The not so pretty wrapped cake

I made a carrot cake for one of Lowell's coworkers and decided to try another chocolate wrap. Since carrot cake, cream cheese frosting and dark chocolate don't sound like the best combination, I went with white chocolate for the collar and bow. The cream cheese frosting was white, so I tinted the chocolate orange for some contrast. Apparently, since the first chocolate wrapped cake went so well, I didn't think I needed to be very careful. Big mistake. I didn't let the chocolate set up long enough and was too far away from the cake when I put the chocolate collar around it, so I made a huge mess. After wrestling with the chocolate covered acetate for what had to be an eternity to get the collar around the cake, I realized the chocolate had some thin spots on it where I could see a hint of the frosting underneath it, and one small area where the chocolate had slid down and left the icing utterly exposed. To make matters worse, I made my frosting for the top of the cake way too stiff and it didn't flow as nicely as it should have. I did the best I could to doctor it up and sent it on it's way, feeling like a failure. In the end, it tasted good and looked sort of ok...from this angle. You can only see a little bit of the white showing through the chocolate in the middle of the cake here. I couldn't bring myself to document the carnage.

Lessons learned:
1. Have a sister nearby to help you get the collar around the cake.
2. Wait until the shine fades on the chocolate to put it around the cake.
3. Even though it seems like a waste of time, tint the frosting that is under the chocolate to somewhat match the chocolate collar so there is not such a stark contrast between the two...in case you have areas where the chocolate is a bit light.