Do you charge extra if customers want buttercream roses on their cakes?? I haven't charged extra because if I put them on a cake it isn't usually too many. I have a wedding cake that they want quiet a few and wonder if I shouldn't charge extra because I will be spending a long time doing all these roses???
I've only done buttercream roses on a couple of cakes, but I tend to think that our basic price includes basic decorations. If they want a lot of anything, especially anything time-consuming, then we should charge for the extra detail.
I looked at your website, and even though you're probably charging the going rate in your area, there's no way you're making enough at those rates to do a lot of detail work without charging extra!
I do not charge extra for design elements for a few reasons. One, I have only done ONE cake in 25 years that merits an add'l design fee (My skyline cake). Two, I will NOT nickel and dime a bride to death. Three, how in the world do you charge per rose, when I have no idea how many roses I'm going to put on a cake until I'm done filling in this gap or that gap? Four, I can pump out 50-100 roses in an hour, so it's no big labor thing for me.
I dont' charge for extra design elements ..... ergo, I don't discount for just a simple ribbon. My cakes are a flat price.
I learned to make roses on my very first wedding cake. Bride was getting married in a rose garden and wanted the cake covered in roses. I'd never made one yet. But by the time the night was over and I had 50 BC roses sitting in my kitchen, I was pretty dang good at it!
Just start pumping them out ..... you'll be amazed how fast you get. And I just did the roses-on-a-stick method a couple of weeks ago. MUCH easier and faster than using the nail!!!! Try it!! 
When I do cakes where roses are involved, it's a matter of proportion for me I guess.
In other words, if I make a lovely b.day cake for someone's granny, what's 6-8 roses on top, right? Proportionately, a wedding cake with roses is kind of granny's cake x3 or x4. so there would be that many more roses for the look to be complete. That means 20-30 perhaps. (And I don't think I've ever even used 20-30 on a wedding cake!) Jmho...
Ok, I'm curious! What's the roses-on-a-stick method, Indydebi? 
~Kristen
I saw the roses-on-a-stick method for the first time the other day on a video on U-tube. The lady was decorating a sheet cake with blue or purple roses. She uses a dowel rod sharpened. I mean to try that soon. It did look easy, and that mound of icing has always been a challenge for me.
Stick Roses THread: http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-588545-stick.html
YouTube link is on page 2 of this thread.
JulieB - if you are going to stick with the nail method - plop a Hershey's kiss on with a dab of icing for the base - works GREAT, super time saver, very stable.
Word to the wise: If you do this method please warn who ever is cutting the cake to pass the word on that there is hard chocolate in the roses.
I know a shop back home who did the rose with kisses and were sued because someone wasn't expecting it to contain solid chocolate and when they went to eat the frosting they broke 2 teeth from the chocolate kiss. The person won because the technique was "out of the ordinary and potentially hazardous to the health and well being of the consumer, and well hidden and unexpected."
The judge basically said "great work and well hidden but people know roses are made with just frosting and you would bite into it differently if you knew there was hard chocolate being used as a support for the base."
He was right, people are so used to it being solid frosting and soft that if they chomp down and hit something hard and chip a tooth it could be a bad happening for you if they are the sue happy type.
After that I changed my contract and in big bold print it states that I use solid candy kisses for my butter cream rose bases and that the person serving the cake needs to let people know as it's being served. They sign and date this, not just initial it.
I also put out place cards on the cake table any time I do a BC rose so anyone walking up to look at the cake can clearly see and read it.
You can't be to careful these days so I have had to cover my bases upon suggestion from my lawyer by putting that clause into my contract.
Why don't you make the roses here and there, whenever you have extra frosting and time, and throw them in the freezer? Pop them out when you are ready to decorate.
Why don't you make the roses here and there, whenever you have extra frosting and time, and throw them in the freezer? Pop them out when you are ready to decorate.
yeah!! That I really should do plus I'll get more practice making them that way!!
hmm... About the chocolate candy kisses .... and sueing
Two questions I would have had for the person sueing.
Do you not normally cut your piece of cake with a fork, I know while eating cake I tend to cut the roses in half... Would you not have seen the "kiss" at that time?
and 2.
If you took the rose off and put it in your mouth, the icing should have metled revealing a "kiss" inside. (my thought to myself is I don't normally "chew" icing flowers I let them melt in my mouth and swollow)
(she probably cut her teeth on the steak for the meal and "thought" she cut it on the rose or she is a weird eater. LOL)
MY OH MY PEOPLE ARE STRANGE!
The kisses would be thawed by the time the cake would be cut, right? Room temp kisses aren't dangerous. If I was worried, I'd just use the ones with vanilla or cherry creme in the middle. They are soft. Don't know what happens to them when they freeze, though.
I have done a design a few times that has the base of each tier encircled with a ring of buttercream roses. It ends up being 50-60 around the bottom tier alone depending on the size of the cake, then go up! I do charge extra for this one because it is out of the ordinary. Just like I charge extra for gumpaste flowers or a full loopy gumpaste bow on top, etc. If it's going to be more than 50 roses (appx. of course) on the cake, I would charge at least a flat fee of $15-20 extra. It's the time as much as anything!
Lori
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