Hi there
I have a bride-to-be interested in saving some cash on her cake. she is wondering about the cost of a cake dummy, possibly the bottom 1-2 tiers being dummies and the top two being real cake and having a sheet cake behind the scenes. I have never priced out a cake dummy before! DOes anyone have any suggestions? the wedding is for 130. ANything you can suggest would be great! I'm trying to work out some options.
Thanks in advance!
I have seen posts here where people charge the same whether cake dummie or real cake. I made a wedding cake 4 tiers all dummy covered in fondant and served the homemade cake as filled sheet cakes served by the caterers from the kitchen. This was done due to the distance rather than price as the wedding was a long way away.
It seems like, if you want to give her a break, I'd deduct what the filling and cake mix and eggs etc... would have cost you from the cake dummie price..... but you still need to frost and the time consuming detail work of the frosting or fondant and the cost of the cake dummies and shipment charges...........sooo it may be a little less 50?? less possibly!
I charge 25 cents cheaper per serving for a dummy cake... the cake part is probably the cheapest thing to cut out on making a cake... it's probably the frosting and the time that it takes that costs way more... i personally hate doing sheet cakes also so it's kind of a good way to talk them into doing the actual cake ALL cake 
One of the best answers I've ever read on this topic is from Kevin at Piece of Cake (here on the board as PieceofCake). Check out his FAQ:
http://www.pieceofcakedesserts.com/faq.html
I think the only reason some people go for the fake cakes is because of the long distance thing like was already said.......or maybe weather, if it's super hot outside and it's an outside reception........or if they want a huge grand cake .....like a 5 tier cake but they only need to feed 100 people........then the bottom tier could be real and all the rest fake! Then there won't be all the wasted cake.......but in reality I think the fake cakes cost more for the styrofoam dummies than the actual ingredients of cake would have costed. I mean it does make it a little easier on the decorator in some respects because they can make it very far in advance and they don't have to deal with the weight of real cake when they stack/tier the cakes! But the design and decoration are still just as difficult!
One of the best answers I've ever read on this topic is from Kevin at Piece of Cake (here on the board as PieceofCake). Check out his FAQ:
http://www.pieceofcakedesserts.com/faq.html
Thanks for this! I'm adding this link to my website for my brides!
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