Hello to all.

I have my first non-family member quote request for a damask wedding cake. It's for 40 people and she would like it to be 2 round tiers.

What size of pans could I use to accomodate the 40 people?

Also, how much should I charge? She wants to use the colors black, white and turqoise.

A 6" and a 9" will give about 40 1"x2"x4" servings.

I am assuming you are covering the cake in fondant? My base price for a 6-9 fondant covered cake is $138. Extra for a more costly to make cake or filling or if ganache under the fondant instead of BC. Also, for fondant/gumpaste roses I charge $5 ea for small ones (2-3 inch diameter) and $7 ea for large ones (4-5 inch diameter). As for the fondant molded work on the sides, I charge $1 per inch, measured by the longest dimension of the molded piece.

HTH

That's very beautiful.

For flowers, weigh out how much fondant/gumpaste you use. Divide the total weight of the fondant/gumpaste package by how much you need for 1 flower. That gives you how many flowers you can get out of 1 package. Divide the cost of the fondant/gumpaste (including shipping!) by how many flowers you can get out of 1 package to determine the gumpaste cost for one flower.

For example. Say you purchase your gumpaste in 5 lb buckets at $20 a bucket and that you need 1 ounce of gumpaste for each flower. There are 16 ounces in a pound, so you could get 80 flowers out of 1 bucket. $20 divided by 80 is .25, so each flower costs 25 cents.

Then, of course, you have to take into account food color, luster/petal dusts, floral wire, floral tape, cel buds (if you use them), etc. Say another 25 cents covers all of that.

So now you have a cost of 50 cents per flower, so it's time to take time into consideration. How long does it take you to make one flower and how much do you want to get paid for your time? Say, once you add up all the actual working time, you spend about 20 minutes working on a rose. That's a lot of time to be spending on one decorative element. I can get a lot of other stuff done in the same 20 minutes. Say you consider your time worth $12/hour, so one-third of an hour (20 minutes), would be worth $4.00. Add that to the cost of the ingredients, and you get the cost of the flower.

As for the molded pieces, if it's not a mold you already have and you don't anticipate getting a lot of use out of it, fold the cost of ordering the mold (or the materials and time to make the mold), into the cost of the cake. If it's a mold you already own, or expect to be able to use a lot, you might not charge as much for the molded work.

HTH!

preterrell, that's very good info! Thanks. i'll consider that when i have this issue.