I've heard from many people that fake cakes (for weddings) are less expensive to make than real cakes. I don't understand that....maybe I'm doing something wrong but it seems like by the time you figure the cost of the cake dummy, the cost of the buttercream/fondant and then the labor involved it would be about the same cost. What am I missing? Thanks!
Hmm...
I guess I wouldn't have considered a cheaper option as much as I would consider it a safer one! (ie: tough to screw up a faux cake)
I just bought some styrofoam rounds recently: 7", 10", 13". Altogether they're about $16. I think if I had to make 4" high cakes of those sizes, the ingredients alone would be much more than that (considering butter is $4 a pound alone!). That's an awful lot of cake. And whatever filling would go inside of it. I think in that sense, a fake cake is definitely cheaper, but not by a whole lot when you consider the rest of it! 
I'm just popping in and passing on hearsay. I remember reading a bit about this the other day on another thread about how some weddings magazines were suggesting to brides that they get faux cakes as a cheaper option. A few of the bakers were miffed about it, since the real cost of cake is the time you put into decorating it, which would be the same as for a real cake. But then some other people were saying that some places "rent" out a faux wedding cake for cheaper. But like it said, none of this is from personal experience, it's just what I read...
I recently decided to primarily do fake cakes. I chose to do this mainly because I have some time constraints with school & also because I now live in an area that I can't bake from home. I'm going to rent the cakes out for a $100 deposit plus the cost of the "cake". If I get my foam back, they get their check back. That way I only have the cost of the foam cakes once. So far I have one cake booked like this but haven't done one yet, so I guess we'll see how it goes!
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