Lange's Pastry Shop Ltd.
All About Cakes (dba)

My Elmo Meltdown!

My favorite part of the whole cake process is decorating and disaster is the last thing on my mind when I only have a few hours before delivery. I think a lot of cake decorators had experienced all sorts of cake disasters over the span of their careers and can relate to my nightmare. Mine happened last night and I thought it was the end of everything! You asked why? See for your self.

Ok, so here is the full story:

I got this awesome cake order from a very nice lady who wants to celebrate her baby’s 1st birthday with a 3D Elmo cake. The cake design was from an Australian lady who made the same cake and I was ecstatic to get my hands on it!

So, I had everything all planned out until the big day, “assembling the cake”! Earlier in the day, I bought a thick dowel rod to build the structure for the Elmo cake. For some reasons, I got too busy and I forgot to ask my husband to build it. So I thought, I will just stick a couple of thinner dowel rods thru and hope for the best. Yah, yah, yah… I know you’re shaking your heads right now but what can I do, my handyman went to bed!

Everything is going well… I was able to put Elmo’s body on the big round cake, stick a couple of dowel rods thru and its holding up pretty well. So, here comes the tougher part… putting Elmo’s head on. The plan was to use 4 pieces of round cakes for Elmo’s head. But it turned out that I only needed three as it is too big and very heavy to use all of them. I shaped it, crumbed coated the body, attached the legs, rice krispies feet and arms and everything is looking soooo promising! Next, I made the little cake to put in the middle and went ahead with piping Elmo’s fur. It took me a little longer than expected to pipe the hair as I wanted to make sure it looks as perfect as the original design. Well, it turned out very nice and I am starting to really get excited on putting the finishing touches! I put the cake in the middle and took the 2nd picture

I was about to start putting the eyes and nose on when I noticed something wrong. Elmo is leaning back! Oh, oh… I got to do something fast! “Don’t panic, don’t panic… Jane, don’t panic”… I kept telling myself. By now I have a spatula pushing Elmo’s head back in place but its not working. After a couple minutes, I actually had to grab Elmo’s head before it affects the entire cake. At this point, my meltdown had just begun. I called my husband as I couldn’t get my hand off the head or everything will fall apart!

My husband himself is in panic… we are both in shock  ! In my head I don’t know if I can save this cake. How am I supposed to tell the mom that I have no cake for her son? Will they sue me? Is it the end of my short career? Should I quit?

I had to compose myself. So, we decided to stick another dowel rod through to add more support. Wrong decision! Elmo’s face started to crack and the piece fell off! Now what? I took the head off, scraped the icing off and started crying and praying :(. What else can I do with so little time? Why is Elmo giving me a fr’in hard time! (Pardon me for my language but it is very frustrating!)

My husband took on the structural issue and I started curving the replacement head using the cake I baked for Father’s Day :P. It wasn’t as good as the 1st head but hey, it’s better than nothing. We decided to do our original plan… use the wood my husband cut for the base and screw the thick dowel on. Now the problem is how to move what’s left with Elmo on to the new base. My husband drilled a hole underneath Elmo’s cake board so we can insert the thick dowel rod from the bottom. We took the thin cake board off I had between Elmo and the big round cake so we can get the think dowel rod thru. As I was looking at the cake board, it turned out that the thin dowels I had before didn’t pass thru it… silly me! I thought they did! Now it’s clear that there is absolutely nothing supporting the entire cake! Yah, yah, yah, I can see you shaking your heads again :).

Now things seem to be getting better right? NOT! Inserting the thick dowel rod cracked Elmo’s body in half! My heart sunk… I don’t have enough extra cakes to replace the body and definitely have no time to bake more cakes! I grabbed a piece of red ribbon, tied Elmo’s body together, crumbed coat it and hope for the best! At this point, that is the best I can do!

Elmo’s head is back on and now its time to pipe the fur again. I didn’t know I can pipe that fast. It’s record breaking for me :).

I felt a little relieved and grabbed the camera and took a shot at Elmo’s 1st head in the trash! Hoping this will never ever happen to me again. I put the eyes on and took another picture of Elmo after the head transplant ;). I was able to finish the cake with minor issues but I handled it pretty well. What are the minor issues? Well, Elmo’s arms are cracking and pieces falling off… I guess due to so much movement earlier but whatevs! All my worries now are focused on delivery. How are we supposed to transport this to the venue in one piece? We put it in the fridge and get ready.

We got to the venue with Elmo in one piece… well, I had to fix the arms but nothing major. I just hope it holds up :D.

I felt really good while taking the cake in the restaurant. All we hear are wows, oohs and aahs of the people there. My husband was so proud holding it and I admit it was very rewarding. I totally forget all the things I went through earlier. It really felt so good… if they only knew, LOL :roll:. I was able to fix the boo-boos before the grandma of the celebrant arrive. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She asked me how long have I been in the business because she hadn’t heard my name in the Filipino community before. I said I just started and she commented I will be famous someday :P. It was so nice to hear that! Well, I hope famous in a good way

I received an email from the mom this morning. She said she couldn’t thank me enough for making her son’s birthday so special. You’ll see her comment on the Testimonial.

In spite of all these I love what I do :). Cake nightmares happen to everybody and mine was totally preventable if only I did what needs to be done in the first place. Lessons learned the hard way but I’m glad it happened. Elmo taught me a very valid lesson that I will never forget. Can’t wait to make another Elmo cake! LOL