I have a Circus themed cake due for next week.It is for my regular client and her Birthday Theme company.She wants a small (Single Layer),two tiered 6-inch and 10-inch(I charge $60.00) with predominantly Yellow base color...Red Stripes and Blue accents.The problem is I don't want to invest too much extras into it like fondant figures etc. as she then has to sell the cake to party clients who order the cake as a "Add-On" to the birthday entertainment and they don't want to pay for a $100.00 cake!!.I also don't want there to be so much prep work it takes me 2 weeks in advance to do all the embellishments.I will make about 2 dozen of these cakes on and off and they all need to be a basic general design.I like the idea of a slanted top for the big top tent but how would I achieve that? I don't want to use fondant/gumpaste....too expensive for time and cost! What else can I use? I like the idea of circus clowns we learned to make in the Wilton course with the striped bodies...I'm going to do some of those but what else??If I do an elephant,seal,ringmaster etc then I am getting into inticate designs that again I don't want to include if all they want to spend is $60.00.Outlining and piping royal icing shapes is too time consuming also...



Aggghhhh..What else can I do??? Please help!! I've googled circus cakes but nothing really caught my eye!


Thanks

there are cute circus cakes that ive seen here...some in particular that i remember have little popcorn tubs, i guess with mini marshmallows as the popcorn. other circus-y things you can accomplish with icing that i can think of are balloons...other than your original ideas of colors and tilted top....

For ideas I google "circus" and look through all the images. There are some cute patterns with bright colors that would be good for the bottom tier. It would be cute to make the top tier into a circus tent.

I've seen pictures of the Wilton giant cupcake pan used to make a circus tent. Because it's already kind of tent shaped, with the pointy top, and you could decorate that with yellow, add the stripes, and then set it on top of the bottom layer. Add some clowns around the edge, maybe some balloons.

Like these, which weren't all made with the cupcake pan, but could have been...

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1326012.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1324173.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1333997.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_247203.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1329814.html

And this one is probably not great for a kid's party, but it's a FANTASTIC circus tent!

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1281828.html