Help! Cake broke

[NewToRenting]

Deciding to play it safe, made a box cake mix in 2 layers (used egg replacer as one of the guests is allergic), While putting it together, turned out that the cake was really delicate, add my own cack handedness to the problem and and both layers broke.

Managed to assemble it (see picture) but how do I salvage this? A pourable glaze, or will the cake just drink it up and become a stodgy mess? I am a pretty decent cook but baking is just not my forte.

Or do I just bin this and buy a cake for my daughter bday party later today?

You're going to sandwich the layers together, and cover in icing or buttercream, right? Just do that, use it as if it's plaster on a wall. It'll be grand.

A layer of buttercream icing smooth over with a hot bread knife and decorate. 😋

Buttercream icing will hide that!
I'm planning on doing something like this for today and doing the buttercream pink and purple.

I already dolloped nutella in the middle to sort of 'glue' it together, but after the breakage I was too scared to spread it much. Was planning to buy frosting in a jar, but it was out of stock in the store I went to yesterday (am not in the UK).

Any easy foolproof buttercream recipe please?

I'm fairly new to this but I went with the bbc one earlier this week - 600g icing sugar, 300g butter, 2tbsp hot water, dash of vanilla essence. Its enough to ice a 20cm cake.

Its actually much easier to spread than the frosting you were thinking of buying.

Equal weights icing sugar and butter. Make sure the butter is soft then beat the two together - use a mixer for maximum lightness. The icing sugar will make a mess so start off on a low speed or combine the two by hand then use a mixer.

Or make a ganache. 2 parts double (heavy) cream and three parts chocolate. The easiest way to make it is to bring the cream up to the boil, but don't let it boil. There stir in the broken up chocolate and beat until it's all melted. Spread over your cake or beat with electric whisk/mixer until fluffy and use. You can add sugar to the cream which makes a softer ganache - lots of recipes online.

Sorry - double weight icing sugar to butter for buttercream. It's early 😀

Oh and for ganache, take the cream off the heat before you add the chocolate.

Just cream some butter, once light and creamy add twice the weight of icing sugar. You can add cocoa or other flavourings at this stage. Cream until smooth, you may need a splash of milk to loosen it up. Couldn't be easier.

If using a stand mixer, cover with a tea towel to keep the icing sugar dust down!

If you have time, get it in the freezer first, much easier to put the butter cream on, and the cake is more resilient.

If the sponge is very delicate, it’s probably going to break more as you spread it. You could pipe the buttercream on, to avoid too much movement. A glaze would just pour into and emphasise the cracks.

I’d probably just buy a cake. By the time you pay for icing sugar, butter, vanilla and decorations to hide the destruction, you just as well have bought a decent cake.

When I make a birthday cake, I normally go for a robust cake like a Madeira…those box mixes are a bit rubbish.

Just buy a cake

You made the effort by actually baking one so you're all good to buy one

Butter cream to stick it together. You could do a crumb coat let it set then glaze. Or cover in warmed apricot jam, let cool and roll out fondant icing to cover. How old is dd ?

As others have said, buttercream is your solution.

Do a crumb coating first (AKA the messy coating): fill the cracks together and smooth a thin layer all over the cake. It doesn't matter how merry this looks. The next step is to chill the cake in the fridge (just half an hour will do it), then you can add the final layer. Because the first layer has been chilled, none of the crumbs will adhere as you spread the next layer and it'll look perfect.

*messy, not merry! 😁

I too would buy a cake as I think it's going to crumble further when icing.

As a half way house, why not buy some pre-made sponge cakes. Stack them and then ice so you are still getting the homemade effect. I've seen lots of people on tiktok doing this recently - search Aldi cake transformation for lots of ideas.

How did it go OP?

with a sponge that delicate I would pipe on the icing rather than spreading to minimise the agitation. the shop bought icing is very stiff and will do a lot of damage if you try to spread it

Thanks everyone and sorry for the late reply. A baker friend recommended buying store bought frosting, melting a little bit to fill the cracks then freezing the cake. Whip the remaining frosting then ice the cold cake. I followed those steps and decorated with sprinkles.... wish I'd checked back here sooner, some of the suggestions look great.
DD wanted a home-made cake and got one. Her friends took great delight in pointing out the cracks I couldn't hide (all good natured teasing, I should add!)
It was no beauty but delicious all the same 🙂

In hindsight piping would have been a better solution as even after chilling the cake, it was really difficult to spread the whipped frosting. But I couldn't find ready to pipe frosting and wasn't confident of making my own.
It all worked out eventually, so lesson learnt for future!