Hello dear CC'ers

I would like to order some dummy cakes to start decorating tiered cakes to take pictures for creating a portfolio. My question is.. what are the popular sizes and which sizes should I order. I was thinking round 6,8,10? And square ones too, maybe? Where should I start?

Also, if I were to bake one of the cake  out of the tier and leave the other as dummy, is that viable so kids can have cake too once in a while? I know the dummy/real cake combo is done a lot. Never done it so advise would be great.

Any tips on decorating dummy tiered cakes? I want to do both fondant and BC (Use Indydebi's) Maybe get a few styles in one shot? Any visuals of anyone who have done it? 

Also,  the fondant that covers a dummy, can that be re-used for another dummy? 

Thanks!

Hi jiya11,

If I may suggest, when we cover foam dummy cakes here at E. W. Cake Designs we first lightly ice the foam in butter cream or royal then making sure that the rolled out fondant is 1/4" thick we cover our cake/cakes. We find that it is essential to be at that thickness due to the fact that foam simply has very sharp corners and can easily cut into the fondant right at the edges. Once fondant has touched the butter cream it could become a problem if the fondant gets too much butter cream on it. It cannot be used that fondant has been damaged. so to avoid this we simply roll ours to a good thickness. As for as the suggested sizes, that is completely up to you. If you are still unsure. We simply make a three tiered or two tiered cake set. Three tiered would consist of a 10", 8" & a 6", a two tiered would consist of only the 10" and the 8". we hope this information was helpful to you .

Cont: We do re-use our foam cakes for as long as they hold up. We do this just to cut waste and we find that if there is no reason not to use them then why not. If we can help you further let us know.
 

Jiya11...I highly suggest getting some squares.   Before you do any permanent decorations like with royal, you can do many with different ribbon wraps, flowers, etc.    When you are done with that...do 4 different designs but make sure when you look straight on for your picture...you can't tell that the designs are different on the sides. 

You can get a lot of shots from the square combo dummies. 

The sell them at my local mom & pop cake decorating store.  You may want to order on line or try Michaels.  You may not have alot of choices for sizes locally.  They are 4" dummies.   A 6/10/14 gives a nice "shelf" in case you want to put some big flowers on the 10.