Birthday Cake Disaster!

I promised my friend over at Yeast Coast Baking that I would share my woes from this year's adventure in birthday cake. I had her listening to my disaster unfold all day yesterday and today.

My son has a dairy allergy so since his first birthday I have had to make him special cakes. Always giving myself the challenge to do something really special for him. This year was no exception. He has decided to have a bowling party this year. We sat down together and looked at pictures of cakes and designed it together, the beginning of a new part of his birthday cake tradition. I must say he was very particular and had some really great ideas.

I went out to the store Wednesday to collect all fresh and safe ingredients to start the baking process early Thursday morning. I did after all have 3 tiers and 6 layers (plus some extra supplies for cupcakes at school) and cookies to make.

Thursday morning arrived and the baking began. I layed out all my refrigerated ingredients before starting breakfast so they would have time to get to room temperature as the morning moved on. About 10am I started the baking process, doing a batch at a time. And all of a sudden I was pulling out layer after layer of cake that had fallen. What was going on!? I called CB- what was wrong?! What is this? We went through the usual checklist, she even went on google, we couldn't come up with anything.

I am really starting to panic at this point and needing come up with a plan b. I called my husband as asked him to pick up some "safe" box cake mix on his way home from work. Nothing more fail proof than a box cake mix, right? Well....

And this picture is taken after I cleaned up half the cake off the bottom of my oven and threw down the broiler pan to catch the drippings. Completely exploded. At this point I am really trying to figure out how I could have angered the cake gods so much that I am ruining my kid's birthday cake! Thanks to a little knife magic...

So I wrapped the layers up for a Friday morning decorating and went to bed. Friday morning I wake up to have to bake off bowling pin sugar cookies that will go around the cake. Something that should only take 8-10 minutes to bake off....22 minutes later I finally have the first batch baked off. Yes, it's my oven. My oven needs a tune up which would answer for fallen cakes, exploding cakes, and really long baking times on cookies.

before going in the oven

I went to decorate holding my breath that nothing else can possibly go wrong. I have neuropathy so decorating is really beginning to take it's toll on me, but I am a woman on a mission! I went to do an easy piping and my had was shaking and unable to grab the pastry bag that I had to have a little help from my husband. The bowling ball cake crumbled three seconds after I put it on as the top tier and I had to pick off cake drippings off the cake. So I had to improve between my lack of strength to decorate and my cake collapsing before my eyes....

This is the finished result. Happy Birthday, Bug!