Do people realise how expensive baking is?

[nikkylou]

I went shopping today, I'm making cakes for work tomorrow for my last day
It got me thinking, as it always does every time I bake on request. That people who don't bake don't realise how expensive it is.
Once I make the terrible mistake of baking for my workplace, I open the floodgates...
Every charity cake sale, half of the birthdays...I bake. Don't get me wrong I don't bake for every request and I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it.
But even a victoria sponge can set you back £5-6 quid for real butter, cream, eggs and nice jam.

Is there any fellow bakers that regret revealing their talent and are paying the price (literally).

Is there any bakers that have negotiated this hurdle?

Or is it just me that spends £10 on various ingredients and then forks out another £1 on the day for a slice of their own cake...

As a comparison, the rocky road I make probably costs a fiver if that.

Packet value biscuits - 50p? but won't use all of them
Packet marshmallows - less than £1, again won't use it all
Couple handfuls of cherries, raisins, nuts, whatever is in the cupboard, say £1
Couple blocks value chocolate - 70p
Spoon golden syrup - 20p?
Butter - £1 tops, probably less as I just get whatever's cheapest or on offer.

So about £4.50 for a standard tray bake or about £7-8 for a large roasting tray size as will just use more of the packs of biscuits and marshmallows referred to above if making a big tray/double batch.

If you don't have things in and can only get to a shop that only sells very expensive artisan priced ingredients, I really wouldn't bother making anything and bung them a tenner instead of using unnecessarily expensive ingredients and complaining about the waste of money.

If making cakes with fresh berries in, just use frozen ones, much much cheaper and work fine. You probably don't even need to defrost them.

yep, its expensive, and yep I regret letting my workplace know I can bake because I get requests, although I do enjoy doing it, I work full time and have a toddler and I don't think people realise how time consuming it is either!

I make a tray bake with a standard sponge mixture and some frozen berries stirred through. Nice as a pudding warm with cream or custard and slices up for lunchboxes the next day. Good with chopped apple and spices too.

We used to work out what the baking has cost and price our cakes accordingly at bake sales... people complained they were too expensive! The bakers covered the cost, theybdidnt get anything back, so in the end they just donated money, we got more £ that way.

People don’t realise how much things cost.

Using cheapest ingredients for baking defeats the object, might as well buy shop made stuff!

No it really doesn't. Almost no-one could tell the difference between a cake or anything made with value and branded flour, butter, eggs (still free range) etc.

You only usually get one type of sugar, so that's a standard price, but cake made with Aldi ingredients or Tesco value is still streets ahead of almost all supermarket cake.

Almost no-one could tell the difference between a cake or anything made with value and branded flour, butter, eggs

I absolutely disagree!

Using cheapest ingredients for baking defeats the object, might as well buy shop made stuff!

I diasagree. I can spot shop bought stuff a mile off, heck my youngest child can. I think I can spot margarine too. I wouldn’t know if you’d used Tate and Lyle or value sugar though. And Aldi dark chocolate and posh jam and the like are cheap but as good as the branded stuff you pay twice as much for.

Much of baking success is about technique and practice too. I’d bet on my everyday sponge against some performance baker who constructs theirs with artisan ingredients twice a year.

“Using cheapest ingredients for baking defeats the object, might as well buy shop made stuff!”
There are a few things where it makes a difference. Chocolate, for example, in something that’s mostly chocolate like Rocky Road. But value flour, sugar, butter or marge is completely indistinguishable from expensive versions. Trust me on this!

I agree! Almost any home made cake from real ingredients will be bigger, better and tastier than an industrially produced shop bought packaged version. Better quality chocolate, butter, eggs are a bonus.

To buy cakes of the same quality would involve a proper bakery and would not be cheap.

You only have to look at the list of ingredients in a shop bought cake to know they are a completely different product to a home made cake.

