Cake Emergencies: probably the next most-common wedding mishaps after wardrobe emergencies, are those with the cake. Considering that it’s only a towering pile of flour and eggs and shortening and sugar, the cake certainly garners a lot of attention, both in person and as a feature of the wedding photographs. It is one of the central décor points of the wedding. (And then, too–it’s dessert.)
The Wedding Cake Disaster is documented so prominently in wedding-oriented movies (often in slow motion) and on clips from America’s Funniest Home Videos, that it’s almost a cliché-type nightmare scenario. This is why the minute the cake is set up, the photographer–or at least somebody–needs to get a picture of it, whole and lovely. Regardless of what happens later, you’ll have a picture of what you started with–to get you by until about 2 years pass, when you’ll be able to laugh about it, or at least stop hurting people who laugh about it.
Much of your ability to rectify a cake problem will depend on where the cake came from, and you’ll need the materials on hand. If someone you know has made the cake, make sure to ask them to bring not only their decorator icing bags that they used to decorate the cake, but a large Tupperware bowl of extra icing–just in case. If your cake is from a private cake baker or a bakery, you might ask the baker to provide a container of icing and to loan you at least one pastry bag with a large shell tip on it, to have on hand, just in case. (When I myself am doing a cake, I don’t leave home without a huge container of plain white frosting, spatulas, and all pastry bags and tips in any colors I might need in case of a problem. Why leave them home on the counter when you could avert disaster by just tossing them in a box and bringing them? One leaf or swirl can take care of where the groom’s ninky nephew Robbie pokes his finger into the cake. Have I actually had to rebuild cakes? Twice. Repair smaller damage on cakes? Several times. So yes–it does happen.)
Now, I realize it’s almost insulting to think anybody wouldn’t know better, but I would be remiss in failing to say: DO NOT EVER tempt fate by attempting to move a wedding cake once it’s been set up, particularly if it has columns between the tiers. Be very certain in advance of where you want the cake to go, and take the time to get the cake table just how you planned it before that bottom tier gets nestled into place. If it’s not quite thawed, set the other tiers toward the back of the cake table and give it time before assembling it. If the cake is to be whisked in on a cart or a table with wheels, make sure there is no bump in the floor, edge of a carpet, or cord that the table must run over.
What cake problems may you face? Many are transportation-related, and these hints are largely for people who have made their own cakes or have had someone else–even a bakery–make them, but are transporting them themselves. Usually, unless it’s far out of their area, a bakery will delivery the cake and set it up with any columns between the tiers, etc. I avoid a lot of transportation issues by making it a rule to finish the cake no less than one week before the wedding, packing each tier in a separate box, covering with plastic wrap and taping all the edges so it’s airtight, then parking it in the freezer. Freezing it adds a couple of advantages: (1) it actually makes the cake a lot more moist; and (2) having the cake in a solid state while transporting makes it less vulnerable to damage, such as long-term car vibration or warmer car temperature (you may have the air conditioning on, but the sun may still be beating through the window on your cake) if you have to take it a long distance**; but even if it’s a short distance, it’s always safer and easier to handle the firmer cake. (Note: the big bottom tier is pretty voluminous, and is going to take 7-8 full hours to thaw in the middle, so don’t leave it in the freezer too long. You can’t assemble the tiers while it’s still frozen, because you can’t get the supporting doweling pushed into the frozen center of the lower cake to support the upper tiers.)
** or if, as in the cake pictured here, a 30-pound box falls ONTO one of the tiers en route to its destination 90 miles away–perhaps the best “save” of my life. Almost one-third of the middle tier was demolished–so you see, it can be saved.
So: you may have a cake that has suffered this type of indignity (part of one tier damaged), and you’re miles from anything. Take a deep breath and do this:
• Carefully remove the loose chunks of cake; cut it out with a small, sharp knife it part is still attached. Crumbs are the big enemy here, so remove anything loose at all. (It won’t be bad luck if you eat them.)
• If you don’t have a small spatula, use a butter knife, and using tablespoon-sized dollops of icing, lay them into the broken area, spreading just slightly, and cover any naked-cake areas (which will generate the crumbs) with icing as best you can.
• Next, with a large spoon, fill in the whole damaged cavity with icing, shaping back to the approximate size and contour of the original cake.
