The Cake-tastrophe Part 2: What Went Wrong?

One of the hazards of being a mostly self-taught cake artist: the "errors" in the "trial and error" process.

This one was a doozy.

Rapunzel's Tower cake in the morning

I introduced you to this project in my last post, The Cake-tastrophe Part 1: "Just Like on Those Cake Shows", but here's the set-up in a nutshell.

What my boss said: "Hey Gitu, can you make a Tangled cake Charlotte's birthday? Nothing crazy, just for 4 people. Any time this weekend, or even next weekend. It would make for a nice surprise. Feel free to say no if you can't take it on."

What I heard: "Hey Gitu, don't you want to try making a Tangled cake with a 3D RKT tower, covered with marbled rocks? Oh and maybe you can hand-sculpt a Rapunzel and give her lots of delicate blond hair that will be impossibly hard to handle. By this Sunday please."

What could go wrong? Where do I begin.

Rapunzel's Tower cake when I left it the night before

Let's start with the obvious flaws:

1. Engineering: An 8 inch round cake that's 5-ish inches tall will not support a 15-inch RKT tower covered in layers of heavy fondant. Even with double dowels. 
2. Deliciousness vs. Design: Said cake will be even less able to support said tower if it is torted thinly and filled with ganache. This was five layers of chocolate WASC cake. Would I have fared better if I had used two thick layers of pound cake and crusting butterceam instead?
3. Aesthetic vs. Assembly: Ideally, this project would have been finished in two separate pieces, and the tower would be placed on the cake right before presentation. But I wanted Rapunzel's hair to fall all the way from the tower and down the cake and the only way to do that was to apply the hair after  the cake and tower were attached. Wrong decision.
4. Equipment and Storage: The cake was too tall to fit in my refrigerator. It was pretty hare-brained of me to think that I could leave it out on the counter overnight and expect it to maintain its structural integrity. Remember, we're talking about thinly torted WASC cake and ganache here. Unrefrigerated. When I close my eyes I can see the layers settling, and softening, and sliding about in slow motion, as I slept. 
5. This is where you come in. What's your experience with 3D cakes that challenge gravity? Do you have any horror stories of your own and what can I learn from them? Please share.

In the meantime, here's a look at the 15 hours of labor that went into this cake, before going down the drain.

Home-made fondant to cover the cake board. This batch was so difficult to work with, but I persevered. It ended up in the garbage.

5 layers of chocolate WASC cake, filled and frosted with a rich dark chocolate ganache. I'd say this was the most delicious cake I had made up to this point.

I know because I ate most of it with my hands, while sobbing, before throwing the rest out.

In the garbage.

(JK about the sobbing, but wasn't it fun to picture it?)

First time using RKT to create a 3D cake. I used a PVC pipe to shape the bottom part (wrapped in plastic for protection) and sculpted the top by hand.

Only for it to be dumped in the garbage.

Fondant colored and marbled by hand to resemble rocks and applied piece by individual piece to the tower.

Before ending up in the garbage.

Rapunzel face and torso, sculpted by hand.
Check out that cleavage.

It's now in the garbage.

Wood embellishment painstakingly painted and etched onto top of tower.

And then later thrown in the garbage.

Purple fondant shingles cut by hand and applied individually to the roof of the tower.

Not the best job, but certainly not bad enough to throw in the garbage?

Blond hair made of yellow fondant and disco dust, delicately extruded into skeins of fragile filaments.

And then dumped, along with everything else, in the garbage.

Not seen here: me using a pair of tweezers to make sure every last intricate strand fell perfectly in place down Rapunzel's tower.

Buttercream grass, fondant bushes and flowers, candy rocks and even a stream made of blue piping gel.

Now that I think about it, the stream was probably also part of the reason that this cake ended up...

in the garbage.