The "You Get What You Pay For" Cake

Here it is, cake #4 - the cake for the sweet 16 birthday party taking place this evening. Have you ever had the experience of making something for yourself and it turns out fantastic and then you make the same thing for someone else and it is an utter disaster? Well, this was one of those situations. I volunteered to make the cake for this surprise party and for some reason the fondant was very dry. I tried all of the recommended fixes; when that didn't work I tried making more; when that didn't work I started getting nervous. I certainly did not want this cake to be the "lovely" cake the neighbor made. I made another trip to the store to buy different ingredient brands - that didn't work either, so I just had to make do. I would like to say I learned something from this experience, but technically, I still don't know what went wrong. I do think my neighbor learned a lesson - be wary of neighbors bearing cakes (i.e. there is no such thing as a free cake). As you can see, at the end of the day I did have a cake to send. Because the fondant was dry, it was not exactly what I had hoped for, but you can stick candles in it and it probably tastes okay. It is a chocolate pound cake with carmel buttercream frosting. Have a look, but not too close please!