Ohana Means Family

Custom cakes will forever be one of the most favorite things to bake. I love the variety, I get to put my skills to the test, and being able to bring someone's wish to life is amazing. This cake had some hardships, a few tears, and a moment where I questioned everything around me, but I pulled everything together and brought my customer to tears when I delivered this cake! This bake ended up being an interesting one, and I learned so much along the way. Here's a little backstory:

I was asked to make a vanilla sheet cake, featuring Stitch from "Lilo and Stitch", for a little girl's birthday party. Yes, you read that right, a vanilla cake. Note that this request was a couple of weeks out from the date of the party. I sent inspirational pictures to the customer to get an idea of what style they were looking for. They picked a picture, gave me some details, and I sketched out a couple of designs to send their way. They loved it, so everything was set! I worked tests for this bake into my busy schedule and set it aside until I had some free time to practice. All I had to test was how I was going to put the character onto the cake. With a week full of filling orders, I wasn't able to practice until the next week. Fast forward to next week...

I reach out to the customer to confirm the cake and to go over the final details, payment, delivery, etc. No answer. After a day, I had someone related reach out about the cake. They informed me they were taking over the communication for the cake, and wanted a strawberry cake, Angel on the cake, along with Stitch. Okay, no big deal, not super major. Then they informed me of the date of the party, which was two days sooner than I had been previously informed. My jaw dropped. Instead of having the five days I had planned to test, prep, and bake the cake, I now had three. I informed them that with the extra work and the date change, the price would go up. They were, thankfully, completely understanding and wanted a cake from me, no matter the cost. That was a bit of a relief; however, stress continued to blow its hot breath down my neck. I had to completely adjust my schedule and get busy!

I started with the characters. I decided to try the royal icing method versus buttercream. I have iced a lot of cakes, but I have never done a buttercream transfer before. For the sake of saving time and materials, I figured royal icing would be easier and cheaper than buttercream. I thought it would be easier to color royal icing, which it was, because one batch of royal icing makes so much icing, so I'd have plenty to test a few different transfers. What I didn't think about was how to transfer them from the wax paper to the cake... The first time I traced the characters, I wasn't sure how to go about it, so I piped them separately. Boy, was that a mistake! Of course, I didn't realize that until the next day. In the meantime, I got a couple of characters piped onto wax paper and let them dry all night. I wanted them to dry for as long as possible. The next day, I made and baked the cake. Now, let me tell you, this is the most amazing strawberry recipe ever! A very dear friend lent me her recipe, and I made a few adjustments to it, as I always do. I was able to test the recipe before the actual cake. That's why I was so confident to make adjustments for the real cake.

Sidenote: the test cake did not go to waste. I cut the cake into rectangles to fit into some disposable containers I have. I layered them with buttercream and let a family member take them to work for my little guinea pigs. <3 I even put a sprinkle layer in the middle of two of the six containers I made for a special, surprise giveaway. The two who had sprinkles won a discount on their next order! So, to the two who won, congratulations! You know who you are!

The cake baked beautifully, and I left it to cool so I could get the crumb coat and base layers frosted later that night. While that cooled, I made a double batch of buttercream and colored it. I had about eight different colors. Three different shades of blue, three shades of pink, and I colored the rest gold, leaving some white. Another detail from this cake, they wanted as much gold as I could work in. This little girl is obsessed with gold, so I made sure to deliver as much sparkly gold as I could! I let my buttercream sit so the colors could darken, and I decided to use a little of the white buttercream to test one of the character transfers. I had never done this before and wanted to make sure I could do it before trying it on the cake. I spread a thin layer of buttercream onto some wax paper and flipped the character onto it. I used my fondant smoother to flatten it out a bit and make sure it stuck. I was nervous, but I peeled the wax paper off. It was gorgeous! It transferred so well, and it gave me the motivation and confidence to move right along!

Once the cake cooled, I got the white crumb coat on, froze the cake for about 10 minutes, and got to work on the base coat. With the characters being blue and pink, I was going for a tie-dye type look. I plopped dollops of blue, pink, and a little white all over the cake and got to smoothing. I made sure to add more pink to the Stitch side of the cake and more blue to Angel's side. I wanted these characters to pop on this cake. It was looking fantastic! Almost like a cotton candy colored sky! I let that freeze for a few minutes while I got everything ready to pipe some of the border before I got the characters on the cake. Piping rosettes and little details helped me destress a little before it was time to put the characters on. I was very nervous about it. I had made marks on the cake where the characters were going to go, so I didn't get the borders too close. I got a lot piped, and it was looking so good!

