Burberry and Longhorns... I guess they can work nicely together

I had a cake commission for last weekend. The customer contacted me and she asked for a cake that would somehow include Burberry Pattern and the Texas Longhorn orange symbol together. Although this was a slightly odd request I was interested to take on the challenge. The cake was to be a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. 

Trying to think of how I could combined these two very different concepts and make them into one cohesive unit for a 16 year old boys birthday I think I came to a pretty nice conclusion. The longhorn was 3D on the cake and he was eating the edge of the cake. The cake was covered with the pattern. I think this tied the two together a bit more since they were interacting with one another. 

I had a little snag at 10pm on the Friday when as both of my cakes came out of the oven looking like devil spawn. They were flat as pancakes with sinkholes and peaks like the rocky mountains, and to top it all off they were as dense as brownies. They tasted good but I couldn't put my finger on it. 

Wondering what could have possibly happened I decided to remake them. Unfortunately I only had enough eggs for one of the layers and being late at night I was forced to make the trek to Macs to pick up some more...and they were not free run. *shudder* Sorry little chickens. :( 

Upon measuring out the ingredients for the next layer I realized that I had doubled everything else but the sugar. So they were sweet and tasted good but didn't get enough of the leavening power that they needed. Sugar granules when mixed in with your batter get surrounded by the oils and other items. When cooked, this is what forms the air pockets and makes the cake nice and fluffy. When you don't mix in the sugar well enough with your fats or you reduce the amount of sugar, you can end up with a cake that looks like the baby of Chucky. 

All said and done the cake turned out great and the customer was pleased! Next time I will definitely make sure I have enough eggs on hand for any snafoo's.