Hi everyone--hope all is well. Just have a few questions...

1. If youre marketing your business as custom cake designing, does it matter whether or not you offer traditional/standard birthday cakes (simple borders, flowers, or balloons) on plain cake boards with cake doilies on top, or on gold boards (which are 2-3s more expensive)?
2. How do you go about deciding what inventory to keep in stock for novelty cakes you may offer when the choices are so many (i.e. cake boards, foam board, plywood)?
3. By the way, what kind of foam board is typically used? I went on a couple of websites and they had all these different choices of foam board that it left me confused.

Thanks.

This may be just me, but part of the presentation of a cake is what it's sitting on. If someone's paying for a specialty cake... they need it on a decent covered board. Whether you choose to cover a plain cardboard with foil, fondant or some other material, or buy the gold kind... either way, work it into your cost so you're not losing money.

FYI - I feel this way about boxes, as well. If I'm paying for a cake, I don't want toothpicks in it, holding up the plastic wrap... I want it boxed. JMHO

If you're not doing a ton of cakes, it's difficult to know what to keep in stock... plus you may have a lack of storage. My advice on boards would be to always have some full sheet sizes on hand ... they can always be cut down... same with larger rounds. As for boxes, if you're not ordering by the case-load, just keep a few of your most popular sizes on hand. Large boxes are more difficult to store, so remember, you can always put two half sheet boxes together to box one full sheet cake. (box them from the ends)

I agree.. if I am paying for a custom cake I want a finished board.. and I don't even like the foil covered boards. I put my cakes on cake drums covered in fondant with a ribbon matching the cake colors around it. Nothing worse (IMHO) than a beautiful cake sitting on a foil board.

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Thanks for taking the time to give me your input.