Okay - I have a chance to do a local bridal show in a few months and as a teacher, I use my summers to plan out things like this. Does anyone every use cake dummies to show off their buttercream cakes? I do fondant but most of my business is buttercream.

My question really is - does anyone have experience with showing buttercream dummy cakes?

I really need some advice. Please! I want to do this first show right!

I'd be worried about BC going bad so I will use royal icing to decorate styrofoam dummies, using BC techniques. It will keep better that way.

BC on a dummy does not go bad. I use BC exclusively (crisco recipe). Had a dummy cake set up for 10 months and only scraped it off because I needed the styrofoams for another project.

I use a good crusting BC .... when I use it on my cakes, it's delicious. When I put the same stuff on my styrofoams, it turns hard as concrete (so you can touch it all you want .... no fingerprint dents will show up!). Dont' ask me why .... I've no idea.

I dont' wet, grease, saran or press-n-seal the dummies either. BC straight onto the styrofoam.

Samples of my styro cakes in the gallery ... Autumn Pearls, M&M, Fuscia Fantasy and the 50th Anniversary cake are a few of them.

Thanks - hey - my show is in January and so I think I will plan and make a few cakes over the next couple of months and see how they do!! Thanks!!

I posted two cake dummies last week the clown cake was buttercream icing and i intend to let it sit up until i'm ready to do another decoration on it , but i had no problems at all just put the icing on the styrofoam as you would a real cake. you can view the clown cake under my photos

thanks!!!! I hate covering dummy cakes in fondant - I can never get it quite smooth or stick all over and etc etc.......

Same here, I do it all the time. I usually add a little meringue powder to the buttercream to help it set up a little harder. The only thing I notice is if they get too much heat (in a window with sun) the white can turn a little yellow color. Looks a little weird, but is a good indicator it's time for a new display!
Good luck with your show. One other thing, sometimes the colors will fade, so I usually use silk flowers for the shows so they will look their best!
-Lori