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...

“Butter” icing with margarine? You might not be able to taste it in the sponge but you would in the icing 🤮

Margarine in icing. No thanks. And vanilla essence!

I thought the whole point of baking at home was to put better quality stuff in than what you might find in a mass produced supermarket cake.
If it’s just to be cheap as possible then I don’t think it’s worth the mess, time and electric use.

I can never get past the fact that even rats will not eat margarine, I read somewhere that margarine is only one molecule away from being plastic.
Mary Berry's sponges are made using margarine, yes they may be lighter but I don't want to eat margarine.
I use organic butter, good quality chocolate and free range eggs.
Flour and sugar are just that, brands make little difference value options are fine.

I read somewhere that margarine is only one molecule away from being plastic

Meaningless bollocks. It may be true, but has nothing to do with how it effects us as we eat it.

The bad thalidomide molecules were exactly the same as the good ones, except they were a mirror image, which matters enormously in pharmaceticals.

Hydrogen sulphide is only one atom different to water, but one is a poisonous gas and the other is well, water.

I don't think 'margarine' really exists any more, what you see in the supermarkets are spreads. I'm not sure about the real difference health wise because it is quite difficult to separate truth from fiction, but personally, exclusively use butter for cakes and always for butter cream, toast etc, but this thread has encouraged me to think about using spread or a vegetable oil in the cake itself next time I bake as my cakes are usually quite heavy, so this may be due to the butter.

I used to semi professionally bake, mostly decorated occasion cakes and custom cupcakes/cheesecakes. People's faces were always a picture when I would price it up for them. I think they mostly expect you to knock up a 2 tier fondant iced and decorated cake for £40, because it's baked at home. In reality it costs half if not more than that just for the fondant! I can spend up to 12 hours doing a big cake from shopping - baking - decorating - delivering. In the end people's attitudes ruined it for me and I was constantly worried about the costs and their reaction and so now I just do them for family and close friends who appreciate that they aren't going to get something that would cost them £350 from a cake shop for the cost of the basic ingredients. Not to mention the fucking mayhem it causes! Takeaway for tea because am I fuck also cooking tea for the family in between sculpting a miniature fondant Sandra down at her allotment, and scrubbing icing sugar off my surfaces for the 10th time that day. I don't miss it at all and have one to do for the 20th ☠

“I can never get past the fact that even rats will not eat margarine, I read somewhere that margarine is only one molecule away from being plastic.“

Rats will eat margarine. And lots of things are one molecule away from something dangerous. One molecule is a big thing!

Barbara-yes, that could well be the butter making your cakes heavy. Try a “spread”. I find it infinitely more reliable-and I can’t afford failures.

Always butter for butter cream though!!!

It's one of the first things we cut down on when money gets tight.

I tend to use butter - as a while ago I read margarine and asthma were being linked.

They have margarine in sandwiches - because I can't be doing with spreading butter - but when DS was diagnosed I was baking with margarine as my mum had always done.

It does make it much more expensive to use butter. Baking for others I will use margarine.

I have come across some recipes that specify vegetable oil - carrot cake and some muffins – they work well.

It is expensive and it’s the time it also takes that needs to be factored in.

I would bake lots of cakes for work/friends etc but if it got too much or I just couldn’t/didn’t want to do it I would say no

Planning on making my sons christening cake have spent a fortune on all the fondant and sugar craft tools! Would have been cheaper just to buy one

I agree. It's one of the reasons I hardly bake anymore along with having a 7 month old permanently attached to me. I was going to bake some cakes for a bake sale at DS's school. I have a variety of sugars already but didn't have self-raising flour, butter, or decorations. When those alone came to almost £3 I couldn't be bothered. School will sell them for 50p so there'd hardly be a profit. With the elaborate cakes I saw on display, the school would probably make more money if people just donated the money they would spend on ingredients. But I know that defeats the fun for the children of buying a cake.

With butter now costing around £1.60 I can't justify baking for fun. I've used margarine before but you need real butter for buttercream IMO. Food prices are going up and it's the only outgoing we have that we can cut down on. So baking stops when we need to watch the purse strings.

There been quite a few things we've made - Christmas pudding being one because we wanted to and we did it as a family endeavour - that worked out a lot more expensive than shop bought.

Usually they are that bit nicer but not so much nicer that it’s worth the extra money and time.

I never use butter. My cakes are delicious and I only ever use Stork. Butter for buttercream only.

I've never had to make buttercream for a cake, I just don't like it, also I'd rather have a plain cake than a heavily decorated one, so the butter goes into the baking proper, I often use olive oil and ricotta/yogurt for baking though.

A lady I know makes birthday cakes charges £40+ , yes can buy 1 from Asda at £10 but her cakes are brilliant. A lot of time gone in and they taste great, so happy to pay that although I only buy now for special birthdays .

I never Bake I don't have the time I take my hat off to those who enjoy baking for others.

BackforGood Eh - that takes me back. We used to have to work out the cost of ingredients for the things we made for cookery at school.

Haven't baked for yonks , but was very much brought up with marge for baking. Indeed, for pastry, my mother would use half-and-half marge and lard - I think the generations before that would use all lard - I read Dorothy Hartley's Food in England a while ago and she recommends it as the best shortening.

Oops - bit of a tangent

I think you should always use butter for buttercream.

When it comes to the actual sponge, I think butter is best for flavour but margarine is better for texture.

I’ve stopped baking for school and club fundraisers, instead I buy traybakes from the local cash & carry. It works out much cheaper and is what some of the local cafes are selling!

Baking with butter is an art form, temperatures have to be just right for instance, margarine is much more forgiving but often contains rubbish so I don’t use it!

that takes me back. We used to have to work out the cost of ingredients for the things we made for cookery at school.

Yup - same here

I work out exact costs every now and again to check my pricing. It’s not basic baking that costs the money-it’s the decoration and the good chocolate for ganache and real cream.........

I bake for the PTA sales and the pricing hasn't changed with rising costs over the last couple of years.

They get a majority of shop bought donations so tend to mix them up into a bagged plate for £1 which usually has a show piece homemade one by the enthusiasts, a couple of small shop bought ones and whatever else is going in the mid-range.

I always try to go for home made because it tastes far, far nicer than cheap supermarket sponge and I have a low tolerance to soya flour. I hate it when I bite into something that was hand decorated thinking it's going to be good, and discover it's just a topping on a bland, greasy palm oil supermarket cake. If I'm going to have an IBS attack, I want some pleasure first!

My own cakes I tend to keep simple as there is no economic benefit to the sale by getting extravagant. The summer fete tends to time with my fresh raspberry harvest so that is no additional cost to me but makes for a more unusual donation. Jam/ chocolate spread is as extravagant as I get beyond a basic sponge or butterfly cake. I see no point in barely breaking even or running a loss on my costs to the amount raised by the PTA. I home bake because it is much nicer, can't be bought in the shops and gives me one of those glowy rare virtuous mum moments

Lard for pastry (my Mum used Cookeen) but butter for cakes.