How much would you pay for this cake?

[BeagIes]

Just curious! Not the best picture.

Chocolate and vanilla, with vanilla frosting. Serves about 30 - 40.

@Beees

Its an American word. Not saying that there is anything wrong with it. But in all the places I've lived, and all british baking videos, they've used the word icing. Fully accept that some places might be different.

I only asked because if OP was from the US, people posting along the lines of 'Here in Manchester we'd pay £50" would not be very helpful.

@Beees , the frosting and icing have different meanings in the uk

I'd say £70 considering it feeds 30-40 and I've seen talented bakers absolutely fuck up peppa pig cakes and make her look completely boss eyed, so assume peppa's a trickier than it looks character. You've done a fab job.

Social media has a lot to answer for.

Op, well done. Did you not agree a price up front.?

i personally don’t think a 15 inch cake can feed 40 people unless tiny portions though, it would mean less than half an inch of cake each.

For the size I'd expect to pay about £80, however if considering going professional need to get a bit neater, it looks like an excellent home baker made it, but if I was paying a professional I'd expect attention to detail, the rolled icing edge stands out as not being uniform or neat. If a friend made it for me I'd be thrilled, if I'd paid for a professional cake I wouldn't be disappointed as such but I probably would use someone else next time.

Super looking cake, but it’s not at professional cake decorating level so I’d pay no more than £20.

@NormaLouiseBates you are a professional baker, I’d happily pay for a cake providing it looks professional. This is not.

FYI from a professional cake maker I’d expect to pay around £3.50+ for a slice…this cake is not a £140 cake (but it’s brilliant for a hobby baker!)

Ooh, nice pass ag dig there, Boris, nice bit of drive by.

The ingredients alone would cost more than that, don't be ridiculous

£20?

Jesus wept. It'll have cost that just in ingredients, minimum.

£60. Not keen on cling film though.

If I’m honest I’m never sure if it’s best to tell it to the op straight or sugar coat it (see what I did there 😄)

it’s a nice cake. I don’t think it will feed 30 - 40. Maybe twenty or so. If the person wanted a cake for that many they will be disappointed. It would be very hard to slice it so thin to get that many portions due to the way it’s built with the thin scenery. You’d need to be very stingy and very careful.

as the op is thinking of taking commissions it is probably true she needs to Improve her already decent skills some more. You can tell it’s not professional it doesn’t have the definition a professional cake would have.

so if I was her I’d be doing these at cost for a while as she builds her skill set up then she can start charging for her time.

as the op is thinking of taking commissions it is probably true she needs to Improve her already decent skills some more. You can tell it’s not professional it doesn’t have the definition a professional cake would have.
That's what I think, that the finish looks more homemade. Not without skill, but something I'd have a go at replicating.

I'd expect the finish to be excellent to pay some of the higher prices quoted here. Not to offend, as it's still a nice cake.

As others have said, this would barely cover her costs so you’d be expecting her to work for free at that price/potentially make an actual loss.

Interested to know what you would expect from this cake for it to be considered ‘professional’ standard? I’d say it was pretty spot on for this design/style. Only thing I’d say are the fondant lines could be cleaner and more uniform, but that’s an easy fix and imagine op would do that if cake was for a customer. Board also could be a bit neater, obviously a box is needed. What else would you say OP needs to do before she’s ready to sell? If she did those things would you be willing to pay her a proper hourly wage for her skill?

Having made a cake for my brother's birthday the other day, and now understanding not only the ingredients, but the time required, I'll never view cake prices in the same way again.

Seriously, I costed it up for my mother when she moaned when I said I'd be supplying fuck all else for his birthday buffet.

Cake dowels £3.78
Cake box and board £10
Various none edible decorations £9.38
Ingredients: (this will actually be lower than to do a none vegan cake) £15
Electric for cooking £1.56
Supplementary utilities (extra dishwasher use, tablet, cleaning stuff) £1.56
My time @ my rough hourly rate (salaried so this took too much math) so what I'm legitimately viewed as worth £90

Disregarding the fact I hogged the kitchen for all that time so needed to get a takeaway. Before any profit was to be made, on what was a basic 2.5 tier cake

£129.72

And whilst it was passably good....you'd definitely not have bought it decorated, cause it was only passable. It was excellent, but no where near professional levels.

£40-£60 depending on various factors.

You always get dickheads on these kind of threads "£30 or £40". I'm sure they're just trying to make the op feel bad. 70 or 80 for sure.

Like this. 20 quid? Don't be ridiculous. That wouldn't even cover the ingredients!

I own a bakery. I would charge £125 for a cake that size with that amount of work. The decoration is actually fairly decent considering it’s buttercream with sugarpaste decorations. Im also impressed by the carving as the shape is spot on and carving small parts of cake (such as the ears) isn’t easy. You’ve taken time to decorate the board too.

To charge for cakes you should register with Environmental Health and get yourself some public liability insurance. Food hygiene certs aren’t a legal requirement but they are helpful. Environmental health will visit every 12-24 months but you can use your EH officer to access the paperwork you need to complete on a daily basis (training, temperature checks on any fridges being used, weekly premises checks, information you need to give your customers with regards to E numbers and allergens, etc).

Thankfully the majority of my work is wedding cakes as even at £125, there’s not a lot of profit in birthday cakes. I can charge £125 and people are happy to pay it but it was very different when I worked from home. I actually worked full time and came away with £6000 profit one year. It’s not lucrative. The cost of ingredients is 50% higher than pre-Covid and equipment costs are ridiculous.

I make similar. The cost is huge, people just don’t get it. Buttercream these days is so expensive. I use ganache a lot now (filling and coverings). Costco choc chips are a good price in my opinion and Lakeland did do white ones but I don’t I if they do now.

I only make for family and generally don’t charge, it took me 8 hours to make a fire engine cake of a similar size to yours recently, (at £10 wages an hours that’s £80 before the ingredients if you are making to earn money). I think you’ll find people won’t be too keen to pay the real cost. Boards are expensive, as PP ideally you’d need a box too. If you know how to use excel I’d do some spreadsheet costing and then you’ll be able to give a rough idea to people on what they can expect. If you’ve got a smart meter you can add the cost of the oven and using a mixer too. It all adds up these days.

also once people are paying that price they will expect a higher standard, so it’s all very difficult OP. I suppose it depends on whether you really enjoy it, I love making large cakes, I love the littles ones look on their faces when they see them, I love the compliments of family and friends on the taste of my cakes (I only bake the most scrumptious recipes).

a bit difficult to see what with the cling film but I’d say that’s a really nice looking cake on the face of it, I’d want it to taste good too.

people shouting at OP on here about these posts really shouldn’t read them!
it is of interest to some of us. If it’s not of interest to you then scroll on past!

If you have a proper food hygiene certificate and your kitchen was up to food hygiene standards £70-£80. As a mate with no idea of your hygiene I would pay £40 max. Its very good though!

I genuinely don't understand this. Are you saying if you had doubts about someone's hygiene you'd still ask them to make you a cake, just try and get it cheap?

I also don't understane the clingfilm. The icing should have sealed the cake enough so that it doesn't dry out.

I can't tell what size it is. Are the portions quite small.

I think it would probably sell for £50ish, but no ida if it's worth that. What's in it? I would want something considerably better than the overly sweet cotton wool sponge that you get in supermarkets.

I'm saying if it was a proper set up I'd pay more than if it was a mate just making me a cake out their own personal kitchen and they weren't doing it professionally more as a paid favour.