Totally agree with @sanchez.mia, a cake fail can be a happy accident. In my experience, people are just happy to get homemade treats, even if they look messy. The taste is what really matters in the end.
People are just happy to get homemade treats" - okay but let's be REAL here. If you showed up to a birthday party with a collapsed cake and had to grab donuts, that's actually kind of GENIUS. Donuts are WAY more fun than cake anyway. Nobody is ever disappointed by a dozen glazed donuts sitting on a table. Plus you can totally play it off like you PLANNED it that way. "Oh I wanted something different" - works every time. And honestly? The fact that you improvised shows you care more about people enjoying themselves than about this perfect Instagram cake moment. I wish more people would just give up on fussy cakes and go straight to donuts honestly.