**The Art of Cake Rescue: Turning Fails into Successes**

As a baker, I've learned that even the most disastrous attempts can be turned around with a little creativity and patience. In this article, I'll share my experience with cake rescue, where we take a failed bundt cake and turn it into an impressive-looking dessert fit for any party.

I remember one particularly challenging project where I was tasked with creating a cake for a first birthday party. The trouble with bundt cake tins is that they have uneven grooves, which can make them difficult to line with non-stick paper. Additionally, the grooves provide a surface for the cake to stick to, making it even harder to remove from the tin after baking. To overcome this challenge, I decided to take a different approach.

I started by generously spraying one half of the tin with oil and leaving the other half ungreased. Then, I added my lemon and blueberry cake mixture into the tin, hoping that the oil would help it release more easily from the pan. As the cake baked, I carefully monitored its progress, checking to see if it was sticking to the tin or not. When I shook the tin, I noticed that one side was loose, while the other side seemed stuck.

At this point, I knew I had to act quickly to save my cake. Instead of trying to loosen the entire cake from the pan, I decided to focus on just getting it out by shaking it again and again until it came loose all the way around. It was a delicate process, but I was determined to see it through.

**The Turning Point: Loosening the Cake**

As I continued to shake the tin, I knew that I needed to be careful not to break the cake apart. The edge of the side with oil looked different from the side without, and I could feel the cake starting to release from the pan. With one final shake, the entire cake came loose, and I was left with a beautifully formed bundt cake.

**Turning Fails into Successes**

But that's not all – we still had to rescue our failed cake by making it look presentable for the party. To do this, we added a circle of blue chocolate on top where it joined on each side, creating an impressive-looking cake rescue. We also used yogurt and cream to create a simple mousse that would help fill out the cake.

To make the mousse, I took a third of a cup of yogurt and stirred it into gelatin straight away. Then, I grabbed another third of a cup of yogurt and stirred that in as well. Next, I whipped the rest of the cream until I got soft peaks, then poured the softened gelatin mixture into the microwave to melt it.

I stirred the hot gelatin mixture until I could no longer see any lumps of gelatin, then added some sugar if needed (in my case, I didn't add extra). Once that was dissolved, I stirred it in with the yogurt and once that was all combined, I poured it into the whipped cream. The final result was a simple yet delicious yogurt mousse.

**The Final Rescue: Assembling the Cake**

To assemble our cake rescue, I scooped the yogurt mousse into the bundt pan and filled it up to the top with more cake and mousse. Then, I put the tin in a sink of warm water and carefully removed it from the tin. With some patience and care, the entire cake came out of the pan, leaving me with a beautifully shaped dessert that was ready for presentation.

Finally, I smoothed out the excess mousse with a hot spoon to create a clean finish. To top it all off (literally!), I added a sprinkle of blue chocolate on top to complete our impressive-looking cake rescue. And voila! With some patience and creativity, we turned a failed bundt cake into a stunning dessert fit for any party.

**The Importance of Practice and Patience**

Turning fails into successes like this takes practice, patience, and a willingness to experiment. As bakers, we should always be willing to try new things and take risks in the kitchen. With every attempt, we learn and grow, refining our techniques until we achieve our desired results.

If you're struggling with cake rescue or find yourself facing similar challenges in your baking journey, I encourage you to keep trying. Don't be discouraged by failures – instead, use them as opportunities to learn and improve. And remember, practice makes perfect, so don't be afraid to experiment and try new things until you achieve the results you desire.

