I have a question about doing a dummy wedding cake and baking sheet cakes. Why would you charge less for this?
It seems to me that if you are already baking cake what's the difference if it's in the wedding cake shape or in sheet cakes?
It seems like more work to do it this way...am i wrong?

Some people don't charge less for this. Some don't even offer it because it's too much of a hassle.

Sometimes brides want a cake for display, and sheetcakes to eat. Sheetcakes should cost less per serving than a wedding cake.

The cost of the smaller display cake, plus the servings of sheets, can come out better because the display cake CAN be smaller. If you don't have to level, split, torte, fill, stack and transport the wedding cake, it can certainly be a bit less costly.

There are also places that rent a display cake, just for that purpose. you have to consider each situation a bit differently, budget is always first consideration.

Some decorators charge a premium and never make adjustments to accomodate a bride on a budget. some decorators want the event for some special reason, and may be willing to negotiate.

I will be doing this when I get married -- four tier wedding cake with the top two tiers being real, and sheet cake for the guests.

It's supposed to be a money saver and still give you the effect of a grand wedding cake. I don't see why it wouldn't be charged at a lesser price, personally.. dummy cakes are far easier to put together (No baking for them, torting, leveling, dowels, tricky transport) and real sheet cakes are easier than real tiered cakes. It's entirely up to you, of course, and what you feel comfortable with.

I think some don't charge less for dummies b/c it still take the same amount of time to decorate the dummies as it would a real cake...

I think you're right that it just depends on the bakery.

For my friend, his bakery has a lot of intermediate steps when it comes to making tiered cakes that he just said ultimately, weren't even an issue for a dummy cake. I think it just depends how everyone's numbers turn out

So, in response to revel.. If it's less, it's less (Your customer will be happy, heh!) but if not, it's not. You have to do what's best and profitable for you.

I've done this before and I gave her a small price break because I got the dummie cake back and use it for display in my shop. IMO it is much easier to decorate dummie cakes and you can do it weeks ahead of time in actual down time, instead of the week "of". With that being said, spending $40-$50 on styrofoam never makes me happy!

Nikki_B,

I would be interested in seeing that information when you have it available. Please send me a PM when you have it, and I will send you my e-mail address.

Theresa

As I tell my brides, "If you are dealing with a bakery that charges according to the design, then it COULD be cheaper....." However, I don't charge by design. I charge a flat fee for cake. So it's the same amount of cake and icing, no matter what pan I bake it in..... sheet pan or round pans. I don't torte wedding cakes unless it is specifically ordered, so no savings there.

I also have to factor in transportation. Since i also do catering, my van is already full of food and catering equipment. It's a Tetras puzzle to make sure I have space to load the cake (I always assemble on-site). So if I also have a styrofoam cake, there's extra space I need to account for. Sometimes this will cause me to have to take 2 vehicles to the reception.

Extra costs for the styrofoam .... extra costs for the extra icing to decorate the styrofoam ... extra costs for the man-hours to decorate a fake cake and ice the sheet cakes (which by the way, I can ice and decorate a 3-tier wedding cake with way less headache than a sheet cake) .... extra cost for space in transportation ... extra cost that requires me to list add'l people on my commercial auto policy so that they are covered when driving the 2nd vehicle..... extra costs to run a 2nd vehicle.

And you're suppose to get it cheaper why??????????????

The cake itself isn't the expense of a wedding cake ... it's the labor and the talent you are paying for. If I'm decorating a fake cake or a real cake, you're paying the same for my time and talent.

If you're dealing with a bakery who mass produces sheet cakes then you might (MIGHT!) find a deal. But I'm not a mass maker of cakes .... I do custom cakes just for your event.

This is just another of those looney-tunes ideas that the wedding magz put in brides' heads without actually checking with those of us who MAKE the cakes.

The point about extra cost for the styrofoam dummy is very, very true. If I were to buy dummies at the local supply store, it would cost me a fortune to do a fake wedding cake. It would be far less expensive for me to make real cake. Using dummies would definitely cut into my net profit.

Theresa

Thanks for all the info. The mani reason i ask is that a friend is getting married and i will do her cake as a gift. She was wanting all the layers dummies except for the top tier.
I'm trying to talk her out of this for the same reasons some of you have stated. I think it would cost me more to do the dummy and sheet cakes!

I think the same....if she is not paying .
Why the sheet cakes??? I do not get it. It would be more expensive for you!

lol...got me..thats just what she wanted..i think she thinks its easier!

This trend makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever and I would have no hesitation in turning down anyone who requested this.

Every single bridal magazine and all the wedding communities online (the Knot for example) and the pro bakers who post on those sites all endorse the idea as a money saver. When you try to explain to a bride the extra work involved and why it costs more, they tell you that you are lying because other bakers charge less for this type of thing. It makes no sense to me how anyone could possibly make a living by cheating themselves out of money and how they can live with the dishonesty of telling a bride that she is saving money by doing this. Any other industry out there, if there is more labor involved on the vendor's part, they charge more and most people are willing to pay without question. But wedding cakes, they want grandiose for free.

And if the cake is truly not important, why waste both your (as the bride) time and that of the baker? Some people are so stuck in tradition that they don't realize or care that they can serve any other kind of dessert they'd rather have instead.

it's definitely more work.....If someone wants a dummy cake from me, I will approximate the serving size as if it was a real cake and charge accordingly. Because all of my cakes are covered in fondant, if they want a sheet cake "in the back", then I charge a little less for that because, although I do torte and fill and ice....I don't cover or decorate it with fondant (which, for me, takes up the bulk of my time)

My DS wedding is soon. I am making a dummy cake for her (except for one layer), only because I know that the week of the wedding I'm going to have 500 other things to do and I won't have time to decorate.

The only way the whole 'dummy' cake works is if you have a bunch of pre-made dummy cakes and you rent them out to people...then they order sheet cakes from Costco.

The magazines should specify this since anyone with half a friggin' brain should be able to see that baking a bunch of sheet cakes and decorating them and then buying styrofoam and decorating a 3 tiered fake cake is MORE work, not less.......this makes me crazy

**** edited to add that my rant was aimed at the cheapo brides and the magazines who fire them up - not anyone here. ****