Josh & I are really big Cake Wrecks fans and we were beyond excited when it was finally confirmed that we would get the opportunity to make a cake for the NY stop of their book signing "World Tour"! It was such a huge deal for us and so surreal that we would actually be making something that would be on the website we read and enjoy so much. We didn't want to talk about it to too many people, just in case it fell through and we were left crushed. Right up until the moment we were actually there I was still in disbelief that it was happening, but it did! So now we can tell you all the story about the cake we made that we secretly built up in our hearts to be such a huge deal, that ended up being in an actual cake wreck!
So we created this big cake design that had several elements to it and we split up the elements between us to work on separately over the weekend. The theory was that we would join our elements a few hours before the event, airbrush a pearl sheen on it all, take pictures, and be on our way- best laid plans... What ended up happening was so ridiculous! We ended up having to work on our sections basically the night before since we were so busy with other cake orders and only slept a few hours to make sure everything was perfect and detailed. It still wasn't finished, so I went over to our office to meet up with Josh and finish up what was left and move on from there. I arrived in New York four hours early and proceeded to drive around looking for a parking spot - NY parking.....sigh.....
So anyways, after an hour and a quarter tank of gas, I started to cry. Then I drove back to the street of our building and resolved that I would just wait there until someone left. It was just as I turned onto that street that I finally got a spot! But I lost an hour of vital working time so I rushed up the 5 flights of stairs, that's right, 5...flights...of stairs- no elevator- and frantically worked on finishing up everything. We finally finished an hour before the event, which meant we had to airbrush the sheen, take pictures and get going in half an hour in order to get there in time. Any other day that would be no problem, but since we were on such a time crunch, of course, our airbrush gun was clogged and didn't work! I took it apart and quickly cleaned it, but it still didn't work, but if i tilted it in a certain angle, a little bit of pearl would come out, so I was resigned to airbrushing in this crazy angle in triple the time it should have taken!!
We were going to set up the cake for quick pictures, but we had exactly half an hour before the event and we still had to carry this monster of a cake (it ended up being almost 100 lbs!!!) downstairs and into my car. We had to choose between taking pictures and being on time-we chose being on time, and we have officially learned our lesson- we will never ever again not take pictures! The cake was 3 layers of gluten free cake decorated to look like a stack of the Cake Wrecks book. A separate dummy book covered in fondant leaned against the stack with the cover facing the front, & on top of the stack was another dummy cake covered in fondant and decorated with fabric in the colors of the cake wrecks website, with silver flourishing in the middle. All this was on top of a mini table we made to mimic the table the books would be signed on. We also made up a pen with a tiny dangling carrot jockey with the writing "CW 'World' Tour- NY Take Two" on it. We had to split up the different elements of cake & each bring down some of it, but Josh ended up carrying the heaviest part of it down the 5 flights of stairs. By the time we got to the bottom, he looked like he was about to collapse, so I put down my stuff and try to carry his part the rest of the way-- for the first time in my career I wasn't able to carry a cake for more than a minute and it started to drop! So he had to take it back and we got everything loaded. Finally, we were on our way.
Once we got there though, we discovered that 2 table legs had broken off during the trip and the cake had crashed onto the floor of the trunk, slamming the front piece of the cake into the dummy book cover! The fondant table cloth was all over the place, the front piece was missing a chunk - at that moment, all we could do was laugh, take off the remaining table legs and give in to the will of the universe, which was apparently to have a real cake wreck displayed at the Cake Wreck book signing!!
We want to thank the Barnes & Noble staff members that helped Josh carry in the cake the rest of the way while I parked my car, which only took a few minutes that time thank goodness! Thanks to John & Jen Yates for being not only hilariously entertaining but so nice, but for giving us signed copies of the book and of course for giving us this great opportunity!
So now here are the best pictures we have of the night- the only side view picture here was the least blurry one of the bunch, but after carrying that huge cake so long Josh's arms apparently couldn't hold the camera still enough to get a good shot! We're hoping some better pics surface eventually, but I think you get the general idea ;o) There are a few pre-wreck pictures of the dummy cakes, & then the rest were after. Enjoy!
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