I'll start with the most serious, and work backwards.
1. I told this lady that my nephew was anaphylactic to nuts (airborne), and severely allergic to eggs. I was told "I don't use nuts", and she agreed she wouldn't use eggs in the cake.
My nephew slowly reacted overnight and the morning after, he's covered from head to toe in hives. He'd been given piriton overnight as he was restless and unhappy, and scratched raw and bleeding trying to claw the skin off his arms.
Neglectfully, she didn't check her shop-bought fondant ingredients. And there's a "May contain" warning on the box for nuts.
When approached, she claimed this is just a "blanket warning to cover their asses", which is rubbish. If this is the case then all 14 allergens would be noted on the packaging. May contains are specific to the environment in which the food was made and need paid attention to.
Her only answer was "I don't use nuts". Except she may well have done, and piriton can mask the effects of a full allergic reaction so my nephew may end up in hospital because of this.
There was zero apology. No remorse. Just "I don't use nuts" and I am riddled with guilt and fury that I trusted this woman at her word and now my nephew is sick because of her neglect. PAY ATTENTION TO THE MAY CONTAINS!!!!!!
The cake wasn't delivered at 9pm Saturday as agreed, she didn't call or message with information of a delay. 10.15pm I call her and she says it'll be there 8.30/9am the following morning in time for my 10am party.
9.10am it arrives and as a serious event planner this had my stress levels through the roof.
She had also used an upside down and back to front 2 on the cake instead of a 5, without asking if the substitution was ok - she just assumed I wouldn't notice. I did and it looked ridiculous.
I also wasn't thrilled with the cake itself, while the cake was delicious, you had to dig through 2 inches of "stuff" on each side to get to it. The cake to cream to fondant/ganache ratio was very poorly calculated.
She confessed to being incredibly busy and over the same weekend I saw 4 multi-tier christening cakes appear on her Facebook page and I can only surmise she overextended as her reviews are generally very positive on Facebook.
Though this could also be due to the fact that she vendors and edits her Facebook page and deletes anything negative - like my sisters review and warning to other customers.
Buyer beware. read more