To expect to be paid more than half? (Pic included)

[MrsA2015]

Background: I'm a home baker using decent/top quality ingredients in my cakes, friends and family buy off me for special events and am trying to kick start a little baking business from home ( after receiving loads of compliments and encouragement which I'm thankful for!) A friend has requested a cake (pictured) and offered well below the asking price knowing what quality I use and usually the one to berate others if they take the mick when it comes to price. I don't over charge and usually find I've undrecharged when adding up costs ( new to this). How much would you expect to pay for this cake? I'm just feeling a little upset really, I love her and will still make it just surprised at asking to pay less than half. I understand mates rates and all...
Before you ask
Yes she can afford it
I don't buy wholesale ingredients
No I didn't stick to my price (out of shock)

OP, if you gave her a shopping list of ingredients and asked her to provide them in advance, and also to look after your DC for two days or pay for the child care while you finished the cake, then she'd begin to realise what the actual costs to you are.

Mary Berry's recipe uses:

4 eggs
8 oz butter (or marge - but using butter because it's a fancy cake)
8 oz sugar
8 oz flour

for one Victoria sponge i.e. two cakes.

Previous posters have said probably 9 sponges in total, so 2 eggs, 4 oz butter, 4 oz sugar, 4 oz flour x 9.

2 eggs: 40 p x 9 = 3.60
4 oz butter: 50 p x 9 = 4.50
4 oz sugar at 55 p/kilo (2.2 lb): approx 60p
4 oz flour at 53p/kilo: approx 60p

plus butter for buttercream - guessing at least 2 lb butter: 2.00
icing sugar for buttercream - again around a kilo?: 1.00

fondant icing (Lakeland): 1.79 - probably at least three packs required: approx 5.40

edible glitter: 2.50 - probably around 3 required: 7.50

• paint

Basic cost of ingredients around 25.00.

An hour shopping for them (at minimum wage!) 7.00

Making basic cakes - probably in total two hours: 14.00

Making sure they're level, putting together, butter icing between each: probably another 1 1/2 hours: 10.50

Fondant icing over top: maybe only half an hour? 3.50

Fancy painting and carefully applying glitter (personally by now I'd be reading to just chuck the edible glitter over the top and have done with it): around 2 hours?: 14.00

Around 74.00 to make the cake. And she's offering 40.00?????

Even if, as pp said, it 'only' takes you a day, and even if you took 'apprentice' wages (3.50?) that would still be basic cost of ingredients around 25.00 and 6 hours at 3.50 = 21.00 - totalling 46.00 which is Still more than grabby woman is offering.

'reading'? - ready to chuck ...

The thing is, you are not just paying for eggs and flour and what have you, you are paying for the expertise of the baker.

Why dont those who are saying its extortionate have a go at making it themselves and then comment on whether that cake is overpriced at £150?

You are paying someone else who has a skill that you need, in the same way that you pay a mechanic to fix your car, you could easily source parts online, but what would you do with them?

The fact is that cakes like this, made from scratch (as opposed to using machine made, cheap crappy cakes like the supermarkets do) by a skilled baker takes time and time is money. Its what they cost, end of! If you dont think that £150 is worth it for a cake then dont buy one, go to the supermarket and spend £10, but expecting someone to work a full day for £20 is a piss take and I bet you would soon have something to say if your employer valued you in that way!

Oh, and I don't make cakes (I wouldn't inflict my cooking on anyone - my sandwiches (slice loaf in two, chuck in things from fridge) are still talked about many years on) so may be well out on timings - please feel free to correct

As Bogeyface says: you're paying for expertise - which I didn't include in my costings - at least another 25.00 - bringing the cost up to around 100.00

Grabby Woman really is taking the mickey.

Please let us know how you get on with being assertive

Did we ever find out how much the friend offered? I got about half way through all the posts and gave up trying to find out.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=break+down+costs+of+cakes&rlz=1CDGOYI_enGB685GB685&hl=en-GB&prmd=isvn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUstKWqtLPAhXjJsAKHejyBV4Q_AUIBygB&biw=375&bih=591#hl=en-GB&tbm=isch&q=break+down+costs+of+cakes+uk&imgrc=k6RfMBvctRRjXM%3A

Ali £35 for one tier and £40 for 2

IceRoad - please never set up in business. £20 a day for mates' rates? And you think £120/day is extortionate? Bloody hell :(

For a friend, £20 for labour plus the ingredients seems fair

Really? What job would you do for a friend that took all day for £20? Is your friends time really not worth more than £2.50 per hour?

This is why I stopped making cakes. While I loved it as a hobby, I couldn't charge proper rates and when requested by friends to make a cake what I charged barely covered ingredients not to mention time etc.

I would suggest if you are serious, then have a price list ready and when a friend asks, show them the list. Make it clear that if they aren't happy with the price they are under no obligation to order.

