A Weird Circle Piece

I've been mentally preparing for a special cake. It started out larger than probably needed for the final count, but right now I'm still not completely certain of that. All that basically means is I made too many fondant flowers, no big deal. They last.

I have very little knowledge and training about working with fondant.  Actually I had one very unorganized class which was exceptionally basic. It was so poorly run, I never went back for the other classes. And, of course within only a few days of that decision, it popped into my head that I'll make a cake for a special event and surprise that someone special at said special event.  Sounds like a plan.

Today I baked the cakes.  Multiple layers.  Big layers.  Things I'm not really accustomed to doing, but was confident enough after lots of planning that I'd be fine.  And, I was.  There were, however, 2 glitches. One my fault, one not.  The first glitch was me flipping a layer before it was cool. Bad idea, very bad idea.  As I had this giant layer crumbling on my counter, I felt crushed. It was then that I turned off all the lights, cleaned up what I could, and went to lay down and think. Within a few minutes, I heard Mr. Happy Vegan walk into the kitchen, then enter the bedroom to ask "what happened, did the cake break?"  Seriously.  So, with  rapier wit I informed him that no, everything was fine, I had no idea of that which he spoke.  He was not amused, but then again neither was I.

After he left the room, I continued to think about how to re-engineer this cake with what I now had.

After a while, I had decided how I would make the major repairs so I went back into the kitchen and began to fit the puzzle pieces together. It went ok but one piece was missing.  Not a small piece, not a large piece, it was by Goldilocks standards "just right" in terms of size.  A perfect circle actually.  You see, I had used heating cores for every layer of the cake.  One perfect circle was missing.  I slid things under the cake to see if maybe the perfect circle was trapped under the giant broken layer (it wasn't). I looked through everything on the counter (nope, not there), on the floor (not there, thankfully), and even opened up all the drawers in case one had been a little open when disaster fist struck.  Nothing.  It was then that Mr. Happy Vegan re-entered the kitchen to ask what was I doing.  In a moment of clarity, I asked him "did you eat any of this cake?"  He said "no, only a weird circle piece."

ONLY A WEIRD CIRCLE PIECE?

I guess I took it particularly hard that he ate the "weird circle piece" because a few days ago he spilled the beans about the surprise cake.  I've spent a lot of time on line looking information up about quantities, decorating ideas, and planning. I had to make 2 trips to Key West to get what I needed for this cake, and I actually have a pretty well stocked kitchen.  Two extra trips is a lot in my world.  So, when he admitted he ate the weird circle piece, I took it badly. My freezer is chock full of cookies, donuts, cupcakes, and more.  He could have had any one of those items, but he chose the weird circle piece.  It was more than I could take.

I cleaned up the kitchen yet again, and pushed the cakes aside, instead taking my emotions to the gym for boot camp.  Good decision.

 I will work with what I have, and some lucky soul will get a giant glob of mousse and frosting where a weird circle piece should be.  I guess its no big deal, but if you had been rolling fondant for about a week or so, making gum paste, royal icing, and flowers (all vegan, of course!) til the wee hours on a regular base, you'd miss your weird circle piece too.

Another day in the baking world. I should have expected this.