kind of day. I was supposed to deliver two cakes, but when I arrived at my first destination, and opened the van's trunk, I realized with great dismay, that cake #1 was broken.

The bottom tier of this beautiful three-tiered cake had slid apart, so the whole cake was leaning over and I was pretty sure I going to cry. Thankfully, the cake's recipients were very kind about the whole matter so I rushed back to the shop and had only an hour to fix this great catastrophe. But it's not like I could actually rush, because you have to drive like a grandma when you've got a cake in the back. But what could I do? I didn't want the other two tiers to break too!

How can I possibly let you know how terrifying this situation was? Even though I knew, "this is only a cake", and "I know I can frost this fast enough," and "This isn't the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last, so it's not a big deal." But. Still. I felt like I should've had TV cameras following me around today. This was some prime-time reality tv drama. Complete with exaggeration and hyperbole!

I ended up have to refrost the top two tiers, and the bottom tier had to be started over completely from scratch. Completely. From. Scratch. (Well, it didn't have to be baked, at least, thank God. We had some extra 10" cake layers lying around.) And there was only an hour and a half before the party started.

I don't think I my piping was as good as my coworker's was originally with the scrollwork, but the cake did look nice. And this time when I delivered, I packed up the three tiers separately and put it together on-location (which is also scary, because people are milling around and staring at you and the pressure is still on). And once I set everything up, it looked pretty good. Especially with all the room decor they had set up for the birthday.

So in the end, everything worked out fine. And the other cake that needed to be delivered was taken care of by one of my coworkers, and I'm so very grateful she was working that day too! :)