User1470... I appreciate you are in support of OP charging more and think friend is taking the piss... but the list of ingredients and quantities are not right. I only bake for my kids cakes but I have to buy a lot more than that for much simpler and smaller cakes. There is no way 750g of fondant would be enough, there's things like vanilla extract not included, and many many items necessary for covering and decorating cakes that haven't been listed.

The timings - I think everyone should have a go at baking 9 sponges and see how long it actually takes! It's not just the mixing, it's lining cake tins, measuring ingredients, mixing in stages, then unless you have 5 cake mixers and 10 tins, you have to wash it all up and do it again several times over.

Covering in fondant is not just whacking the fondant on top, you need to crumb coat for a start, it takes ages (for me!) to roll and put fondant on and smooth out. The amount of buttercream etc required is a lot more than you'd imagine and lots of people use ganache (chocolate and cream so pricey)

I don't always think people are being cheeky, before I made a celebration cake before I never would have imagined how long it would take, but I do find it odd that people accept that they have to pay for people's expertise and skills in other industries yet don't apply the same to sugarwork and cake making.

Plus the costings should include electricity for the oven, lighting etc, a cost towards equipment - for instance, an airbrush costs around £100 for the most basic ones. Professional icing costs far more than the blocks you buy in the supermarket. Then there's petrol, costs of cleaning products, greaseproof, cling film, any other incidentals you might need. Time spent clearing up and washing up. That topper would cost around a tenner, and you would need a large, tall cake box, they cost around £6.

If you are a business (even a home based one), then there's insurance, marketing costs, rubbish disposal, time spent ordering online, shopping, time spent on your website/facebook, invoicing, consultations, telephone costs, paperwork, accounting to be done. All costs to be taken into account before you've even cracked open an egg!

It's not a case of knocking up a victoria sponge in a couple of hours one afternoon for your tea!

Lots of people just compare it directly to supermarket prices for bog standard sponge + covering and never ever realise why "fancy" cakes are that much more expensive.

Same for craftwork. My grandma makes these beautiful brightly-coloured huge crocheted blankets for the babies of the family. A "friend" of begged me to ask her to make one. Agreed with grandma that she would do it for cost of the wool. At which point friend sends me a link to the cheapest, nastiest looking blanket from one of the supermarkets that was £5 and said I was thinking more this price! Jog on!

At which point friend sends me a link to the cheapest, nastiest looking blanket from one of the supermarkets that was £5 and said I was thinking more this price!

People really don't have the first idea, do they? I do understand that people may not understand how much things can cost, but surely most will get that a handmade blanket will cost much more than a cheap, shop bought one.

I make cakes for a living, and my favourite enquiry I had was 'I wanted to make my son a cake for his birthday, but when I found out how much icing costs, I thought it would be cheaper to buy one from you instead'
Because, after all, I don't use icing, do i? I use water and fairy dust!
I send a quote, and, unsurprisingly, I never heard from her again.

The extra tier should be more than £5 even if you stick to the price you haggled and agreed on for the bottom one.

IceRoad - please never set up in business.

Don't worry, I won't!

I can see my expectation of what it takes to make something like this is way off. It's been an educational thread, especially the last few pages. I'm lucky that I'm a pleb who had a £5 Tesco cake for my birthday and was happy with that. I also only drink instant coffee, not real coffee... total pleb.

I originally thought about 175

Oh christ I only read the first page ignore me

so what was the starting price that she haggled on?

its ok i doubt shes reading this andif she is tough shes a stingy bastard

crumb coat ?????

What is this please?

I stopped making cakes, sweets and crafts (used to do them for the kid's schools Christmas Fayres etc) when I went one year and found my (very nice, though I say so myself) handpainted mirrors being sold for less than the cost of the mirror glass never mind the paints and the time it took - drawing patterns, transferring them to the mirrors, outlining, painting, polishing etc.

The following year I declined to make any ("Oh but they are so popular - they fly off the stall." - Yes - I bet they bloody do!) And offered a donation instead. A couple of people got very shirty but I thought "Bugger 'em!"

The problem is, when something's handmade, people expect it for next to nowt.

It is sad. Why is it that skills traditionally associated with women - baking/crafting etc, are so undervalued? People under price their work in order to sell it and so the undervaluing persists . Why is it so hard to justify the cost of these things when skills like carpentry are understood to be worth paying for?

2kids2dogs it's a thin layer of buttercream you apply to the cake to 'seal' in the crumbs, then refrigerate and then do another layer. It means the next layer you do isn't filled with crumbs from the cake and you have a smoother neater finish.

Id be so annoyed about your mirrors !! I'm not surprised you refused the next year !

Thank you Ode.

Might try that the next time I do a cake - it drives me crackers when crumbs end up in everything and I can't get a tidy finish.