Hi everyone,
I've just been asked if I can make a belly cake for a friend's co-worker and I am still deciding if to do it or not. I have 2 questions:

If I only make the belly cake (i.e., no sheet cake underneath), how many servings would that be?

How much do you charge for a belly cake?

Thanks!!!

anyone?

Hi there,

I've made a few of those in my life! To answer your questions in the order you asked them,

- No. You do not need a sheet cake underneath. The number of servings depends on the size round pan you use. You can go from 12" to 16" and at least two layers tall. Also, if you use the Sports Ball pans for the, uh...milk delivery systems...you can get about 6 or 8 servings from each of them!

- Pricing depends on what your area will support and the supplies used. You don't want to low ball and get stuck just charging for supplies. For a belly cake, for a stranger, I charge about $3.00 to $4.00 a person. But it depends on you!

If you put a cake underneath the belly, do you need to dowel the cake? I'm doing my first belly cake in a month, and I'm trying to plan it out now.

Ksmith - general rule of thumb is that any time you are stacking cakes, more than two layers high and/or more then 1 tier tall, you should always dowel and board between layers. [/quote]

So if I were to use the sports ball pan for the belly and the mini ball pan for the top, then I would only get about 10 servings from it?

I was thinking of charging around $50-60. Would that seem fair?

Yes, you would only get about 10 servings from it. The sports ball pan is not very big at all. If they are needing it larger, you may want to do it on top of a half-sheet or a square cake. That is what im going to do. As far as charging- I have no idea. Im a newbie too! I never know how much to charge!

Thanks! I'm still waiting for the client to tell me how many servings she will need. If I have to do a cake underneath as well then I think that I would have to charge more to cover my costs.

I have another question.

So I bought the Wilton ball pan and it looks much smaller than I thought it would be. Did I get the right one? Here is the one I bought:

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E30ABD4-475A-BAC0-5B381DA1BA82E3D3&killnav=1

It looks like the cake would be smaller than the cakes I have seen here on CC. From the look of it, I think the whole belly cake would feed maybe 8-10 people. Is that right?

Any advice? Thanks!

Yes that is the right pan. I told you it was small! I think other decorators on here use bigger pans- not sure where they get those, definitely not from wilton. I plan on using the sports ball pan, and the mini sports ball pans, and placing them on top of a 12" square cake. Here's the CC cake that I got my inspiration from:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1472377.html

HTH!

Thanks ksmith! That does help. So I guess I will have to make 2 cakes now. At least the client is willing to pay more. I'm so nervous about making this cake.
Now I have to go off and find colour combinations that are gender neutral.

I have to do a gender neutral one too! I'm still working on ideas! Be sure to post your cake so I can see what you came up with! Good luck!

I hope I can get my camera to work by this weekend! But i will try my best to post a picture of it when it is done.

Here's what I did:

The nekkid (undecorated) cake:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kavingate/2708560068

Finished:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kavingate/1554911324

Beautiful cake! I think the next time I do a belly cake I will do it like that! I saw another picture on CC that did a similar thing as yours.

Thanks! It actually made it onto Cake Wrecks! LOL!

Not sure how that would be a cake wreck! Wow!

So I just did my test cake and was pretty pleased with it. I was actually so surprised as to how easy it was to make! Make it with extra fondant I had lying around from another cake. Now I still have to decide on the actual colours for the cake.

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1489786&done=1

TFL!

Looks great!