Custom Cake Pricing

How easy is this cake?  Well of course that depends on your skill level.  I've been at it for about ten years and it takes me about four hours to do a cake like this.  I find getting a cake smooth tends to be the hardest part to learn for most people.  All you need to make the rest of this cake is some small circle cutters and a knife.  Well some colors, fondant and an owl template helps a lot.  We charge $3.75/per serving for a round buttercream cake and the. $30/hour for artwork and extra supplies.  This is a 6" and 9" and feeds 34.  34 x 3.75 = 127.50.  I would add another 1-2 hours for extra time.  You would need to account for all the time it takes you to mix all these colors and it adds up.  If I only add one hour/$30 that would make the total cake cost $157.50.  Would you pay that much?  Do you think it is too much?  Think about it for a minute before you read on.  I know if you make cakes your opinion will be skewed a bit.  

Now, I don't know how much a cake similar from a big box store would cost.  Said store probably has all their cake layers arrive baked and frozen and their icing is shortening based and comes in 5 gallons buckets.  I'm not trying to be a "snob" about it, I'm just pointing out some of the reasons those stores are cheaper.  The cost of  the ingredients are of course vastly different.  When you buy butter in four pound packs instead of 1,000 pounds at a time, prices are worlds apart.  Lastly, let's consider labor costs.  I don't know how much big box store bakery employes make, but I'm going to be generous and say $10/hour.  I know that after my years of experience, training and education entitles me to more than that.   I would say if you made this cake from buying supplies, baking, washing dishes, making icing,washing more dishes, and such you would have at least eight hours of time in the one cake.  If you subtract $20 for the supplies (a general guess) $20 for overhead (electricity, rent, licenses, insurance, gas,water trash removal etc) it leaves $117 (157.50-20-20=117). Now $117 divided by 8 hours = $14.63/hour.  Now do you still think we charge too much?  If you were a cake business person, how would you do it different?

Accompanying Smash Cake

Bird Cage Woodland Wedding Cake

I have always been obsessed with birds.  I have have had them as pets and I spend a small fortune keeping food for almost every type of bird in my yard at home.  So it shouldn't be terribly surprising that I have and idea in my head for a cake inside a bird cage.  I don't know if it's something I have seen somewhere before, (I'm sure someone has done it) but it has always just been an image that struck me as... romantic.

When my friend Daisy Moffatt was designing her "Garden Fantasy Wedding" photo shoot I really had full control on what the cake looked like.  And it just so happened that the weekend before the shoot I ran across this bird cage at Home Goods (that store gets me into SO much trouble).  I immediately texted a picture of the cage to my friend (and florist for the shoot) Amanda and said "What do you think of a cake inside here?"  Her response was "Go for it!"

The cage was initially colored a silver/black metallic color and as I played with my dummy tiers inside the cage I decided that it would need a coat of paint to better go with my vision.  Krylon spray paint to the rescue!

I cut some birdie silhouettes using my Cricut and made sure they were thicker so that I could edge them in metallic gold luster dust.  The rest of the cake is just covered in fondant with branches that I carved into the fondant using my sculpting knife, some gumpaste flowers, and some scroll molds painted metallic gold.

Once it was put together i thought that it still needed a punch of color so I covered the bottom of the cage (which was leveled with a piece of foam with some moss.

I was very pleased with it once the whole vision came together.  Above is a picture that Chaddy took during the shoot while Daisy was off photographing the bride - I'm sure her pictures came out better!

Chocolate Lovebirds Topper

I did this cake a while back and I wasn't as thrilled with it as I wanted to be.  The couple wanted a bird silhouette on top of the cake.  I cut at least 4 different sets of birds out of modeling chocolate, but they all just looked so... FLAT!  I guess that's just how it works with silhouettes, huh?

The rest of the cake is pretty simple - square cake with buttercream, piped vine design on the chocolate layers, and piped dots on the middle tier.

I finished it off with a fondant ribbon border and some gumpaste calla lillies.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Dogwood Branches and Lovebirds

This weekend we took this lovely cake to a new event hall. The Loose Cannon Art and Events Hall is a very nice little spot near downtown Chattanooga. Their style is very eclectic... I could totally see Chad and I having a party there!

This bridal cake is all buttercream with buttercream piped branches and gumpaste dogwood blossoms. I even molded the birdie toppers using one of my ceramic birdie knick-knacks.

I delivered a Tennessee Vols groom's cake along with it, but we'll save that one for next time, OK?

Have a great week!