Hello all-
I'm new and I thought I'd dive right in with a question. I have this pic of what I would like for my daughter's b-day cake, but have no idea how difficult it would be or how much it would cost to have made. 
Can anyone give me a guesstimate?
welcome to cake central. The price is going to be determined by quite a few things. The following are some things we will need to know to help you figure out a cost.
1) How many servings are you looking for?
2) What flavor of cake?
3) Do you want a filling?
4) If you do want a filling, what kind?
5) Will it be fondant covered or only buttercream? (my suggestion with the black and red would be to use fondant, less black and red mouths)
If you can answer these questions we can help you come up with a price!
Where did you find this cake at it is pretty cool, I like the silver contrast on the top.
Wow! Things I never even considered!
OK, let's see:
1) serving 25 - 30 people
2) chocolate cake
3) no filling
5) definitely fondant!
I actually saw the cake on food network's Ace of Cakes, they have all their designs on the website! Of course, their cakes START at $500.00!
That gives me another question - how hard is it to copy a cake design from a picture?
Thanks for the welcome!
i would expect to pay well over $80 for this cake. just the amount of fondant work alone that this entails. the cake will serve a lot more then the 25 to 30 that you are looking for but if you want the look of the cake then i guess it would have to work. if i was doing this cake i would probably charge in the $225 to $275 range.
just imagine how much red & black it will take!!! 
well I am giong to go into some explination here so hope you are comfy.
Here is a list of what I would use for this cake and why if applicable
-To get the look of that cake I would use a 9" and a 6" cake.
-I use a serving size of 1x2x4 so this cake would serve 43 ppl (but that is the closest I can come to your 30 servings-so if you cut large slices typically then this would be about the right size for you)
-I consider this a carved cake b/c it is topsy turvy
-There are a lot of roses on there that would be done out of fondant by hand
-There is also additional detail work in fondant along with the item on top being covered in Silver Luster Dust
-Any double layer cake also has buttercream filling in it (this is what I do for no filling and actually prefer for any carved cakes)
So my price per serving would come out to about $3.50/serving. I would charge someone a base price of $129.00 for this cake. I might change my mind after making all those roses out of fondant or gumpaste 
but for the first one it would be this price 
Hope this helps a little and I didn't scare you away with too much information.
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