I have a request for a sculpted cake - I've never sold one before and am wondering how much higher than a regular sheet/round/square cake others charge?

Also, It's for a unicorn cake. Any suggestions on the nose? I saw one in the gallery that said they used RKT and I'm wondering how you would attach that?

Thanks!!!

Here's the one from the gallery

My 3-D cakes start at $150 and go up from there depending on how long it will take. That one might be more due to the neck and the structure/supports that you'll need to build for it. I think that I'd just make the horn out of gumpaste ahead of time and attach it to a long dowel that goes through the neck, maybe??

I was thinking the same thing about the horn being used as a dowel for the neck. Then you could form the RKT around the dowel rod.

Good luck!!

What about attaching the head to the body? that's what I'm trying to figure out!

I'd probably make the head out of RKT, just because it looks like it's bending down a little. I've done dog heads out of cake with a board that's supported by dowels in the neck, but that unicorn neck is skinnier than a short dog neck.

Maybe the neck could be a stack of 6" rounds, and the head could be supported on a board and dowelled through the neck also.

OR you could just make the whole neck and head out of RKT also.

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is RKT?

Keepsake, RKT is shorthand for Rice Krispie Treats.

Nisha_ru, you've got a lot of good advice for making the head and neck, so I'll just mention a bit on the pricing.... I charge about triple for sculpted cakes than for regular cakes, but in the case of the unicorn, I'd charge a lot more because you'll need some additional internal structure and care for the rather unstable nature of the neck and head. Perhaps as much as 5x normal price.

Deanna

I'm so glad I ran across this string of posts. I am having the same dilemma.. how to price my 3D cakes. Does anyone factor the number of servings into the price equation - do you have a standard price per serving that you use to figure the 3X rate for a sculpted cake or do you just base the price on the amount of time it takes to make it?

Mooj, you'll probably get a lot of responses to your question about servings vs. other methods of figuring prices.

Personally, I charge by the serving. I do a lot of sculptures, and I am pretty good at estimating the number of servings and minimize waste as much as possible. (Don't just bake a big sheet cake and hack away at it - plan ahead, make sketches if you need to, and bake cake as close as possible to the finished size.) If a cake is going to take a LOT of extra work, above and beyond a "normal" sculpted cake, the price goes up. In my area, and for my clients, I start regular cakes around $1.50/serving and start sculptures at around $5/serving.

Sculpting takes practice, and when you've made a few sculptures - even if you practice by making the same cake several times - you'll start to see how long it takes you to make them relative to regular cakes.

HTH,
Deanna