Dummy cakes are pieces of Styrofoam that are shaped like a cake tier, and that can be decorated to use as a display piece to show off techniques, or to use as a decoration at a wedding or at home.
The term “dummy” refers to both the undecorated Styrofoam form, and to the decorated tiers after they’ve been covered in fake icing or rolled fondant and then decorated.
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Why use a dummy cake?
Cake decorators need to practice, too, so decorating a dummy cake is a good way to try out new techniques. When you decorate a dummy you cover it with fondant or fake icing that dries hard, then you use regular decorations to decorate the cake.
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The dummies don’t feel exactly like a real cake, of course, but it’s enough to give you an idea of how long it will take to decorate a real cake, and what kind of things you’ll need to learn to do it.
Fake tiers can also be decorated and used along with real cake to add an extra tier to a real wedding cake if the bride wants a taller cake than the number of servings she actually needs.
People usually think that a decorated dummy will be a lot cheaper than a real one, but both have to be decorated the same way, and both have to be transported, so there’s not usually a huge cost difference.
I used to charge 80% of the cost of a real cake for a decorated fake tier. I made a few that were covered in real gold leaf, so that cut down on the cost of the cake because I could do a limited amount of the leaf, which was pretty expensive!
Where are faux tiers used?
Professional cake decorators use cake dummies to create display cakes that they can use at wedding shows, or to show to prospective clients to demonstrate what different decorations would look like on a real cake.
When I decorated wedding cakes I had an office full of fake cakes, which I also referred to as “display cakes” because they were decorated.
When a bride needed to be able to visualize the size of the cake she would need, I could either point her to one that was already assembled and decorated, or I could arrange the undecorated tiers to show her what the different sizes would look like when they were stacked up.
Dummy cakes are also used for photo shoots because they don’t need to be refrigerated, and they hold up under hot studio lights.
I also used to make faux wedding cakes to display in wedding rental shops. I would lend them to the shop and they would use them to set up examples of different types of wedding reception decor with different linens and table settings.
It was a good way to get publicity for my business, and it gave the rental companies props to work with.
Using dummy cakes for home decor.
I used to sell faux cakes that were iced with fake permanent icing, and my customers use them for home decor and home staging. Some people put them under a glass cake dome and displayed them on their kitchen counters, and some would use them as part of a dessert buffet display in a dining room.
You can buy a lot of different types of fake desserts, some more decorated than others.
Check out some of the decorated fake desserts that you can get on Etsy, it’s fun to see the different things that you can buy to use for home decor!
Using dummy cakes to display cake toppers.
Another thing that my customers use my dummy cakes for is to display cake toppers that they make and sell on Etsy. Every now and then I’ll be browsing online and I’ll see a cake topper sitting on a dummy cake that I made.
It’s kind of funny because I can tell that I made it based on how it looks, the way that you ice a cake is like a fingerprint sometimes!
Faux cakes are useful for a lot of things, whether they’re decorated or not.
Using dummy cakes when you’re making cake flowers.
I also used dummy cakes as stands for supporting the stems of gumpaste flowers while I was working on them. They make a good stand for keeping things upright as they dry.
If you dip the gumpaste in food coloring to tint them, this also lets the food coloring drip down the wires or toothpicks instead of to the tip of the flower if they were hung upside down.
I also used to use stacked dummies to estimate how many flowers I would need to have for decorating a specific-sized cake. It’s a good way to make sure that you have enough flowers on hand so that you’re not caught off guard.
Dummy cupcakes and cake pops.
It’s not only cakes that are made with fake interiors, either. I had a set of fake cupcakes that I used to stage product shots for my online stores when I was selling wafer paper, and I also used fake cake pops on occasion.
You can read an article about how to make dummy cake pops here: Fake Cake Pops
