Ok talented ones - I'm curious now, having read the post on Food Network and their challenges, etc.,....
I've never done a carved 3-D cake - the closest I've come is to doing the 3-D bear. But having seen FN and some of Duff's cakes, etc., and some of your creations - HOLY COW! So, a few questions -
1) How do you EVEN come up with a price???
2) Can you show me a pic of what you've done and give me a general pricing??
My family tells me I should do something like that, but between nerves and I don't think this area would pay for something like that, I've never tried. Seeing some of the pics on here tho, have got me thinking, but still - where would I start price-wise??
Thanks for all your input!!!
i calculate what size cakes im going to need to bake and use to build it. add up what i would normally charge for that size then think about how its going to be decorated, what kind of icing, details etc and double or triple my original amount and maybe even add on or round up aswell. afterwards i always say next time im going to charge more. you never really do know until its finished.
You have to just give your best estimate on sizes/price. After doing a lot of them you just know about how many servings and much you need to charge. For me this depends on how much time the cake will take to make, usually between 10 and 25 hours per cake. I tell people up front that for 3D I start at $100 and for the more complicated ones I start at $150...like if I have to build a custom stand for the cake. Usually to come up with a price I try to charge $XX per hour and then add on the cost of supplies. I'm still not getting enough per hour at all but hopefully in time I will....
Here's a couple of pics. For the dragon I had to make a custom stand and I had already quoted them $120, and the cake ended up taking me about 23 hours! 
But I also just wanted to see if I could pull it off so I was ok with that price. But next time I would charge around $300 for a dragon if I can get someone to pay that, LOL. It was about 25 servings
For the princess I didn't have to build a stand although it had internal supports and dowels. The bottom cake was a 10 in and the head was the ball pan so it was pretty big. I ended up getting $180 for that one and it took me about 15 hours to make and was probably around 45 servings.
Courtney
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