Fake Cakes are rarely a good idea

Filed Under About Wedding Cakes, Dy's rants | 3 Comments

Somewhere out there someone must have written a really bad article in a magazine about fake cakes without researching it. Since then people have taken the concept and run with it, also without researching it. I constantly have people asking me about saving money by using a fake cake and having a “sheet cake in the back to cut.” I fail to understand the logic of how this could be cost effective in many of the cases. Here is why, using a standard 3 tier cake as an example:

  1. If a cake is to feed 100 people, I still have to bake cake for 100. I use the same amount of ingredients and it takes the same time whether it is one tier or three.
  2. I have to decorate each tier. So in the case of having all three “display tiers” fake I still have to decorate the three tiers plus fill and frost that “sheet cake in the back.” So it is actually more work because I have that sheet cake to still deal with. (This is a marginal complaint as I did not actually have to torte 3 cakes, just one, but still there is no time savings. It is actually about even.) Also, now I have to buy styrofoam blocks and add that to my cost. Add into that the fact the styrofoam is bad for the planet.

So, how is it that people think “fake cakes” are a good idea? How does this myth exist? Well, it is not totally a myth. From my understanding the concept of “fake cakes” started with the fact that bakeries place display cakes in their windows. Someone then got the idea to rent them out and sell sheet cakes on the side. In fact, you can find places on line that offer this service. So you pay like $100 to $150 to rent a cake, plus shipping. When it arrives you have to fix any damages that arose during shipping. You then buy a cake from someplace like Costco (yick!) and serve that. Then you get to pay to ship back the original cake and pay for someone to fix the damages from the return shipping process. This has to be a huge hassle for people. Now, and here is the real killer to me, keep in mind that you have to pick a cake from an existing catalogue. You cannot custom design your cake or there is another charge. At this point, you have paid the same as you would have if you contacted a cake artist and had a cake commissioned. Yes, commissioned. Many of us are artists and take great pride in our work. Oh, and you had a Costco cake for your wedding when you could have had one that was made from scratch and that people wanted to eat and did not throw out.

Now in all honestly the concept of a fake cake is not a totally bogus one. I recently worked with a very nice girl who dreamed of having a 6 tier wedding cake for her 100 guest wedding. I was more than happy to make the cake so that 100 slices were real and the rest of foam. This made sense. After all, there was no reason for her to pay for cake for 300 when she did not need it.

The bottom line is that there are times when having a display cake makes sense but they are really uncommon. I understand that people want to save money and have something special but this is not the solution to the problem. Please, do keep in mind that we are artists and what we do takes an extreme amount of time.

And if there are any cake artists out there who feel I am missing the point then please shed some light on this for me. If you agree then comment too. I can’t possibly be the only one who finds this frustrating.