I thought I read somewhere that you could "frost" cake dummies with spackle. I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried this, and how well it works. Also, have you ever tried to color it, and with what? How well does that work?I'm making some dummy cakes, but I want them to last so I don't want to frost them in anything edible. I know traditionally people cover their dummies in fondant, but I don't like the taste of fondant and so I don't use it on my cakes. I've used that as a marketing principle for my bakery so I think it would cause confusion if I covered the models I keep in my shop with fondant, and then have to explain to everyone that I don't actually use fondant. What are everyone's thoughts about the spackle? Or do you know of something else?
What about using royal icing? The stuff dries rock hard and as long as you don't bounce it around the store, should last durn near forever. Of course, the colors do fade if kept in bright light. Might want to rotate them in and out of bright areas if possible.
I've used royal icing for fake cakes a few times and it works well....but it needs about a week to dry solid. (Summertime humidity will make that even longer, so do plan ahead.)
A friend of mine said she even used a bit of sandpaper to "smooth" hers a few weeks later! 
I think spackle from the hardware is a pretty cool idea too. Just do a test, some weird things will actually "melt" styrofoam with a chemical reaction.
I just tired this after hearing about it too. What I have learned: If you plan on coloring the spackle make sure you do not buy the dry time indicator spackle by DAP. It is PINK, but does dry white or rather a gray white. I have heard also that you can use craft paint with the spackle, but I didn't get to truly test that out. The light blue added to the weird pink made funky purple. When dried it was a really faint blue color.
I may try it agian, but now I just have to get my displays done for the convention and wasted enough time that I'm just going back to my orginal plan.
I've tried it before. The spackle was quite thick and a bit hard to smooth out. I sanded it down. I was using it for a demo on a whimsical cake. So I just spray painted them just so they could see the three different layers.
There's a product called Permaice. It is specifically for display cakes. The colors aren't supposed to fade either. I'll see if I can pull it up for you.
Heres a link to Kitchen Krafts. A lot of cake suppliy websites sell it. You can wipe it down if it gets dusty. The downside - it's a bit pricey!!
http://www.kitchenkrafts.com/product.asp?pn=CD0400
I have done both royal and buttercream. The royal has to be just right for it to spread right and not be sticky, and buttercream of course will not last as a display. I just recently did a dummy for a local parade entry for my home business, It spray painted the cake dummies with a ivory paint and then I hot glued all of my decorations to the dummies. I did not actually use any icing for borders due to heat of the day. Everyone loved the display and my entry won 2nd place for car decorations. There is a display icing that can be purchased from Kitchen Krafts.com. It is made just for the purpose of cake displays and it can be colored with its icing colors. It is called PermIce. I comes in gallon tubs, I believe and the colors will not fade and will last. It saids it spreads like real icing. I have not yet used this product.
Thanks everyone for the fantastic tips! TexasSugar-any chance you took pictures of your spackle cake? If so, could you post them? I'm totally up for playing around, but I actually need to make a "perfect" dummy cake that will be displayed at one of theknot.com's vendor parties. I'm very curious about the permaice, too.
Thank you leta! Yes, I never use fondant so all of my cakes are finished in a traditional icing. I just prefer it. I don't use any of the tried and true "tricks" to get a nice top edge (like the upside down method, the viva paper towels, crusting buttercream) I think it just comes from my first decorating job at a bakery that did over 100 weddings a week, so I had to frost a lot of cakes fast! I could probably be a good wall plasterer if this cake decorating thing doesn't work out!
(I just tried to add the picture of the finished "spackle" cake that was the original cause of this post, but I don't know how to load it here. I'll put it in the photo gallery if anyone wants to see the finished product.)
Wow! The cake is fabulous! I would swear that it was chocolate icing or fondant. I love the design and ribbon and everything! Do you advertise on the Knot? I want to look into that, but I need to get licensed also. You really gave them something great! Advertising for them and for you!
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