to ask how much you would pay for homemade Christmas cake

@TheHopefulBaker I’m in West Yorkshire and I’d love to buy one from you. Ignore the posters who have been negative. Please could you pm me?

I wouldn't buy a cake from a car boot sale nor do I buy them at table top sales or markets. The homemade element does not appeal to me at all so I would always choose one made in a commercial/professional kitchen.
I would buy some artwork or crafts that were handmade or homemade but not food.

Waitrose's iced Christmas cake is usually around £7 and you can serve as is or add your choice of toppers.

You can also order from their fancier 'entertaining' range which cost up to £32 in snowman or winter scene designs. I know and trust the brand so would stick with that.

Do you assume that no one likes anything you dislike?
Also, there can be a huge difference in Christmas cakes, depending on the fruits, nuts and alcohol used. The ingredients for the Christmas cake made where I work are quite unusual, including damson jam, chocolate and dried pineapple, amongst other things. We sell a lot of them, which would lead me to believe people like it.

@TheHopefulBaker if you really want to do it then it's worth doing properly - you won't get set up and sorted for this year but you could aim to be ready for Easter next year? Get yourself registered, do your food hygiene courses, get inspected if needed, work out your costings and your time etc. and then look to start selling at Easter markets, maybe?

Work out the cost of ingredients and double it at least to compensate you for your time. I defo wouldn’t sell through a car boot. Ask around family, friends, workplace if anyone is interested and post on local social media.

I read to page 4 and surprised nobody has mentioned that it’s October next week… and OP was talking about selling in October and November. I’m about to buy ingredients to make my own, for December. Cakes worth paying ££ for are fed for weeks, and that’s the real difference IMO. It can look as pretty as anything but as soon as you taste it you can tell if it’s been made properly.

That said - I agree with the rest of the PP who have said that people saying you should sell is lovely to hear but should be ignored in most cases!

There is a lady who makes beautiful Christmas cakes at our local WI market and she charges £30. If I was you, I would do some icing classes. For little effort you can make a cake look fantastic. And that is not me being unkind, but I want the wow factor. Rolling icing over the cake and adding a pile of stars or holly leaves always looks great.

Not sure how it became offensive to you - I was suggesting smaller gift sized cakes.
suitable for one/two servings.

No I don't think so. They just shell out for all the expensive dried fruit and spend time feeding it with brandy because they are bored witless and can't think what else to spend it on.

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

Yes

Wise call to retract thread @OliviaVine . I imagine your friend wasn’t enjoying reading the responses.

I never buy Christmas cake. Its not very nice. Do people genuinely like it?

An awful lot of new business don’t make much profit ( if any) in the 6-12mths so don’t let that put you off, plan for it to be profitable in 6-12mths time

After reading all the posts though I think I've been convinced it's probably not going to work so I likely won't bother and will just keep my cakes for myself and family.

Don't let people put you off and destroy your confidence, do it, it might be fun and you never know, it may turn into a little business ! 😁

Ignore the negative people on here, you obviously have a passion for baking and at the end of the day the most successful business usually stem from a passion for something …..give it a go

You've got bad advice there. You absolutely do need to be registered.

www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/starting-a-food-business-from-your-home

Well OP, whereabouts are you? Because I think your cake looks amazing. I love Christmas cake and although I do bake, I can’t make Christmas cake. My mum used to make a beautiful one every year, but since my dad passed away a few years ago, she won’t make it anymore (my Dad used to love it). Ever since, I have been looking for a really delicious and moist Christmas cake. No one sells one! If you’re not a million miles away from me, I’d be more than happy to buy one from you!

My local car boot doesn't allow home made food to be sold only certified food trucks. So I would check with the car boot sale management first.

If you want to make extra money, why don't you get a Christmas temp job instead? Hospitality and retail are desperate for temporary staff during the festive period. You'd make more money for less cash outlay on your side.

WHAT ON EARTH does this mean?
' .... marketed as gifts ...,..for single people'?
That is so offensive.

No problem. Not professional no but can only speak for my local EHO, they are loads rules eg as to which cleaning spray to use etc! (Aldis and Lidls are ok) It's basic stuff like checking dates on food colours, how you store ingredients like flour and sugar etc.
Having a dishwasher is better with my EHO otherwise I would need to use Milton sterilising tablets!

The thing you have to ask yourself with any commercial venture, even a small scale one, is “What does the customer care about?” - and more pertinently, do they care enough to pay extra?

Why is a customer going to pay more for your cake than one from M&S or Waitrose? It will be either for the taste of it or the look of it. Therefore customers care that you have used high quality ingredients, and are prepared for that. What they don’t care about is the fact that you can’t buy ingredients on a large scale in the same way a big retailer will - so if your ingredients aren’t any better, they won’t care that you paid more for them. Similarly, if your icing is very intricate and looks fantastic, they will appreciate they need to pay for your time. They won’t care that you could only make one or two cakes at the time while M&S can bake 100 or more at once in an industrial kitchen.

That's cool. I always wanted to do something like that at home but feared my kitchen was too old and manky. Tbh it probably is. I did it when I worked for a catering place in a big shiny kitchen!

Car boot sale? The last place I would buy food. Also I think the icing needs to be tidier. Anyway Xmas cakes are everywhere and at such reasonable prices so l would just buy it at a store.

I’d pay £50-60 for a made-to-order Christmas cake from a farm shop.

I’d pay £40ish for one made by somebody I know.

I’m afraid I would not be buying one at all from stranger at a car boot sale.

Yeah it's super straightforward. I have a few friends who have registered as home bakers and they've never had any issues.