• Put a small saucepan on the stove, about 3/4 of the way full of water, and bring it to just boiling. With a toothpick or the tines of a fork, pick out any visible crumbs in the frosting surface. Working with small amounts of icing, add icing to the top of the cake, spreading lightly with the spatula or butter knife, making it level with the original icing and covering any crumbs. To smooth the icing, dip the knife into the hot water (it won’t stay hot long, so 1 good stroke, then re-dip) and use the warmth of the knife to help smooth out the top until it’s maybe not perfect, but close enough. Don’t worry about droplets of water from dipping the knife to warm it; they’ll dry. Do the same to the damaged side edge of the cake. Obviously this has now become the back side of this tier.
• If you have a pastry-bag of icing with a shell tip, squeeze icing shells along the top edge of the cake, matching the originals as closely as possible in size. It may seem complex if you haven’t done it before, but it’s very simple: point the opening down, and squeeze firmly until frosting begins to come out; increase the pressure as you move away from the previous shell so it gets bigger in the middle, then quickly ease off and stop squeezing–there’s your shell; and repeat. If the bottom shells were damaged, do the same there. If it looks pretty bad, raid the floral arrangements for a few buds and place them strategically around the whole tier; the flowers will draw the eye away from the white of the cake.
If one tier of the cake has been truly, completely demolished:
• if you are still in the same city as the bakery, don’t waste any time; as soon as the problem happens, call the bakery immediately to see if they have cake in their freezer–many bakeries keep frozen cakes in their freezer–(or even in their showcase–at this point, you don’t care what flavor) that you can use to replace the tier, and if they can please deliver it, regardless of an extra charge–or at the very least can they send someone to help repair the cake.
• If the original bakery isn’t available to you, call the bakeries of all the nearest grocery stores–this is a sob story no bakery manager would not try to help out with. Have them crank out a plain-iced tier with shell borders, and dispatch someone to pick it up while they’re working.
• Failing any of that, send someone to the nearest Michael’s for a piece of white styrofoam; ice it and border it with shells, and slip it in as a “dummy” layer. Don’t worry about not having enough cake; you probably ordered too much anyway.
If you’ve read through all of this, and the only thing that has happened to your cake is that a few shells on the edge got bumped, you should feel very relieved; just get the pastry bag and fill them back in.
If it’s a super-warm day, be sure not to place your cake in a window that the sun will shine in, and if indoors is cooler than outdoors, do the cake indoors (gnats in frosting aren’t romantic, anyway). If your cake is set up, and it’s very warm, and the tiers begin to slide, lift them apart the cake and give them some time in the refrigerator. Once frosting gets soft and melty, the weight of the cakes will cause them to slide–don’t let it get to that point. Another thing you should know about sunny days and icing, is that if you have colored icing on your cake, the sunlight (even if it’s not that hot) will begin bleaching out the icing colors relatively quickly, so again, position the cake away from the windows.
So what’s left? Entire cake annihilation: groom’s same damn nephew knocks the whole thing over. The curious thing about this is, if it happens it will seem like it’s in slow motion, just like in the movies. You’ll replay it in your mind for years. Meanwhile, ask (or scream at) your helpers to clean up the mess and walk away. You will need to walk away to keep from freaking out, so go straight to the phone. Start calling grocery stores, and ONLY talk to the manager. If they have ANY kind of a display wedding cake, you’re going to need to borrow it. Go ahead and be slightly hysterical and on the verge of tears. If you’re anywhere within driving distance of a Costco, send a couple of groomsmen to buy 4 sheet cakes with white icing–you don’t care what flavor. No Costco?–send ‘em to the nearest large grocery store; they’ll have to buy more cakes because they’ll be smaller–but remember that all of this cake will be in the kitchen being cut; nobody will see it. Send your mom and dad for the display cake when you find one, and have Mom check the floral department for flowers that match your colors–or white ones–one or two bundles. When the display cake arrives, gussie it up with the flowers (sometimes display cakes are actually a bit dusty, so coverage can be a good thing). At cake-cutting time, pose as if you’re cutting the cake, then feed each other a pre-cut bite from one of the cakes in the kitchen, set just behind the cake.
This is probably more than anyone will ever want to contemplate, much less know, about what can happen to a wedding cake and how a non-baker can fix it. But you might want to print it out and tuck it in with your cake knife and server–because it’s almost certain not to happen if you’ve taken the time to prepare.
