Dave's Birthday Cake Disaster

Dave loves ice cream cakes. Given the success on Kaitlyn's Rapunzel tower I thought that I would make Dave an ice cream cake for his birthday. I blocked out the disaster with Madelyn's first birthday cake and went for it. As the pictures will show, this cake became a monstrous disaster!


Here is the cake batter. It tasted delicious and baked up so nice. The cake itself, before I froze it, was great. Bummer!

Cake base with buttercream icing - should have just stopped here as the cake and icing along were perfect.
Kaitlyn and I crushed Oreo cookies and mixed them in with softened vanilla bean ice cream, which turned out great on it's own. What I hadn't thought about was the weight and size. The ice cream layer here is way too thick. I should have made it like 1/2 or even 1/3 of the thickness.
You can also see the buttercream being smooshed out with the weight of everything. There is also some chocolate ganache in between layers. Yes, I had a vision of decadent beauty in mind head. It didn't translate in real life.

I attempted to salvage it by doing some decorations on top. I really just should have gone to the grocery store and bought a store made cake. I feel bad that I love to make cakes and totally blew it on my honey's birthday!Daddy being a good sport and blowing out the candles with Kaitlyn.

Daddy and his girls. Dave attempting to cut the cake. We let it sit out for 10 or 30 minutes (can't remember), but that certainly didn't help. I think we may have used the mallet and a different knife to finally get through it.

Yes, I am holding the cake up with a meat fork. That's how solid it was.
At least I learned a few things from the experience.

1. I need to put the plan in my head on paper and draw it out. I did this with Kaitlyn's and got the proportions right. I did not with Madelyn's cake and it was way too big. In doing this, I must realize that bigger is not better and that I don't have to use all the cake better in the cake I'm working on at the time.
   
2. Recognize that a simple cake that tastes great is just as good, if not better than, doing a crazy, difficult cake with tons of layers. Keep the audience in mind and the stress level in check!
   
3. I will never make an ice cream cake again, why?
4. Frozen chocolate cake isn't as good as the real thing; I ruined a wonderful chocolate cake that Kaitlyn help me make by freezing it.
   
5. Frozen icing doesn't taste as good as when it is fresh or just out of the refrigerator. The butter flavor came through most of all. It was very disappointing given that I made Dave's favorite icing.
   
6. Ice cream is heavy, the cake almost fell over b/c the weight of the ice cream on the cake was too much. Oops!