to ask how much you would pay for homemade Christmas cake

I think they look lovely! And tbh if I was at a car boot sale and saw one I’d probably end up buying one! Good luck!

All of this is irrelevant if you’re not registered and inspected. And insured. That said, it can be done relatively easily, although some councils used to not even bother inspecting at all when I first started - that may have changed. When I started out I did my food hygiene course again - I’d done it years ago but thought best to update, was registered and inspected by the council (5* rating), had insurance, allergen labelling and filled in the Safer Food, Better Business manual I had for every cake I made.

If you do go down that route, check out Nancy Birtwhistle’s video about making some in baked bean tins - the smaller ones might go down well.

A quick google shows you can buy an iced Christmas cake for about £7 from a shop.

Oh they look utterly charming and nostalgic
If they taste as olde worlde as they look I would be happy to pay about £35

Our Christmas cake 8" square, the cost of the ingredients last year with all the dried fruit, lemons, eggs, flour, butter, sugar, almonds, royal icing, apricot jam, was so expensive last. A proper cake fed with brandy . A friend whose cakes are made like this and decorated professionally by her sell for around £100.

Our school cake stall a chocolate sponge with butter cream sells for £4. By comparison.

As others have said you’ll need to check out regulations/registration requirements. But if you want to do it I’d concentrate on Christmas fairs (although you probably need to pay to have a table there) check out bigger companies who often hold inhouse Christmas events for staff to buy “craft” items. My SIL buys a chocolate biscuit cake in the shape of a Christmas pudding every year at a Christmas market held in her workplace.
I used to make my own Christmas cake, but it’s a huge effort & very expensive for all the ingredients. Nowadays I buy my Christmas cake from Aldi. €10 and it’s quite tasty. Is it better than my homemade one? No. But it’s cheaper & more convenient and as I’m the only person who eats it, much better for my waistline too.

I think they look lovely, though we’re not fans of Christmas cake in our house. A woman local to me makes cheesecakes at Christmas and I pay around £45 for a good sized one from her.

I wasn’t including the profit and electricity as I was commenting on people saying home baking is expensive.
yes if you are selling you have to add energy costs and your own wage but a Christmas cake doesn’t have to cost £30 in ingredients alone. I just priced the bero Christmas cake and with the luxury ingredients it’s £12 and with a couple of swaps it’s £8

I would buy from a friend, work colleague or family member if I liked them but never at a car boot

I'm afraid cake baking is one of those things, like homemade cards, earrings, soap and wax melts, that people try to sell but never make any money from.

The 1980’s called, they want their cake decorations back! It’s quaint but it’s not professional enough to make it worth your while even putting the oven on and car boot sale audiences are notorious for wanting something for nothing. And that’s before we get into food hygiene requirements!

But it's not just ingredients you have to think about - if you're selling for profit you also need to factor in your time, electricity, equipment, wrapping, time spent writing out ingredients lists, allergens, advertising etc.

Someone upthread said about their ingredients coming to £30 plus electric - so that, plus paying yourself minimum wage, plus food hygiene, plus business insurance - you'd need to charge an absolute minimum of £60 to make any kind of money from it.

I do wonder how everyone says it costs a lot of money to bake your cakes. I do all my own baking as it’s much cheaper than buying it in.
OP I don’t think car boots are the right place but I think Facebook would be especially if you delivered. Quite a few people do joke baking with the necessary paperwork locally. Some are selling 2 meals and puddings for £32 and others cakes and ready meals for more reasonable prices. Lots of fruit puddings have been advertised and sold recently.
im going to cost my Christmas cake recipe now

You can do Leiths at school! Not cookery school.

At least no plastic animals or trees! Obviously no one likes modern cakes! Luckily we do!

I suppose you don’t have any evidence to support this do you?
And anyway how the hell would you know what the OPs cake tastes like and that your daughters cake actually tasted better…..You Numpty 🤷‍♀️

I’ve just put my online food order in for next Friday - I’ve ordered the ingredients to make a Christmas Cake - over £30 for that alone and that’s nearly solely own brand ingredients (except treacle - had to be Tate & Lyle). Apart from some eggs and the treacle oh and flour, everything will be used so will basically only make one cake

to be worth my time and money, to sell commercially I’d be looking at selling for £70+. It takes 5 hours to bake - that’s a lot of electricity. No one is going to pay £70 at a car boot for a Christmas cake plus you’d need to get a hygiene certificate - no idea if that costs money

im making it as my daughter has a dairy allergy and the free from Christmas Cakes taste like sawdust otherwise, whatever tops the taste test that year (Aldi or Waitrose - I care not) would go in the trolly! It’s not cost effective to make it

OP, lots of advice re hygiene etc, I'd say if you can do a nice one for a tenner....do....if you do, I'd say keep the icing very very simple and elegant, like.well rolled out fondant, and use a star cut out to make a simple pattern. This will at least appeal more and maybe you could sell decoration kits as an incentive for people to do with the kids? Just my thoughts. Thinking I could do this too at school Christmas fayre now tbh!!!!

You can be exempted as a small business but you have to apply to be if that makes sense, you can't just set up and assume you'll get the exemption.

I'm not sure re. domestic kitchen and inspections though.

I know right!

You'd hope her DD's cakes were professional looking seeing as she's paying many thousands to attend a fancy cookery school. How smug.

Anyone's cakes would look perfect if you throw money and training at it.

£40-50 would barely cover the cost of ingredients on a Christmas cake that size, not to mind labour, profit and electricity

Fair enough. I did do the hygiene certificate when I was working in a commercial kitchen. But thought this low key thing might be exempt.

The hygiene cert level 2 is really easy and I think you can do it online.

One issue might be if OP's kitchen isn't up to professional standards? Might they do an inspection? That might be a stumbling block for a bog standard domestic kitchen.

I make Christmas cakes every year, they are really expensive cakes to make, I make them as gifts, there is no way I'd get that money back, once you consider the expense of the ingredients (considerable!), electricity to cook, feeding (alcohol), then decorating...
I love Christmas cake, I make a few as gifts but I wouldn't be able to make any money from it

What a spiteful little post.

Op I think your cake is beautiful! It’s hard to make a good looking cake and this is certainly better than one I could make myself.

Honestly, no one is buying car boot cake.

Pay a tenner to have a table at a Christmas craft fair in a local village hall. Get your level 2 food hygiene (£12 online) and print that certificate out and have it stood in a frame. Present the cakes naicely and charge £15. You'll sell 20. At a loss, but you'll sell 20.