Here is where things got wild. I was finally ready for the transfers. I spread buttercream onto the cake where Stitch would be placed. I gave myself a little pep talk, grabbed Stitch, and stuck him onto the cake. Again, used my smoother to ensure it was stuck to the cake, and slowly peeled the wax paper off. It looked good! I was so excited! I spread another thin layer of buttercream where Angel was going to go, went to grab the transfer when I realized what I had done. I stood there, looking back and forth from this cute pink character to the cake. What I didn't realize when I piped the characters, which are posed a certain way to fit together, is that I had to flip them onto the cake. In doing that, their positions change. I was so upset I hadn't realized that until right this second. If I were to flip Angel onto the cake, she wasn't going to match up to Stitch! I couldn't just place her onto the cake; part of her head was missing from the way the two are positioned together! I should have flipped the image when I piped them, or switched the sides of the cake, but it was too late... I was fighting tears. This cake had to be delivered the next day, and I didn't have any more transfers piped out!

I took a step back, sat outside, and analyzed my options. There was no possible way I was getting Stitch off the cake without damaging it. So, I did something crazy. I scraped Stitch off the cake (which broke into a million pieces, as anticipated), scraped the thin layer of buttercream, fixed the divots from the scraping, and stuck the cake back into the freezer. I had to repipe these characters. Thankfully, I had more than enough royal icing to do them again. I got onto my tablet, flipped the image, and traced the characters on a piece of paper. I traced them together, so I didn't have to worry about lining them up separately. Then, I taped the paper onto a flat pan, taped wax paper over that, and got to piping. By the time I finished, it was around midnight. They needed the cake at two the next day, so I was cutting it close and hoping this was going to work. My next steps were crucial and very scary. I made the executive decision to flip the characters on the cake then and there. That way, they could dry on the cake all night, and that was one less step for me to stress about through the night and the next day. I phoned a friend for this; very thankful for their moral support and being a part of this process with me. I was sleep-deprived and overthinking everything I was doing. After I got the characters on the cake, leaving the wax paper on top to dry, I decided to pipe the bottom border and clean up for the night, at 2 in the morning.

I got up around 6 A.M. to make sure I had plenty of time to finish the cake. First thing, I peeled the wax paper off the characters. I let out the biggest exhale as the paper came off easily and smoothly. I was more than relieved seeing that it worked! And they looked amazing! I was ecstatic as I moved on to the finishing details of the cake. I piped more flowers, hand-placed a million sprinkles, and covered the entire cake in gold luster dust. And there it was. After days of stress, no sleep, chaos, and caffeine, it was finally finished, and I was beyond proud of the final product. I stood there admiring it for at least 10 minutes. I took final pictures and videos, boxed it up, and it was ready to be delivered.

I always get so nervous before giving the customer the cake, but I could not have received a better reaction! She stood there in awe, admiring the cake. She gave me the biggest hug and talked about how much everyone was going to love it! She was so excited for the birthday girl to see it. Needless to say, I cried a little on my way back home. That is the part that makes the long nights, the loss of sleep, the stress, MORE than worth it! I will forever be so grateful for my customers. The trust we build, the support they give, and the love they share for me, my business, and my bakes. It was a beautiful moment, and I will not soon forget it.

Moral of this story: trust the process and don't be afraid to do something you've never done before. I was terrified for half of this process, and it came out better than I could have ever imagined! And now I have even more experience and skills under my belt. I am ready to play around with this technique more and really nail it down! As always, peep the socials for the videos of this bake and the process. TikTok has the super exclusive behind-the-scenes of this entire story. I tried my hand at voiceovers, so let me know what you think about it! Thank you so much for being here and sticking through to read this entire story. I know it was a long one, but it was a crazy few days! Make sure to subscribe to the website! Subscribers may or may not get some exclusive deals and discounts on upcoming Easter bakes! Trust me, you want to be a part of it! Keep a lookout, subscribe, follow, and always, take care! Happy baking! <3