**Conclusion**

Cake rescue is an art that requires patience, creativity, and practice. By following these steps and being willing to take risks in the kitchen, we can turn even the most disastrous attempts into stunning desserts fit for any party. With every attempt, we learn and grow, refining our techniques until we achieve our desired results. So don't be afraid to try new things – with cake rescue, practice makes perfect!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enWelcome to How To Cook That, I'm Ann Reardon and this is another episode of Cake Rescue,  where I take viral cake fails and show you how to rescue them. Let's start with the toppling towers  of some very tall cakes. Emmy's Kitchen had this one collapse in transit and she said she  just cried when she got there and saw it. This cake went on a 45-minute journey successfully  before toppling over on a u-turn. Cakes by Jean made a great batman cake that was badly damaged  when the customer drove it home and Sweetie Pie Dublin made this beautiful cake for a customer  and after it left the store it ended up looking like this! So first of all let's recreate the  fail and then we'll talk about how to fix it tall cakes that are being transported need two  types of support they need vertical support which is to support the weight of the cake from being  squashed by the other cakes that are stacked up on top of it but they're also going to need  support to stop them from toppling over and that is a different type of support for that you need  something that's attached to the baseboard you could use a metal rod secured with nuts underneath  and on top if you have a wooden board and then the center of the cake would have one of these tubes  they just slot right over the top and if possible you transport the cake with the tiers separate and  when you get to the venue you just slot the next tier on top and that rod makes sure it's a hundred  percent central and it also stops it falling off in transit. You're also going to need a  strong central support like this in top heavy cakes like i showed you with the minion cake  the rocket cake my little pony anime watering can cake caramel popcorn prince harry spiderman stand  mixer cake all of those are on the channel but if you're just at home with a normal tall cake  and it's just going from the fridge to the table you don't need that really strong central support  these sort of supports would be ideal this is a firm hollow plastic tube and this is just a wooden  support or at a pinch you could use cake pop sticks but as soon as you need some side to side  support these are not going to be enough. So let's use these today because we want to make it fail  put a cake board on top and stack it up and then let's make another tier to go on top of the first  one make it even taller and stack that on top and put it into a box in the car and off we go ...  so far so good, it only has that vertical support no horizontal support it's just come out of the  fridge so that helps make it more secure because the buttercream is quite firm but if you're  driving a long way you have to consider that buttercream is going to heat up. We're driving  on fairly flat roads here but I'm going to ask Dave to turn into a sloped driveway...Now you need to get your before and after shot for Instagram and wipe away your tears and figure  out how you're going to fix this damaged cake! The first thing you want to do is grab a plate  and separate your tiers out and we'll deal with each one separately and remember things like this  happen it's just cake and it's all going to be okay 💕 Now because the bottom layer has tipped  over it's let the weight of the cake squash the bottom bit of cake and even if we stand it up  it won't stay standing for long because that bottom area is now squashed and crumbly and  most probably the cake pop stick has probably slipped and is no longer supporting it.  So i suggest you add another cake pop stick or a skewer or anything you have in the house that's  food safe to prop it up to the height of that cake board so that it won't fall over again.  Now to make them look good grab some foil that's long enough to wrap around your  cake and fold it down so the top is slightly taller than the height of the first tier  then flip it over and scrunch up the foil, don't do it so tight that you can't get it  apart without ripping it, we just want to scrunch it up and make sure it's crinkled everywhere.  Then use your hands to flatten it out again spread some melted compound chocolate over the foil  now you can use real chocolate here if you know how to temper chocolate but this  is a rescue so I'm going for the fastest easiest option and using compound chocolate.  Once it's evenly spread lift the foil and move it to a new spot that just makes all the edges  straight, let it cool a little not much just a little so it's not quite as runny and then wrap it  around your cake and then you want to do the exact same thing with the little one put them in the  fridge for 10 minutes and then peel off the foil now you can leave it just like that or if you have  luster dust you can give it a gentle brush over with some luster dust of your choice of color add  the smaller cake back on top of the big one and yes you can still see the indent at the bottom but  it's not as noticeable with the crinkly chocolate and this would be fine if you're having a party.  Cake fail number two is that sinking feeling when a cake comes out of the oven and it sinks down in  the center my neighbor sent me this photo asking if she puts the cake back in the oven will it  go back up? She needed it for a birthday party ... sadly the answer is no it won't go back up  they usually sink in the middle if they're not quite cooked enough. Cake cooking times vary  so much depending on the oven and the type of dish used when you're baking it. Emeroy was baking  a red velvet cake that was clearly underbaked when he took it out. Nene 78 baked these three  cakes and the big one ended up like this often people think they can bake a cake in one large  tin instead of two smaller ones so let's do that and see what happens i've got one batch of my  rich chocolate cake mix here and i'll tip all of that into a big tin now i've made up another batch  of the exact same recipe and i'm going to split that between two cake pans. Pop them in the oven  and 35 minutes later if we take them out we'll put a knife into the middle of this one and it  comes out clean so that's done, always check with a knife don't just go on the time and this is the  same recipe same oven and it's definitely not done yet. Now if you check around the edges you can see  that it is cooked on the edges but it has to go back in the oven because the middle is not cooked  and using a large tin like this can often mean that you overcook the edges and the top  before the middle is ready to go so baking two thinner layers i prefer as the better option.  