I am fairly new to charging for cakes and I had a bride ask for a square 4 tier cake starting at 16 inches and working up 8 Inches. She wants the bottom tier cake but the remaining tiers as a "dummy cake". She wants to purchase sheet cakes to serve. I normally charge $2.00 per slice and $3.00 with fondant. How would you charge for this?

Thanks for the help!

I would love to know too....I feel like if you are using the same ingredients and decorating dummies it should be about the same. I hope you get a answer! Did she think it would be cheaper?

take what you pay for the dummy, what you pay for the fondant... or the materials to make the mmf and then multiply by 3...

It's normally more expensive to have a dummy...because you are still going to decorate the dummy cake as if it were the real cake, so it's going to cost quite a bit. Plus, they have to pay for the cost of the sheetcake. What are they thinking??

people take some of the advice from these magazines that i swear do not get their facts straight...

they think that we get styrofoam for free or something, and that it comes decorated...

it is just as hard to decorate a dummy as it is a real cake... hellooooo someone needs to tell these brides something...

I've had this a lot lately and so have area decoratiors. I tell me brides, budget wise, you're not coming out ahead. The dummy cake is going to cost the same as real cake. Most are amazed by this. I charge $2.25 standard flavor/BC $2.50 standard flavor/BC/Filling $2.50 premium flavor/BC $2.75 premium/BC/filling, $3.00 standard/fondant $3.25 standard/fondant/filling $3.25 premium/fondant $3.50 premium/fondnat/filling That is just base pricing and then add on for additional decorating, depending how ornate it is. Hope this helps a little.
Michelle

If it were me, and the sheet cakes were not decorated (just plain white frosting with a shell border) I would charge $1.50 a slice for the sheet cakes, bottom layer at your regular price. For the rest of the cake, I would figure your raw material prices for the icing and dummies and multiply by 3. If there are any special decorations (flowers ect,) those would need to be extra as well.

Stephanie

Dupl thread ... see add'l responses under http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-6208405.html#6208405

1. Styro's cost as much or more than real cake ingredients.
2. Same amount of icing to decorate a fake cake as a real cake.
3. Same amount of time/labor cost to decorate a fake cake as a real cake.
4. Same space in the delivery van to deliver a fake cake as a real cake.
5. Same amount of gas in said van to deliver a fake cake as a real cake.
6. Same pay-per-hour for employee to drive to facility, deliver and set up fake cake as real cake.
7. I'm sorry .... and bride is suppose to get it cheaper ... why, again?

My FAQ page actually runs the numbers to show a bride that she will pay MORE for a fake+sheets than she would by buying the whole regular wedding cake to start with.

I'm the speaker at a bridal show in Feb and trust me, THIS topic is being covered!!!!