Hi all, 

I was just wondering if anyone could help me out with this cake.  She just wants a vanilla cake with a strawberry buttercream filling.  The cake kind of looks like it may be buttercream with fondant pearls, ruffles and flower.  My first question would be what would you price this as?  My second question is how would you achieve this look?  Will a fondant ruffle stick to the buttercream and not weigh it down to pull the buttercream?  Or would you do it in fondant?  Is the ruffle applied to the side of the cake or on the top edge of each tier?  I will try to attach the link.....hope this works!http://aweddingcakeblog.com/2011/12/white-ruffle-cake/#more-2885

The cake is fondant.  The ruffle is separate.  The pearls cover the join.

Pricing will be specific to your region, your skill level, and a multitude of other factors such as cost of overhead, cost of supplies, your hourly wage, etc, etc, etc. . . . . .

Cut a strip of fondant as long as the perimeter of your tier and about an inch wider than the height of the tier. Ruffle one edge, then roll the strip up. Unroll it around your cake. If you want the top of the tier covered in fondant, too, cut a circle of rolled fondant a little larger than the diameter of the cake and place it on top of the cake, smoothing the edges down the side of the cake, before you do the side. Repeat this for each tier.

Cakeyouverymuch could be right about the ruffle being separate, but what I'm suggesting would be more stable, I think.

She wanted to stay under $500.  I cover all of my fondant cakes with ganache first.....therefore they are more.  Do you think it can be done with buttercream?  It looks like the cake is a 6,8,10,12.  My base price for buttercream is $3/slice.  Not including the flowers, ruffles and rhinestone banding instead of the pearls.......seems like she may have a heart attack when I give her my quote.  If it has to be done in fondant it would be a much higher quote as I cover the cakes in ganache first then fondant.  I have never even covered anything over a 8inch in fondant...  BTW  thank you for responding......I really appreciate it!

Mariana46....I never even though of doing it like that!  So it would be like when you wrap a cake in chocolate except i would ruffle one edge first?!  Then I could do it in just buttercream eliminating the ganache!  Thanks for that idea!  Do you have a guess as to the type of flower that is?

To me it looks like buttercream iced, with the ruffles just propped up near the edge. Like they were formed on a dummy and let to dry for a bit, then carefully set on the edge of the tier. 

those ruffles in the picture are attached in sections

I think i'd try just making formers to lay the fondant strip into so that I'd get the right ruffle and the right angle--

have to get each tier measured so they fit the edges of the tiers

for example--buy some ruffled trim from the fabric store and mount it with paper towel underneath so it stays put then lay the fondant on

y'know what would be cool--don't know if it would work--at the fabric store you can get trim that will ruffle when you pull the string

wonder if you could roll the fondant on that flat, pull the string and see if it works

awesome cake though

THAT would be awesome!  I thought the cake looked like it was buttercream....but the way that we can get it so smooth now I wasn't sure!

With the heat and humidity where I live, the cake would fall apart if 1) the ruffle were separate and/or 2) it was iced in buttercream. I always think of the most extreme solution because that's the way I have to work! I would never use buttercream under my fondant because it's too squishy in our heat - I always use ganache. The flower could be a very open peony or, my favorite of all because it's right no matter what it ends up looking like: the "fantasy" flower.