20 minutes of extra bake time so that's a lot on top and you can see it's hot in the middle  but it's still not ready, it takes a lot lot longer if you put it in the bigger tin  so it needs to go back in the oven but i'm not going to put it back i'm going to leave it out  so that we can watch it sink again and then we can rescue it now there are several different  things you could do with this but i'm just going to level off the top of the cake and then push  a cookie cutter down into that middle section and scoop out the center. You'll find it will  be properly baked at the very bottom because that was on the heat of the pan so just push  the cookie cutter all the way through and then trim a nice slice of cake from that bottom piece  now just flip the cake upside down and fill the hole with m&m's and then add that disc of cake on  top and now you can decorate your cake however you were going to decorate it before it failed because  it doesn't look like a fail anymore I'm going to cover the whole thing with ganache and then pipe  swirls of your ganache on top. Cake Fail number 3 is the bucket cake or the plant pot-shaped  cake and I'm not even sure what went wrong here i don't know if that's melted fondant or if that's  buttercream and they didn't use fondant but they certainly didn't get to what they were going for.  Jessica called this one a fail now I actually think this one's not too bad but if you're not  happy with it here is a quick fix that you could do. Melt some compound white chocolate if you've  got some oil-based food coloring you can use that otherwise just leave it white tip that into a  clean bucket or plant pot that has no holes in the bottom this one is a brand new plant pot and i've  washed it to make sure it's 100 per cent clean and you need to make sure it's really really dry  then you want to tip that container and swirl the chocolate around so that it goes right to  the very top and then tip out the excess chocolate and put it in the fridge for a few minutes to set.  That gives us a really thin layer of chocolate and this is just going to break if we try and  take it out so we're just going to repeat that same process a couple of times just to build  up the layers and thicken it up especially around that top lip once that's set you just pull up and  out of the container chocolate shrinks a little as it sits so it makes it quite easy to get out  now it's just a matter of stacking up the cake and the frosting inside of this chocolate container.  This is also a great fix for many cake fails because you can put a crumbled mess in here  and no one would know then put some biscuits into a food processor if you don't have a processor you  can just put them in a plastic bag and squash them with a rolling pin or a book or anything  that you've got that you can hit it with 🏏 Then put some frosting onto a cake board or a plate  and add your cake, pile some cookie crumbs on top of the cake now obviously if you want this to be  a plant pot rather than a bucket of sand on the beach then you'd be better off using oreos because  they crush up and look like soil. You can put some sand around the base too or some cookie crumbs  obviously and then if you want a handle on your bucket put some chocolate on a strip of acetate  and then just before it's set add it to the side of the bucket peel off the acetate and add a  circle of blue chocolate on top where it joins on each side and you have an impressive looking cake  rescue! Okay one more there were so many photos of failed bunt cakes including this one that was for  a first birthday party the trouble with bundt cake tins is that you can't line them with non-stick  paper because of their uneven sort of grooves and the grooves also give the cake something to stick  to i'm going to generously spray one half of this tin with oil and leave the other half ungreased  then add in my lemon and blueberry cake mixture and bake that the edge of the side that had oil  looks different to the side without on the oil side you can also see if i shake it it is loose  and then if i turn that you can see this side is stuck in the pan it's not lifting when i shake it  so what i'd suggest you do at this stage is you get a knife or a spoon and loosen it around the  edge wherever it is stuck until when you shake it it's loose the whole way around  but i'm not going to do that because i want it to break so i'm just going to tip it out...oh nuts 🥜 it turned out perfectly it's very hard to get a fail when you want it to fail! I'm just  going gonna have to rip it apart that looks more like it now you could just eat this of course it's  cake and it tastes good but if you are having a party and you want it to be more presentable here  is a fix for you grab some yogurt in whatever flavor you like and some cream and some gelatin  and i'll put these recipe quantities on my website for you take a third of a cup of that cream and  stir it into the gelatin straight away then grab a third of a cup of the yogurt and stir that in as  well whip the rest of the cream until you get soft peaks now put the softened gelatin mixture into  the microwave to melt it you want to stir that until you can no longer see any lumps of gelatin  now if you want it sweeter or if your yogurt isn't sweet add some more sugar into this hot gelatin  mixture and stir it till it's dissolved i'm not adding extra sugar to mine but you can to yours  now stir that in with the yogurt and once that's all combined then pour that into the whipped cream  and fold them together and you've made a simple yogurt mousse scoop that into the bundt pan  and put it all the way up and around the edges then add your chunks of cake  into the pan add more and more cake and mousse until you're filled right up to the top and then  we're going to put this in the freezer now that it's frozen you've got the problem of getting it  out of the tin again of course to do that put the tin in a sink of warm water and make sure that it  doesn't go over the top of course you just want it around the edges. Then you'll need to poke a knife  down one side to let some air out otherwise you've got a vacuum and it won't come out  and then it should just pop out of the tin and you can center that on your plate now you could  glaze this but i'm going to keep it simple and just use a hot spoon to smooth out those bits  of mousse that we melted by putting the tin in warm water leave it to defrost in the fridge  and then serve it up at your party. With thanks to my wonderful patrons for your amazing support.  If you like Cake Rescues let the algorithm know by liking commenting sharing and watching more  of my videos. Make it a great week by being kind to others and I'll see you on Friday 💕\n"