I am about to embark on my first Dummy/Real Wedding cake. The bottom two Layers will be dummy rounds 12" and 10", the top two will be real cakes. My question is I've never Iced dummy rounds before, I just received them in the mail and I'm not sure how to go about frosting them... I will be using Buttercream Dream with all 4 layers...How do I frost them to make sure they look real compared to the 2 real layers? I am afraid they will look to perfect and fake? Please send some expert advice for me... I really want the whole cake to look real. Thanks in Advance. If anyone has 1/2 real and 1/2 dummy cakes I'd like to take a look at them also... please send me a link...
Ritakk

Here is one I did that is some real, some dummy. It's done in fondant, but your buttercream icing will have the same effect. You have to make sure your real cake has the straight edges and approximate colour of the dummies before your final coat of icing. You just have to take extra care on your crumb coat and stuff. You'll be fine! The good thing about dummies and BC is you can practice lots beforehand, just keep scraping and reusing the icing.

I have a cake drum with 3 nails/screws in it, which I stab the dummy onto to decorate, without it moving around. It helps a lot!

The biggest issue is to make sure that they're fairly close in height. Some dummies are only 3" tall, which wouldn't work for me (unless it's part of the design) because my cakes are 4" tall most of the time. So defintiely make sure they're close in height.

otherwise there isn't much difference except you tend to have straighter sides and sharper corners since there isn't any cake to "give" when smoothing.

The bottom tier in this cake is a dummy and no one knew until i didn't cut it and they wanted to know why b/c they wanted more cake!
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1397584

here is another thread about this. hth


http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-590812-.html&sid=7a4e02108720f8c7b0608dc05bce706c

Dayti> Great Idea on the drum with screws! Have to have hubby make something for me like that! In the picture is the bottom one the dummy? LOL! I can't even tell!

Thanks for the links Icer! SO I just frost it with my BC like I usually do and just go from there.... It almost sounds too easy....

Thanks all!

Thanks Leily! Loved your cake! I can't wait to get this one done! All of my cakes are going to be 3" and 4 tiers... Thanks everyone! Leily I love your dog! I used to have one that looked just like her! I really miss her too!

Editing cos I duped the post

I use royal icing to glue one on top of another

I just did my first cake with a dummy round 2 weeks ago. I too was worried about it but it was simple as can be. I used buttercream frosting and frosted it just like I would frost a regular cake layer. It is the bottom tier in the cake below. I loved it and look forward to an opportunity to use a dummy again. There are a couple more pictures of it in my gallery.

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1913718