04/03/2026
I didn’t start making cakes for other people until around 2016 or so. This one popped up on my personal FB page and I had to share. This was 11 years ago and I have learned soooo much since then.
The story: A friend of mine helped me make the strawberry roses to put on this cake for a birthday party of another friend that we were both going to. She was driving and I was stupidly holding the cake in my lap. I always recommend placing your cake on a flat surface in your car. DO NOT hold your cake at a slant in your lap! This is a perfect example of a perfect storm and why you should not do that! We had just remodeled our kitchen at home and had a new oven. I did not realize until I baked this cake that the oven was not level. The cake was baked at a slant. I thought, oh well, this is just for a friend, I’ll just slice the cake and spin one of the layers around so that it levels it out. Then I proceeded to put jelly filling in the cake and gave the uneven layers, a perfectly slick surface to move on! As we were driving, the layers started to slide….. I remember laughing hysterically and trying to keep the cake from falling over completely. We turned around and went back to my house and did some Cake surgery. We pulled the top layer off and put it on the cake board and it actually still looked pretty good! The bottom layer that was a mess I brought anyways….. it was a group of friends and I really didn’t care. It would still taste good! The funny part was I went to cut the nice layer at the party and everybody told me don’t bother and said let’s eat the destroyed part
Lessons learned:
1. Start with a balanced/straight foundation
2. Cakes go on flat surfaces when transporting
3. If the cake is more then one tier, use dowels between layers
4. No matter what it looks like it will still taste good! 🤣🤣