Would u ice and decorate a wedding cake you didnt make? would u do it? and if so wat would you charge? For a 3 tier cake?

I did once. When I worked for the grocery store bakery a lady came in and ask the manager if we had anyone that could decorate a wedding cake. We didn't do wedding cakes and no one in our area did either. She was going to bake the cake for her daughter's wedding but needed a decorator. She is a good customer of the store and we live in a very small town so of course the manager said that I could do it for her.

I got paid the same as if I was decorating for the store so I can't say what you should charge if you decide to do it. (This was also a 3 tiered cake)

BTW. When the lady came to pick up her cake she raved about how beautiful it looked and what a good job I did. She said that she was going to tell everyone that she did it I didn't really care but I thought to myself what is she going to do when people start asking her to decorate cakes for them?

To sum it up briefly, HELL NO.

mamawrobin's example above is not the norm.

Not a chance!

I agree with Leah. Not the norm. The only reason I did it is because I worked for someone else and the manager (of the store, not the bakery) said we had to do it because it was a "good customer". Frankly, the bakery manager initially told the lady we would NOT do it. I had no choice because I worked for the store.

Why are you asking? I'm curious.

normally I would say NO.....but at one point I actually did this with a wedding order for cupcakes. Mother of the Groom had a "secret recipe' that her DS loved and he wanted HER to make the cupcakes for his wedding. She baked them all up the week of the wedding and went to pipe an orange rose on each one and realized she COULDN'T pipe a rose.

She said.....I've seen roses on cakes my whole life and figured how hard could it be? lol

Anyhow, I charged her the same exact cost per cupcake that I would have charged had I baked them myself........I iced the tops and made roses w/ leaves for each of them.

I also made up a contract stating that she was the baker of the cupcakes and that I was in no way to be held responsible if someone were to become ill from them. I had it notarized but not sure if it would have held up in a court of law, but it made me feel better.

Everyone loved the cupcakes, her son thought SHE made them, as did everyone else and she's become one of my BEST customers!

I know where your coming from the thing is its a friend who has come to me.. she has her uncle making the wedding cake and wants me just to ice it and deocrate it. But i am running a business and she doesnt seem to understand why its not a good idea for me to do it... I dont know what the cake tastes like.. i wont be setting it up so what if something gets damaged??
But i dont want to effect our friendship so I dont know wat to do!!

i was asked if i could make buttercream roses for a wedding coming up in june and i said no.......they were going to make the cake and decorate it but didnt know how to make roses, let alone place them on the cake properly and pipe leaves..hell no i'm not doing it......they wanted me to bring them up 1.5 hour drive in the summer heat .........nope.......sorry cant do it

its a three tier fruitcake, plus a cutting cake that needs to marzipanned, iced in ivory icing and decorated in white blossom flowers- i would have to give them the cake in seperate tiers and boxed, they couldnt take it already stacked... arghh!

Check with your health inspector. My guess is they would frown upon it, leaving you with a perfectly good and legitimate excuse not to do it.

And this is exactly why the best wedding advice is "HIRE PROFESSIONALS." Not relatives that only know how to do half the job.

I just say it's against health regulations for my to handle food made by someone else.

I wouldn't do it. What will happen if the cake her uncle bakes doesn't stand up to being stacked? I think it would do more harm to the friendship if her wedding cake ends up on the floor (and YOU WILL be blamed if that happens!!!) than if you tell her you can't decorate it.

No. Just say no. There is a lot more to making a beautiful cake than just decorating it.

I did this once, thinking it was a pretty good deal. On paper it was. But let's just say it ended in tears (mine). Would you want this cake in your portfolio?

Oh...and not only that, but the venue might not allow her uncle's cake to be served. That excuse just got one of my brides out of a situation with her sister who was insisting that she be allowed to do the wedding cake.

I did this once but it was a 2 tiered birthday cake. I iced and decorated it and my friend (the mother of the birthday girl) baked them. I decorated them in the farm themed, just like she wanted. I dropped the cake off for the party, my daughter and I were invited to stay, but did not stay to eat the cake. I got a few FB messages asking if I could do cakes for them for parties but not to do that recipe because it was not good. I just laughed to myself, cause as I was trying to decorate the cakes were falling apart. They looked bad.. But I think I did good, it was my first cake that i decorated with fondant. The picture is in my gallery, its the farmed themed one.

Back when I really didn't know what I was doing, I had to bake and decorate a cake anyway so when my neighbor asked if I could decorate one for her, I told her I didn't have time to bake an extra one but if she baked it I would decorate it in the same style as mine. I figured I could save time on colors, etc.

Well, she brought the cake over and it was this horribly dense, dry thing. With a humongous mound - such a big one that I would have been removing half the cake if I had cut it off. And not only that, she had filled it with a pudding-type filling...to the edges of the cake! I was desperately trying to ice that thing and the top was slip-sliding all over the place with the filling oozing out the sides. I ended up impaling it with chopsticks to keep it in one place. It was awful!
Never again!

No, I wouldn't and didn't when I was asked to.

Not only NO but H-E-Double Hockey Sticks NO!

To the OP who was asked to just make the roses for someone else to place on their cake. I do that all the time and make some good, easy side money at the same time. Either they buy it from me or order off the net for the same price. Do them while watching tv. No problems.

I would if it was a friend or family member baking the cake.....or if someone wanted a specific cake that "Mom" makes.....sure. I had a client whos Uncle, lived back East and was a cake decorator. I baked all the cakes, he came with his icing and tools in hand and decorated the cake at my house. It was quite interesting watching another decorator work.

I wouldn't!

Too many times I've heard of cake decorators who have agreed to do it, only to find the cake is really shallow, or so uneven that it can't really be saved... or raw in the middle... or dry as old shoe leather!

Do you really want YOUR name being associated with a cake like that?

NO!

No way!

No.

UMMMM NO! What happens if something is wrong with the cake, wasn't baked properly, handled properly, who knows what could have happened...and god forbid one person get sick, they will be coming after you, since you were the last person to "touch" and decorate it...Not worth the hassle or the money...just my opinion

it would depend on the circumstances. if whoever it was was a baker that loved to bake but hated to decorate i suppose i would. but no in most circumstances.

No way. You don't know how the cake was made, what went into it, if the cat licked the bowl, if the baker licked the bow, if clean utensils were used, if it's dry as dust, if the eggs smelled funny but the baker didn't have any more so he/she used the smelly ones. See the pattern here???

Remember, when someone asks who "did" the cake your name will undoubtedly come up. Do you want to take a chance on letting your good name be sullied by a disgusting tasting or possibly inedible cake??? I wouldn't.