A Cautionary Tale

A decorator friend recently emailed me this, her own personal experience

"This past weekend I delivered a cake at 8am. They needed more tablecloths so he went across the street to the ‘sister’ location- which is the high end location on the water. He came back to say they were having a cake disaster in the kitchen. I went over to see if I could help. An aunt had bake a 14” and 12” tier, blueberry filling yellow cake. No damming was done to keep the filling from coming out. The cakes had not been leveled so they still had the crowns on them and she had used store bought frosting so you could see the cake through the frosting. There was no support inside of the cake and the cakes were not on cake boards so it was sliding and imploding on itself. The layers were held together with 3” wide outside ribbon- what you would use at a gravesite- very appropriate. They had placed it on a piece of plywood- it was a casual wedding and the cake was held in place by sheet rock screws. I know this because they were sticking out through the cake that had moved.

It gets better.

The father had kept the cake in the trunk overnight thinking it would be ok. She had brought 2 8” cakes to be cut into. These were separate, crowning, yellow cakes with the blueberry oozing through the store bought frosting. The wedding planner was almost in tears as it was not 8am yet. (She recently has ACL surgery and had fallen and torn the reconstruction and was limping painfully) I took the 2 cakes home (I live 2 miles away) and threw them in the freezer. I cut one of them into a 6” (after scraping all the frosting off both) and leveled them out. I found some leftover green ribbon and made a 2 tiered cake with ribbon at the base and placed it on a 12” round styro covered in different white wedding ribbon. (Leftover) One hour later the bride had a basic cake to cut into. The location chose to throw away the cake in the kitchen do to food safe issues. 1)exposed plywood 2)sheet rock screws 3) cake left in warm trunk over night.

The FOTB was then charged $8/person at their casual wedding of 100 people (hall minimum) for a standard dessert. I posted this on my blog to remind brides that it is not always the best idea to skimp on something that could poison all your guests. Ditch the favors and get a decent cake!

With the proliferation of cake decorating shows that make it look so easy, people that decorate cakes for family and friends for special events, and the cost of weddings in general, couples can be lured into the idea that a great way to save money is to have a friend or family member do the cake (or even do it themselves!!). As a professional wedding cake decorator that did her own cake, I strongly suggest that you not do that! I do this for a living, but making my own wedding cakes was extremely stressful, and a huge time suck when I wanted (and needed!) to be doing other things.

While that story was from a friend, I have had a few of my own, the one I most remember is the MOB that came in to my shop in tears the day before her daughters wedding, begging me to finish the cake she started and then realized she just did not have the skills or knowledge to finish - when problems arose with the icing, she just did not have the experience to know what to do.

As my fellow decorator so succinctly says "ditch the favors and get a decent cake!" Find somewhere else to save, and entrust not only the quality of the cake, but the health of your guests - to a professional.