A very sweet friend of ours gave us a glorious recommendation to his good friend. Unfortunately he didn't realize that we really only make wedding cakes. But still I just felt like I had to make this shoe box cake. We were given a picture to follow very closely. I wish I knew the original cake artist. If you do, please let me know so that I can credit her.
I know that prices can vary greatly by zip code and baker so I don't talk about it much. For this cake, I charged $250, which is my minimum order price. After I told him the price, the customer said he called the original cake artist and she wanted $850 for the cake and that a local bakery had quoted $150. He said the $850 lady was "crazy" for wanting that much. His words, not mine. Even later he told me that he didn't think the $150 baker would be able to replicate it with great detail. After looking at her previous work he didn't have confidence in her abilities. So the extra $100 I was charging was for an "insurance policy" that he would not be disappointed. As we all know, you get what you pay for!
I baked three layers of 9 x 13" and cut a couple of inches off to make it more shoe boxy. It was white/chocolate/white cake with raspberry buttercream. Yum! The whole cake was paneled with modeling chocolate.
The font with the signature was so small there was no way I could pipe it and I didn't want to mix mediums, so we wound up printing out an edible image to cover the entire side of the box. We did a lot of test swatches on paper to find a color that was an exact match to the box color. BUT! It darkened over night! So let that be a lesson to us all! Luckily, since I covered the entire side of the box with the image, you could hardly even tell!
Stop back in next week and I'm going to talk a little more about that sexy shoe and what went into the making of it!!
What a wonderful, well made shoe box cake. I love it. $250 is what I charge also for a shoe box cake, and if the sugar shoe is too complicated I would charge $20 extra or so.
ReplyDeleteI always use fondant to cover the box, but modeling chocolate looks way better, I have to try it.
Thanks for sharing
It's perfect - the quality is worth a lot more! Sharp perfect corners, handmade sugar flowers, the shoe and a nicely covered cake board. That is also a pretty large cake too! They were lucky to have you make this cake! I woulda tipped you big!
ReplyDeleteI'm making something very similar this week. I'm just a home baker so I wish you could give me some tips now. I'm struggling with the writing on the box and on the shoe. I'm thinking about using edible markers as I don't have an image printer and I don't want a raised piped logo. Any other suggestions? Your cake is exquisite!!
ReplyDeleteGood luck Candace! Edible markers might be the best way to go if piping an edible images are not an option. Have you considered making a stencil using cardstock? The lettering would still be raised though... Best of luck to you on your project!
Delete