AIBU to expect the birthday cake booking date changed without extra charge?

The minute she decided not to freeze it she should have offered it to @JavSurge as she has already paid for the ingredients/cake/time/etc ... she didn't freeze it, she gave something the OP had paid for to someone else. In spite of it being obvious OP was planning to do a new date, hence the original plan to freeze it.

So actually I don't think YABU ...

I thought OP has only paid for 1 cake?

I think the baker has communicated badly and been unprofessional. She said she'd freeze the cake (I too would have assumed she meant for the rescheduled party or for another time/client) and then she said she didn't freeze it in the end and so she'll have to make a new one.
She's moved the goalposts.

That OP doesnt want to pay for.

No skill required in making a decent sponge?
I beg to differ...
OP would have had a beautifully decorated cake.... had she not cancelled at last minute.

Perfect and reasonable comment.

Fine, then she should have delivered a beautifully iced cake to OP first time round.

She only baked the sponge - the skill and time is in the icing. Any professional in this situation would offer to bake the second cake for half price.

Hmm I think you are both unclear due to the lack of terms and conditions.
I think it's fair she charged you for the cake (and it was perhaps a bit careless to admit to it not being completed). She would have blocked out time to do it and with short notice wouldn't be able to book someone else in.

You don't actually know how much she is going to change you for the new cake. I do think she should give a discount. Especially as it was misleading to say it was being frozen. I think I would query that if she came back with a high price and state that when you cancelled she said it could be frozen, and therefore had you known that it couldn't be kept you would have collected it since you had already paid for it in full.
I definitely think there should be some kind of gesture of good will here.

Where did the second cake from?

Yes, you are unreasonable to think you can change the date at less than 48 hours notice without extra charge. As you don't yet know what the extra charge will be we can't say whether your baker is also unreasonable.

She's been totally unreasonable to say she'll freeze your cake for you, not do so, not offer to give you the first cake if she was going to get rid of it, and then try to charge you in full for a new cake. Very unprofessional.

Just be straight with her - lay out what happened (very briefly), say you'd still love a cake from her and are willing to pay half. If she has a grain of integrity she will agree.

She's made two cakes.
That's TWICE her time, even if you discount the ingredients she still used her oven etc.

Did you point out to her that you had paid for that cake so it felt like a bizarre thing to do if she expected you to pay for another one? I would honestly assume she was planning on doing you another one on your chosen date if she had given it away. Because if she expected you to pay for the first one AND another one, the only reasonable thing to do is give you both cakes.

I genuinely am baffled that people think it's OK to keep your £200 AND the cake and you are supposed to just hand over full cost for another one. Im not saying this person should work for free but if you paid for that first cake, you dont just give it away to the random neighbour at your expense!

Has she responded with what she is expecting?

Nope, in the OPs' scenario, we're talking about the equivalent of a rota change rather than a zero hours contract.

She didn’t spend the time BUT she possibly turned down other cakes. If she didn’t charge you for the first then she is money down!

No, not every time. If no one contacted her with a prospective booking for the same date as OP's then there was no other booking to lose.

Yeah if you paid £200 for a cake and she never offered you the cake, then she owes you a cake.

You seem to be missing that whilst it’s not your fault your child got sick, it’s also not the cake makers fault.

That’s irrelevant. I was making a statement of fact. No one is expecting you to have been able to predict a late notice cancellation. It doesn’t change what happens now.

In the hair salon analogy, the client cancelled at short notice. The cancellation policy meant that the client still had to pay but they did not get a haircut. The hairdresser still got paid. I’m not missing anything. The difference here is that the hair salon will have an explicit cancellation policy, but what you have with a cake maker is something more informal but if you were to quickly google it you would probably find that the cake maker is entitled to cover money she has already spent and potential profit.

I understand, you paid for a cake, and you also cancelled that order at short notice. What is or isn’t reasonable now is between you and the cake maker and you haven’t established that yet because she has not yet replied. It would be perfectly reasonable for her to retain some of the monies you have already paid because of the late notice cancellation and the fact that she had already started making your cake and almost certainly bought specific supplies for that cake.

It is not reasonable for you to expect a full refund (or a new cake at no additional cost), and it is not reasonable, I don’t think, for the cake maker to retain all the money that you have paid her. I think there is a fair (and probably legal) middle ground.

Yes, I do think you should have the cake you paid for. What you don’t get, is that you don’t get to use her time TWICE for the same price. You need to pay twice for her time since you’re asking for it twice.

That's the NHS though where you don't pay. If you had to pay at the end of an appointment and you didn't show up you would need to pay again for a new appointment as well as the one you missed. You would have taken up two appointments but only paid for one.

First the cake needs baking and cooling. Personally I like to get that done on the day of icing, to ensure it’s as fresh as possible. Refrigerating sponge dries it out and pros tend not to do that.

So if you start icing the cake, that would initially be the crumb coating. At this point you would stick the bottom cake to your cake board using some of the icing, and start to layer up the tiers with filing. If you’re having buttercream filling, that needs to set a bit before you put a layer on top.

Once your layers are on and your crumb coat is done, you need to let that set.

You then apply whatever icing you’re having all over it as a base layer, which once that has set you can start decorating.

When everything has set you can start adding your toppers etc. which you’ll have ordered way in advance, or in the case of fondant, modelled equally way in advance.