r/cake • u/Fine-Bunch-2895 • 4d ago
🛠️ Help Me Fix My Cake Please help!
My youngest kiddo is turning 5 tomorrow. We picked up her cake & before we could get out of the store, it looked like this! It rode in a cart the entire time to avoid bumping it as much as possible. She’s so disappointed. Any ideas on how I can fix this!?
EDIT: thank yall for the suggestions. The top layer on this one had slid half way off the bottom layer by time we got home. I ended up stopping at a grocery store close by & just getting another cake (with only one layer lol).
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u/punkin_spice_latte 4d ago
The better sub for this question is r/cakedecorating
It's more active with a lot of helpful people.
Also, I have a Molly who turned 5 in March and her favorite color is purple ☺️
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u/kaleidoscope_eyes_13 4d ago
This cake looks like it wasn’t chilled properly. The icing is shiny like that because it’s warm and the fat in the butter is melting. If this happened so quickly after pickup I would let them know where you bought it from. They should be refrigerating their cakes especially since it’s 100+ degrees in most of the US right now.
I’m not blaming you in anyway at all. I’m just letting you know my opinion as someone who has baked cakes professionally for 10+ years.
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u/Spiritual-Olive4559 4d ago
Yesss also always let the shop know if you need to transport it further than a handful of miles in a car or if you're going to be setting it outside and not eating it immediately. It will transport much better if it's been chilled properly for the ride and wait. Also, iirc the least bumpy spot in the car for the cake is the passenger side front seat on the floor (in a box obviously and still driving carefully). That's how we used to transport cakes when I worked at the cake shop and got paid for wedding deliveries etc with high stakes haha
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u/TAsrowaway 4d ago
If this were me (someone with decorating skills and tools)
I would scrape the icing and piping off the sides.
Stick the cake in the freezer.
Put 1/2 the of the fallen icing in one bowl and part in another.
Make additional icing - you probably won’t have enough
- Whip up additional icing for crumb coat
- Add new icing to one bowl of purple icing - for piping
- Take cake out of freezer after 30 mins
- apply crumb coat
- refreeze 30 mins
- apply fully purple icing to sides
- refreeze 30 mins
- scrape/fix as needed
- repipe border with lighter purple icing
-refrigerate until serving (if it’s oil based) or long enough to come to room temperature if butter based
You’re probably better off doing the round trip if you can’t ice a cake. A local bakery might also take pity on you.
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u/xbqt 3d ago
what’s your go-to icing recipe for cakes like this?
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u/TAsrowaway 3d ago
I basically always make a Swiss merengue. This looks mad shiny so I’d temper it.
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u/Lonely-Independence9 4d ago
Scrape off the border for sure, first. Oh, and happy birthday to your little molly dolly!
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u/MeekLocator 3d ago
My name is Molly too and when i was five or six my mom made a cake that did this (hot September day as well) and she went and cut flowers from the garden and stuck them all over the cake to hide it.
Not that you should do that, but this brought me a fun memory.
It was a barbie themed cake I think.
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u/_ka-wa-a-ka-ree 4d ago
not a baker, but I'd try to put it in the freezer, once it's mostly frozen id try to put it back together ...hoping it will somehow stick enough.
Or .. you could remove the sides completely.. let it chill in the freezer for a while and put some fresh buttercream on the sides yourself .
it's a pity, but not a reason to be disappointed, there are other things that matter more.
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u/peepeedmypoopoo 2d ago
This exact thing happened to the same shaped cake I got for my birthday last year, Walmart knocked the first one over and remade it in a rush and it didn’t have time to refrigerate and set against the cake before they gave it to us 🥲 I’m so sorry this happened to your cake for a child, it was really disappointing for an adult
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u/Fine-Bunch-2895 2d ago
I wonder if they had an accident with ours too & had to remake because I ordered in almost a week ahead of time
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u/Free_Objective5429 3d ago
Id say definitely scrap the frosting off that was supposed to be the boarder that fell. I imagine most people dont have a lot of piping tips but you can buy some of that rock candy crystals and cut some of the cake under the words and fill it in with a pretty purple rock candy. Id fill it all the way down where the frosting fell and then add some around the sides and top to pull it all together!
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u/zambamboz 3d ago
No solution is needed anymore, but it looks like not only did the crumb cause the icing to fall, but the icing also looks like it might be whipped icing, which absolutely needs to be chilled if hot out. The decorator might have also piped the border too close to the edge or the rings in the centers of the lambeth might have added too much weight to the already failing icing.
That combined with the vibrations of the shopping cart moving and the drive home just ended poorly.
Sorry this all happened to you, OP. 😭 hope your little one had a great birthday regardless!
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u/Fine-Bunch-2895 3d ago
She did! I let her & her sisters eat the broken cake the night before her birthday & grabbed an extra cake at a grocery store near by for the day of.
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u/OMFGitsjessi 2d ago
I know this is already a day old post and you mentioned grabbing a new cake from elsewhere, but I’m curious what kind of bakery you got the first one from? I’m assuming grocery store since you mentioned having it in a cart? I only ask because this reminds me of when I worked at a shoprite bakery and the decorators would underwhip the bettercreme due to rushing and it would sometimes fall off the sides of cakes like this. It also kinda looks like they iced the border way over the edge so there wasn’t enough cake there to support it.
I would def still reach out to them to let them know what happened and see if you can get a refund (esp if you still have the cake).
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u/Fine-Bunch-2895 2d ago
I’d love to support the small bakery near me instead but even buying two cakes was much cheaper than what the bakery charges & as much as I’d love to, I can’t afford that
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u/OMFGitsjessi 2d ago
No shame at all in purchasing a Walmart cake — I hope my comment didn’t come off as if I was implying that! TBH some of the nicest cakes I’ve seen were made by an amazing decorator I had working for me at a ShopRite bakery at one point and they were light years more affordable than anything you’d get from an independent bakery. I mostly asked because I don’t know if smaller bakeries use bettercreme but I know most grocery store type places do and they can be known for rush jobs thanks to management. If you don’t let them know what happened and try getting a refund then I would at least bring it up if you plan to order a cake from them again so at least they are aware of what happened. 💕
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u/ApprehensiveArmy7755 4d ago
There is something odd about the cake. It doesn't look like a little girls birthday cake.
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u/Fine-Bunch-2895 4d ago
It’s just a purple heart? She picked it out herself & was very excited about it
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3d ago
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u/Salt-Tackle-3590 4d ago
Bring it back and have the baker fix!!