The Most Frustrating Cake EVER

Last week I was sent a Facebook message from the niece of a friend. She wanted a special cake for her daughters 15th birthday. I was asked to do this cake with only a little under a week to plan it, bake it and decorate. I looked at the cake and told her it could be difficult but I would give it a try.

Here is what she wanted.

This would be my first mad hatter cake. I decided to not wait until a few nights before to start this cake as the first run through, so for a dinner with some friends from church I baked a prototype! With this prototype, I had a few issues but all in all it came out decent. For time, I didn't do fondant work, just buttercream. Which I like more anyway!

I think the main issue with my prototype was that I needed just a bit more height on the top cake so that the proportions looked right.

After making the prototype and talking with my hubby about why I think the cake didn't come out right, he decided to let me go on a shopping spree for my birthday and buy what I needed. So taking what the tutorial I had been following was saying, I went and bought new pans.

Happy birthday to me!

So the day came around to make the new cake. I got started and baked my heart out. 

Friday came around which was the day to construct it and decorate it. It was probably the worst day of my life. Because things weren't going my way, no more pictures were taken until....

THE CAKE FELL OVER AND WAS DESTROYED!

This cake was by far the most frustrating cake ever. It's like from the time I started constructing it, it was telling me I wasn't supposed to be making this cake. You can see from the final picture that it looks nothing like the first picture. I had to forgo the fondant because it just wasn't working. I tried going just buttercream with my own design which was working until it fell.

The proportions were just all wrong. The tutorial I was using showed be a good one to following...it was not. The worst advice it gave was using cake pans that were an inch apart and using three different sizes per layer. That is the main reason this cake just collapsed on me.

I'm not even sure how many times I cried trying to get this cake to work out. I felt so bad for the lady that ordered it. Travis and I even drove out to a bakery to see if they had any cakes at all that we could buy and give to them so the girl would have a cake for her birthday. They didn't. I finally had to make the call to say the cake fell over and was destroyed. She was bummed, but decided to just go find a cake from one of the supermarkets.

This cake definitely was not the way to start off my own birthday either.