Would you buy this cake?

[Shannith]

It's DDs birthday this week and she's obsessed with dogs - specifically Great Danes.

She requested a Great Dane shaped cake. This is entirely beyond me. I made her a dinosaur cake one year that looked like a green hedgehog.

For a school project last week she randomly decided to make a cake with a picture of a sunset on it and had great fun making a scene out of food colouring and icing sugar.

Which gave me idea - cake shaping is not my forte but I can draw a bit.

So I've just make this using black food dye (mostly), an eyeliner pencil and a toothpick.

It was a bit of an experiment but it's worked (this is not a stealth boast, I can draw but didn't know if I could drawn on royal icing - I'm genuinely pleased with it)

Some family members have suggested I market myself on local Facebook groups as a cake painter.

Would you buy this or similar (I can draw most things though best at animals) and what would you pay.

It took me about 3 hours but I'd maybe get quicker with better tools and practice.

I can't draw well enough to do pet portraits (and it's a crowded market) but it's struck me I might have found a niche where people are a little more forgiving of less than 100% accuracy.

So, should I market myself or just be content with a happy DD and kind family members.

I wouldnt buy it -but equally I wouldnt buy a birthday cake from anyone, including a supermarket.
What I might buy is a cake topper. If you got the packaging right, would it post? It would widen your geographical market.
I'm very glad about the clarification regarding the eyeliner!

I absolutely would, it's fab.

Rather than make the whole cake, you could make plaques out of icing and sell just those painted. But you would need appropriate hygiene certification and could not do children’s characters because of copyright. Personally, I find it impossible to get people to pay anything close to enough to make minimum wage from crafts, and I prefer to spend my time doing projects for myself.

If you want to make money from this sort of thing, the way to do it is to set up online classes and you tube tutorials.

@Ihopeyourcakeisshit

That's fab! I need to name change on threads like this.

🤣🤣

You could also offer houses (housewarming/moving in) or cars - a buyer once drew me a painting of a car I sold as a surprise - they knew I had really loved it.

@Shannith

Sorry eyeliner brush!!

It's food dye and 100% edible

Ah ok 😄 its a beautiful cake!

@Ihopeyourcakeisshit

That's fab! I need to name change on threads like this.

The painting is great. As a former cake decorator though you need to work on covering cakes more cleanly - no supermarket fondant (it’s shit), get a turntable and proper tools ( non stick rolling pin, spacers for rolling out, smoothers and a scraper for your crumb coat). Would make the end product look much more professional :)

If you want to make painted toppers, I’d recommend modelling paste (or fondant mixed with Tylo powder) - you then wouldn’t eat it but when dry could easily be placed on top of a cake

I think it looks amazing, I'd definitely pay for something like that.

The thing with cakes is usually the mismatch between what people want to pay, and charging enough to cover your time and effort. People tend to vastly underestimate the costs of good quality, handmade stuff. The toppers may work out more reasonable in that way!

Brilliant portraiture! Not sure about the use of eyeliner though- is that food safe?

@Atalune

Brilliant portraiture! Not sure about the use of eyeliner though- is that food safe?

If you had RTFT you would have seen the OP did not use eyeliner. She used an eyeliner brush.

I'd definitely buy one. I can bake but I can't draw and anyone who could pop my pups on a cake can have all my money!

Ah makes sense.

Best, A

Well thank you all. You've given me some good food (cake) for thought.

Toppers only appeals and keeps the cost of materials/time down. And yes to the poster who said I'd need better tools/ingredients to change - this was a total test effort.

Showed it to DD and she loves it, so that's the main thing

OP I make and sell cakes and I would definitely buy something like this. I'm sure you know you need food hygiene certs and to be registered anyway but I think you could have a real niche product here.

I really like what you've done and although I'm a good baker and decorator, I could never create something like this and nor could any of the other bakers I know.

Wow, that's amazing!

I'm sure there would be a market for toppers or cakes with people's faces as well as pets.

Nope, don’t want my cakes touched for three hours or even two before eating them.

Definitely a good idea to do toppers only. I bought one from etsy that had a photo of my son on it for his birthday, it came through the post fine and I peeled it off the backing and put it on a cake I had made, dead easy and made the cake look fab. It was £6.50 I think but obviously if you are hand painting you could probably charge more.

I think the toppers are a great idea & your painting is fabulous. People would adore a cake with a really good painting of their pet on it.

Be careful about selling food stuff without a food safety check, if someone claims to get ill from your cake you'd be in trouble

Our local supermarket does photos on cakes, so I’d more likely go for that. However, there is a huge market for portraits of pets; could you transfer your skills to that? One girl I want to do a commission for me is currently busy til Christmas. She advertises on horse/dog pages.

You could see if any local cake bakers would be interested in sub-contracting to you- might be a good way of testing the water without making a big commitment. And an easy way of doing just the paintings without the faff of baking and icing.

I actually thought it was a professionally made cake until I read the post, I went straight to the pictures first! Amazing artistry skills OP x