Torting and filling! Not so much....

September's office cake was a disaster in the making - at least in my mind.  First off, the cake was a french vanilla one.  So far, so good.  Loved the flavor, cake baked up real nice.  Tried a new leveling method from the cake forums I followed and it worked well!   The problems occurred when I went to torte and fill. 

It all started out okay - I torted, used a buttercream dam and put in my filling of white chocolate mousse.  Let the cakes settle.  Covered the cakes in white chocolate ganache.  Which, by the way, was the first time I have ever used ganache - I was always afraid to try it.  It sounded super chic and I figured I would probably mess it up!  Melissa convinced me to try it - thanks Melissa! 

Anyway - cakes have settled, looking good.  Next day I take the cakes out and cover with the fondant.  The hula girls are drying and looking more like girls and less like mismatched torsos.  Then... I get sick.  Here I am having to finish this cake and I feel horrible.  Oh well - figure I can work a little, take a nap.  Work a little, take a nap.  It was a good plan!  Sometime between a nap and pulling the cake out of the fridge to work on the roof, the cake settled more!!  Yikes!  Now instead of my beautiful tiki wood walls, I have bulging walls. 

I don't know if it was the ganache that caused the cake to settle more or if the cake was too moist to hold the ganache, filling and the weight of the fondant.  My research since leans towards the cake being too moist and therefore to "frail" to hold itself up.  Sigh.  Just when I thought I had the best fondant work to date! 

The good news - the cake made it in to work all in one piece.  The birthday girl raved about it - couldn't believe I was sick but still made "a fantastic work of art"!  The flavor was good and obviously we didn't have to worry about a dry cake!