More cake woes

I’m getting a cake this weekend.  It is an epic cake.  It’s got two tiers and is decorated with cherry blossoms.  The cake is Italian rum and the filling is champagne mousse with fresh strawberries.  I have been longing for this cake for almost three whole years, ever since I first tasted it and decided this was the best cake I’ve ever had in the whole of my entire life.  This is seriously not overstating it.

Which helps to explain why I was a bit annoyed yesterday when the girl called me and said she was just decorating it now and did I want the fondant flowers? because that’d be $15 extra. 

Excuse me?  $15 extra?  Here’s the way I ordered this cake.  I walked into the bakery and said, “I want that cake,” (pointing to a cherry-blossom-covered cake up on the top shelf) “except I want it with Italian rum cake and champagne mousse and fresh strawberry filling.  I would like the top tier to be a 6” round and the bottom tier to be an 8” square.  Please ring that up and I will pay in full now.”

You can appreciate my confusion when this same girl calls me two months later to inform me that in fact she did not apparently understand my request to have that cake with different innards.  That cake was sitting right there.  She was facing it the entire time.  I would love to know why it didn’t occur to her that the flowers on that cake were fondant flowers and that she was going to have to squeeze even more money out of me for that.

Alas, I’m too meek a person.  Yesterday I said yes, bring on the extra-cost fondant flowers.

But that’s not the worst part.  While I had her on the phone yesterday I asked for an extra cake, 6” round, because I realized I can’t be putting my friend into anaphylactic shock from eating strawberries.  It’d kind of put a damper on the day.  Plus I’d been telling so many people about my awesome cake that I was worried I wasn’t going to have enough for all the people (and most importantly, me) to eat.

So I order this second cake, and as I’m asking about it the girl is talking to her supervisor.  And she comes back on the phone and says,

“Yes, of course we can make you a second cake.  But also, I’m just wondering – I was just talking to my boss and she made your cake with cream cheese filling.  Would you be willing to take that cake and we’ll drop the $15 charge for the fondant flowers?”

WHAT??!?!  This is my cake we’re talking about here!!  My cake, the one I’ve been waiting for three whole years to have and you’re telling me that you’ve gone and screwed up one of my trifecta of perfect ingredients?  You’re trying to pass cream cheese off on me?  And to compensate me for that you’ll waive the fee you just threw on me at the last minute because you couldn’t be bothered to look at that cake I was pointing at two months ago and which you’ve been staring at day in and day out ever since?  Oh, and by the way, if you hadn’t been calling me when you noticed this I might have just gotten the wrong damn cake this weekend?!  What the hell kind of bakery establishment are you running where you manage to mess up both the price of the order and the order itself and then try and make a meek little soul like me feel bad for not taking your shoddy craftsmanship at extra cost, thank you ever so much for the buggery?

Cream cheese.  Ugh.  Normally I don’t have a problem with cream cheese, but not in my cake.  The flavor trinity would be shot all to hell.  So no, no thank you, I’m sorry but I want the cake I ordered.  And frankly, I’m going to be enjoying the hell out of this cake because I’m not sure I’m interested in ever ordering it again. 

But I'll surely post pictures of my radical awesome cake this weekend!  Stay posted!

UPDATE:  I got my cake!  And it’s official, I am never going back to this bakery again.  Remember how I said I wanted it to look exactly like the cake on the wall?  Yeah, so the cake on the wall was two colors: pink and brown.  This decorator decided to add green and yellow to my cake like I’m a five-year-old. 

I understand how snobby I’m coming off right now, but you have to understand.  I never front for a cake like this.  This was like a one-time splurge on some serious awesome, and the total lack of professionalism or attention to detail on the part of the bakery did nothing but remind me why I ought to just do it myself if I want it done right.

At least it was delicious.  Even if they did slather on a full inch of frosting (I hate frosting, I always take it off) just to get all the edges to line up.