Dummy cake

[kimberlina13]

What I am thinking of doing is having just one layer of the cake be "real" so that fiance and I will have something to cut into and feed each other with, and the rest of the cake just a dummy for decoration purposes. And have a sheet cake for the rest of the guests. Has anyone done this and how did it work out for you?

 

[neatfreak]

Just out of curiosity, what would be the point of having it be a fake cake? I don''t really know, so it might save you some $, but my understanding of wedding cakes is that the major cost is in the decoration. Since they would have to decorate a "fake" cake layer with the same care/time as a real one, I don''t think there would be much of a difference in cost.

 

[robbie3982]

We're doing something similar. We're having a smaller cake that's all real and then 1 or 2 back up cakes. The problem with doing it the way you're describing is that they'll still have to decorate the fake layers, which from what I learned at my appointment with the baker this past weekend, is the most expensive part. They also told us that our backup cakes won't be sheet cakes, but rather round undecorated (but still iced) birthday cakes so that you won't be able to tell that it didn't come from the cake we cut.

ETA: Neatfreak we must've been typing at the same time. lol.

 

[kimberlina13]

I don''t know if it''s a southern thing, but we get charged a slicing fee, which is usually per person. So, I think my mom heard somewhere that people avoid this cost by using a sheet cake that is not as hard to "slice" and therefore won''t charge the slicing fee on top of the actual cake pricing.

 

[FireGoddess]

It actually can save quite a bit of money on the cost of the cake as well...several hundreds of dollars if not more. I''m all for it! I didn''t do this because I found a bakery that would do my cake very cheaply ($350) but if I hadn''t found that place, I definitely would have done the dummy cake/sheet cake thing.

 

[lehcarm]

I just thought I would share..

My cake is going to need to feed approx 300 people. My baker said that to make a 3 or 4 tier cake to feed that many would mean that there would need to be a lot of internal support to be able to handle the weight of all that cake. She suggested we have the biggest 1 or 2 layers be Styrofoam. The third layer will be the one we cut into and will be real, and then the smallest layer will also be real. We''ll save that for our 1 year anniversary. I''m not sure if it is cheaper to do it this way or not. Our baker is one of my mom''s best friends, so she is only going to charge us for materials. Since she is being so nice and making our cake for so cheap, I''m going to follow her suggestions. She''ll also make one or two sheet cakes that will be double layered, so a cut piece should look the same from the wedding cake and the sheet cake.

 

[wifey2b]

Just a little piece of advice for if you do have the styrofoam cake - giggle - don''t push the knife down in it when you are having your picture taken of you cutting the cake - it will squeak like crazy - giggle....was to a wedding years ago that this happened - the bride and groom were quite embarrassed...giggle

 

[njc]

Kimberlina - I know our cake price was based on each slice, but never knew you could be charge on top of that for cutting... our place did it for "free". I put it in quotes because who knows, the contract may have charged us $100 for cutting cake, but nothing per slice (and this is in the south). I would definately check out pricing on the dummy cake to make sure you are saving a decent amount of money before doing it!

Lehcarm - Our cake served 300. We originally were going to do a small 3-tiered cake to display/cut and make up the rest with sheet cakes, but then someone (not sure who) came up with the idea for three tiered cakes (two 2-tier and one 3-tier). A friends mom made our cake and charged us similar to your baker. The price of 1 3-tiered cake + sheets cakes was only slightly less ($50) than 3 tiered cakes. Just something to think about! Here is a pic...

 

[Tacori E-ring]

We did this (kind of). The layer we cut into and the top layer were REAL. The other layer fake. I think the CC where we got married did this so they can prep the cake early. We got to keep the top layer and I guess they use the other real layer for their sunday brunch buffet. They did this sauce pattern on the plate that looked kind of complicated and that way RIGHT after we cut it the cake was served. It looked exactly like the real cake so I doubt anyone really noticed. Our cake was free (part of the package) so I am not sure how much it saved us but if we had brought in our own there would have been a cutting fee PER slice. I think it was $1.50-$3.00. Can''t remember exactly.

 

[Jas12]

i think it would be more affordable to do a small cake in the design that you want (if it is the complexity of the decoration that appeals to you) and use that for display--with a plain eating cake ready for cutting in the kitchen.

However, if the design is really simple and you just want a grand looking, multi-tiered cake but don''t need to feed that number of guests then it may be more affordable to do what you are planning b/c you will be paying for less real cake.

hope that makes sense-hehe

 

[kimberlina13]

Date: 4/5/2007 12:26:05 PM
Author: Jas12
i think it would be more affordable to do a small cake in the design that you want (if it is the complexity of the decoration that appeals to you) and use that for display--with a plain eating cake ready for cutting in the kitchen.

However, if the design is really simple and you just want a grand looking, multi-tiered cake but don''t need to feed that number of guests then it may be more affordable to do what you are planning b/c you will be paying for less real cake.

hope that makes sense-hehe

Makes perfect sense. I don''t have an intricate design. Just a simple 3 tiered round cake, with a ribbon band around each layer. The thing that is going to cost is that I want fondant. So we''ll see what the cake people that I''m meeting with tomorrow say.

Thanks for everyones input! I don''t know what I''d do withut PS!

 

[dtnyc]

I think it depends completely on how your baker charges. My cake person charged us just over $3 a slice... no matter what form the cake was in.