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

Border Knot Wedding Cake

We were asked by a very good friend to make a cake for his employee. The company was buying it and gifting it to the couple.  Wow! That's a nice gift!  They were going for an Art Deco theme and wanted to carry that through with the cake.   The knot fabric effect was the most challenging part of the whole thing.  I've even made a little video about it and posted that on our Instagram page.  I found it a little easier to work on a square cake dummy that was turned on it's side.  That way, the pieces were measured correctly and dry fit perfectly before we attached them. They would have stretched and deformed if we worked with them horizontally for the extended period of time that I needed.   The flower ball separator was styrofoam covered in fondant.  I didn't want to build a structure just for that tier so it was easier that way.

The etched lines and jewels on the top tier were kind of a nod to "The Caketress" and her designs.  The lines are easy to do as long as you use a tool that won't cut the fondant, so a dull wooden clay tool works great.  The jewels were done out of isomalt, which is sugar and that was a mistake.  They did a little bubbling or something due to the moisture of the refrigerator.  Next time I would mold them with melted chocolate and then paint silver as normal.  It takes a bunch of them so the time to apply them all was about two hours for that one area.

For the vertical stripes we just used a texture mat and embossed the fondant, then we cut them.  When doing any stripes and strips of fondant, it's better to chill the fondant a little before applying it so that it won't loose it's shape.  The flowers are basic, meaning we cut them, press in a flower veiner and let dry in a cup shaped form.  Once dry, we used a little royal icing and added a sugar pearl for more opulence.  We enjoyed getting to make a cake with lots of texture and jewels!

See our Flipagram video below!

Fabric knot effect with fondant.

A video posted by Jenniffer White (@cupadee) on Oct 10, 2014 at 10:43am PDT

Chevron Cake

We were asked to make a cake for a "Chapel talk" for GPS seniors.  The young lady that speaks at the service provides tea and snacks for all the attendees.  My clients had a very specific design that was very similar to a Charm City Cakes design.  We added a little something here and there, but I certainly give them credit for the design.

The bottom tier was six thick layers high.  The very dark teal was hard to make and probably the most challenging part of the project.  When making a super dark color, start with dark pre-colored fondant, never white.  Make sure to add some black.  If you can purchase some powdered color, it would help.  The amount of gel color you have to add makes your fondant very sticky and loose.  You will need to work powdered sugar in with the color to keep the fondant the right consistency.  For the chevron design, we made a stencil and traced the design with a scribe (a pin with a handle).  We used Nu-silver and painted on the design.  We did the same with the pink layer, but just painted the stripes with super pearl luster.

 

For the total silver baby tier, we painted it instead of airbrushed. To remove the brush strokes, just go over with a soft brush in a circular motion using a little more dust. For the silver dots we trimmed off the tip of a stiff paint brush so it was a dot stamp more or less.  We had to do more than stamp it, but it got the job done.  The peonies were purchased at Wholesale Sugar Flowers.  Last but not least, the pretty backdrop is from Ink and Elm.  I love their backdrops!

Blue Damask Wedding with Bows

I'm so tickled that we made a wedding cake with lots of color!  I love an all-white cake, but sometimes a bride wants to make a big color statement.  The location for this reception was at a very rustic and HOT barn.  We have decided to MAKE customers use fondant for outdoor events when the temperature will be more than 75.  I know this isn't some crazy awesome cake, so let's just cover some tips and tricks.

A few hints for this type of cake.  First we did use our buttercream for the stencil instead of royal icing.  Due to condensation and general humidity, the very heavily colored stencil may have the color run.  There is no way to really fix this since it will stain everything it runs onto. 

Second, keep your hardened bows out of the fridge until the day of the event.  If you put them on sooner, they will become soft and lose their shape.  If you put them on right before you leave with the cake (the bows never made it into the fridge in this scenario) the bows will be matte and the other fondant will be shiny looking.  It does look really bad.

Third, to keep all condensation off your cake cover it with a brand new garbage bag.  Cakes going in and out of the cooler in short bursts of time won't get condensation.  Stack your cake and chill it for a while so all the piping, stenciling, etc are hard.  I use really large clear bags from Sam's.  Open the bag and put the cake on top of the bag and bring it up to the top.  Use a long pipe cleaner to secure your bag closed.  When you take it out of the fridge for delivery, give the cake about 10 minutes to acclimate to the kitchen temperature before removing the bag.  You may get some damage to your cake, so be super careful and only use this tecnique if you have a sturdy design.  Some cakes you just can't let sticky for different reasons so use this trick when it will really make a difference.

I'd love to know if any of these tricks have worked for you or if you have some that work even better.  Thank you all for your comments and participation in my little blog.

Grandview Wedge Wedding & Oklahoma Sooners Groom's Cake

A couple of weekends ago I delivered these cakes to The Grandview on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga.

I think this wonky wedding cake thing must be a trend and this has been my second in a month or so.  I do like the look and the challenge of getting it just right.  This time I used small styrofoam wedges to raise the tiers into the proper position.  You just have to make sure that you make the wedges small enough to allow for the placement of the roses (which were provided by the florist). 

The rest of the cake went together rather easily; some buttercream quilting, fondant stripes and ribbon, and some initials cut out using the Cricut finished it up.

When I was setting up the cake, one of the family matriarchs commented that she didn't think it was a real cake, just stacked boxes, which I really considered a compliment! :)

This was the groom's cake that accompanied the bridal cake.  The helmet was provided by the groom's family.  We cut out the Oklahoma State logo using the Cricut and also also printed out some smaller ones for the chocolate-dipped strawberries.  The edible image sheets blend in very nicely with the white chocolate we used to dip them in.

One thing worth noting, if you place one of these mini helmets on a buttercream cake, you should consider placing a couple of supports under the helmet.  I always place the helmet on the cake, and then remove it, noting the small indentations it leaves.  I'll then put a straw at each indentation to help support it.

As always, thanks for visiting, and pop back in next week to see what we've been up to!

Deja vu all over again!

Look familiar?  Remember a couple of posts back I said that everyone was calling for wonky cakes?  Well, the day before I finished the blue wonky cake, someone called and ordered the exact same cake (only in green and pink).

I have to admit that sometimes I get tired of doing the exact same cakes over and over.  I don't know why it bothers me - each time I do the same cake I do it more quickly than the last time and usually a little better too.  I guess I just like spreading my artistic wings and seeking out new cake challenges.

Stop back in again soon and I promise I won't show you another version of this cake, in fact, I'll make sure to showcase something other than a wonky cake!

Have a great week, OK!

Rhinestone Wedding

This bride and groom (the same ones that wanted the upside down cake in the post below) had varied ideas about their bridal cake. They liked many different styles and designs. We decided to incorporate everything the bride like into one awesome wedding cake. We have square, round and octagonal cakes as well making use of quilted patterns, piped panels, and stripes. We even added some circles to compliment that crazy groom's cake!

But the bride also wanted some bling on this cake. She purchased the initial topped, but wanted a little something extra. Now, I like for everything on my cakes to be edible, but sometimes it just isn't technically or economically feasible. In this case, I found some rhinestone trimming in the ribbon section of my local hobby store. I used it as the border between tiers and it looked awesome!

As always, thanks for stopping by and have a great week!