I am wondering about this.... I realize you are saved the time and expense of baking, etc.. but you still need to decorate (frosting, fondant, colors, etc..) so I was wondering how much less you should charge?

Thanks alot

the styro dummies are just as expensive as baking and really you should charge for the decorating, so I'd charge the same as you would for a real cake!

Ok, now please do not think I am being a smart a$$ or anything but what is the advantage of having a dummy cake if it costs the same as a real cake?

I thought they sort of did this to save money... like a tiny 'dummy' cake and then Costco cut up behind the scenes....

And you are right - the decorating is still going to take time and money.....

I was asking because the same lady who asked if I could 'whip' up a wedding cake in 6 days was talking about how she was going to just get a dummy and I was baffled... but thankful. I think it would have been a nightmare.

If you are having a fairly large wedding, I think that it would be a lot cheaper to do a pretty small fake-cake and serve something from one of the club stores, than to do a bigger, custom cake.

That's my best guess.

I don't do dummies because I don't want to deal with getting my stuff back after the wedding. I guess I would discount it 10% or 15%. The cost to you won't change much, but you will save a little time.

Doesn't seem worth it to me unless you could re-use the same decorated dummy more than once.

Jenn.... that is a pretty cool idea! Open up a dummy rental service - LOL!

I wondered about pricing too for dummies but like they said above, you still have to totally decorate them as if they were real cake. I don't know about where you live but dummies cost far more for me than cake mixes so it wouldn't save a cent.

I think the reason people want dummies might be because they want the look and feel of something much larger than they will actually need. Seems as if most wedding cakes are stacked or on pillars and if there is only a small wedding, they just don't need that much real cake.

KimAZ

The only instance when I used a dummy cake was for that very same reason. When someone wants a rather large cake but just doesn't need all that cake. Sometimes just to much is wasted. I mainly use a 14 or 16 base dummy. I also really helps in giving a great solid foundation. However, I did not change my price any. It may have saved a small amount of time the dummy can be quit expensive.