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.

The Cake-tastrophe Part 1: "Just Like on Those Cake Shows."

Remember that one time you spent 15 hours carefully crafting a Rapunzel's Tower cake the likes of which you had never made before?

And then remember when it was time to deliver it and you found it collapsed in a pile of cake rubble beyond repair?

I do.

I had woken up early that Sunday morning in July when I made the discovery. My heart fell to the floor and I stood frozen for what felt like an hour. When I finally was able to move, I thought maybe I'd get back in bed and close my eyes, and when I got up again I would have imagined it all.

No such luck.

Always one to look on the bright side, I thought, "at least this will make for a good story one day," and got out my camera to document the disaster for posterity. In fact, it was this project that firmly planted the seed of this blog.  But it did take me four months to write this post without still getting a lump in my throat.

One thing someone said to try and comfort me was "It's just like on those cake shows! Even the pros have disasters, no?"

Well, I work in television, so I'm on to those producers who use suspenseful music and careful edits to create the illusion of dramatically precarious situations and the potential for a cake-tastrophe. But everything always works out in the end, doesn't it? A broken piece gets remade. An all-nighter salvages a project on the brink. And the client is always none the wiser. It makes for good TV.

This cake, there was no salvaging.

To mitigate the horror, I should be up front in saying that I knew full well the risk I was taking with this project. I  knew nothing about engineering a design like this, but wanted to try it anyway. There was no big event riding on this cake (I wouldn't have experimented had there been one.) The 4-year-old birthday girl who this cake was meant for knew nothing about it. Her aunt (who is also my boss), had simply commissioned a "Tangled" cake as a surprise, and insisted that I not be put out by her request. I, meanwhile, insisted that I was thrilled to oblige, that it was my pleasure. I'd never been more excited about a cake project in my life.

Yes, she had glitter in her hair (and two arms, despite what's depicted in the picture.)

What I'm most thankful for though, was that my boss had a good sense of humor about it when I called her to let her know Rapunzel's tower wasn't going to happen. Despite her protests, I assured her I had a backup plan, as any good TV news producer does.

I had 2 extra 6-inch round cakes squirreled away in the freezer, plus enough leftover ganache and colored fondant to cover them. I set about formulating my plan B (no tower involved this time, of course.) The wheels were in motion.

Four hours later:

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

But more importantly, look at this:

I guess this episode did have a happy ending after all, just like on those cake shows.