Waitrose Madeira cake, so not a cheapo option

Ingredients
Allergy Advice: For allergens see highlighted ingredients
Sugar, Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Rapeseed Oil, Pasteurised Free Range Egg, Raspberry Jam (6%) (Maize and Wheat Glucose Syrup, Raspberry Purée, Sugar, Gelling Agent Pectin, Colour Anthocyanins, Acidity Regulators Citric Acid and Sodium Citrates, Flavouring), Butter (Milk) (4%), Water, Invert Sugar Syrup, Maize and Wheat Glucose Syrup, Humectant Vegetable Glycerine, Skimmed Milk Powder, Raising Agents Disodium Diphosphate and Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate, Cornflour, Palm Oil, Modified Tapioca Starch, Stabiliser Tragacanth, Palm Stearine, Dried Maize and Wheat Glucose Syrup, Salt, Emulsifier Sodium Stearyol-2-Lactyate, Flavourings, Acidity Regulator Citric Acid, Preservative Potassium

Mmm mmm. Bet that tastes just as good as butter, eggs, sugar, milk and flour.

I always use butter for home baking. Don't see the point in using margarine as it does not taste as good.

I bet that cake's quite small too Tinkly so cost wise, you'd be comparing with 2 eggs (35 p) half pack of butter (80 p), 120 ish g sugar (10 p) and the same of flour (5p), maybe some lemon juice - I use bottled for cakes, but even if you use a fresh lemon, you don't need all of it and you can slice and freeze the rest for your G&T so say 20 p for the lemon, so £1.50 for the ingredients for the cake and I suppose you can also add 10 p for the cake liner - I get mine from the pound shop - I bet a Waitrose Maderia cake is more than £1.60?

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“I always use butter for home baking. Don't see the point in using margarine as it does not taste as good.”

For most cakes I guarantee you won’t be able to tell the difference in a blind tasting.

I really wouldn't bother making anything and bung them a tenner instead of using unnecessarily expensive ingredients and complaining about the waste of money.

Who was complaining? I’m on the PTA, we like making things for the Fayre and see it as our donation (although the kids still fleece us for cash for nonsense on the day too!) I only mentioned it here because the thread was talking about the costs. You do you, I don’t actually need anyone’s opinion or guidance on how we do stuff :)

The Waitrose cake in question is actually a decent size, just over a kilo. It’s the sort you buy to decorate yourself. So by Barbara’s calculations would cost about £3.50 to make. It costs £7 to buy.

Ah, right, I understand! I wouldn’t do anything expensive like that Rocky Road for a bake sale. I go for profit! What % do you make on your 30 quid?

I have no idea the rocky road I think they sell for £1 a wedge, the cupcakes I can’t remember tbh, the tablet £1.50 a slab I think. The rocky road I kind of felt obliged to keep making as people were telling me they bought some for great auntie Mary who loved it etc 🤣 it’s only once a year and the school’s biggest fundraiser so we don’t mind. For Red Nose Day bake sales that the kids run its cheap and cheerful though!

I have no particular opinion on whether cakes made with margarine taste as good or better as ones made with butter, but using margarine surely loses the "bought cakes are full of palm oil and emulsifiers and who knows what" high ground...

*as good as or better than

*Almost no-one could tell the difference between a cake or anything made with value and branded flour, butter, eggs

I absolutely disagree!*

Bollocks could you tell the difference between a cake made with Bero flour and Asda smartprice. For example.

I was delighted when DSs school put up an Amazon list for this reason. I spent a fair whack on it and have excused myself from all fundraising cake sales for the rest of the year. I probably didn’t spend much more than the 10 times (I wish I was joking) I would have baked and the school will have got more money too!

It is expensive! They do taste better but to be honest I prefer not to eat home-made cakes unless I've made them myself, as I would rather they were untouched by human hands and at least made in a house where cats aren't walking all over the kitchen worktops - bleurgh! If there is a charity bake sale at work I will buy some and discreetly throw them in a bin on the way home.

The trick is to have a constant supply of baking products in the house. I bake fairly regularly (mostly healthy muffins etc) and I always have a press full of various flours/sugar/baking powder etc. Just throw something in with your shop each week and you'll have a press full of basics - and buy cheap stuff in Aldi/Lidl.

Made muffins yesterday and all I had to pick up was the filling I wanted.