WWYD - landed with whole bill for cake.

[Halloolah]

As title says, this is more of a WWYD but posting here for traffic...

My DH's BIL recently had a significant birthday. His wife (my SIL) organised a big party. She was let down quite late by the people sorting the birthday cake. My Mum makes cakes semi-professionally (i.e. she makes them properly, but doesn't advertise and takes word of mouth requests), so we offered to ask if she could help and explained that this way would be cheaper than going to a cake shop. SIL said yes please, my Mum offered to make it at cost price as a favour to relatives (although my parents and in laws don't particularly know each other well and have only met once or twice).

It then turned out that the cake needed to be huge (over 150 portions) and so more of a 3 tiered wedding cake size. Mum priced it as £120 (the cost of materials, icing, cake boards etc), DH and
I offered to pay £50 towards the cost. This is much more than we'd normally spend on a present but we figured that it was a significant birthday. SIL happy with this arrangement.

Mum made the cake, it took her about four days of intense, full-time work as was intricately decorated, it looked absolutely amazing, tasted great and very well received by everyone. However, at the party itself SIL kept saying 'thank you so much to you and your mum for the cake' as if the whole thing was a gift. BIL was also very grateful. Party was over a week ago and no offer of money has been made. As I didn't want my Mum to be out of pocket, we've paid her the full amount (our £50 plus another £70) and pretended it was from SIL.

But what should we do about chasing up the £70? My DH wants to have a word with his sister as he feels the arrangements were very clear and she's being a bit cheeky. I worry that this could cause a 'thing' in the family. SIL is lovely, so I think (hope!) this is a genuine oversight rather than CFery but it's all just very awkward. WWYD?

I think sil has assumed from your conversation that you and your mum have paid for the cake between you tbh

I think people who don't do this genuinely just don't see why flour eggs milk butter icing costs so much. I'd expect the boards and supports can be returned to be washed?

No boards and boxes can’t be re-used.

Eggs
Flour
Sugar
Butter
Icing sugar
Extracts
Butter for icing
Sugarpaste (in a 3 tier Cake, 3.5 kg at £5.00 per kilo)
Board
Box
Dowels
Thin boards for each tier
Ribbon
Jam/cocoa
Flower/modelling paste
Electricity
Time (the most valuable and expensive ingredient unless you want to be disappointed)

Yeah making cake is just as easy and cheap as this - magic innit.

A Betty Crocker cake mix from Tesco (without the eggs or icing which need to be added (but of course with all the E numbers and preservatives you’d expect in a ready mix)) costs £2.50 to serve 12, so would come to £250 for 120 people plus the necessary eggs, icing and any other decoration/boards etc.

Your mums cake seems a total bargain!

For people choking on the cost, the sister is being expected to pay less than 50p a slice. That's a bargain!

we're happy to pay £50 towards that

is as clear as day that you're not offering to pay the whole cost. Your SiL is either mean, forgetful, or really stupid.

@crumpet I think your calculations are slightly out! However I agree that this cake sounds like a bargain

an M & S wedding cake for 150 would cost far more, £350

www.marksandspencer.com/embroidered-lace-wedding-cake-pre-order-available-from-12th-february-2017-/p/p60095006?prevPage=plp

Its the amount of time it takes I find when I'm making my kids birthday cakes, a lot longer than you think!

Oops - am roaring at that - will teach em to post after an afternoon snooze

@crumpet

Your example would be £25 for 120 servings. But it's really not necessary. Its the sundries that make the cost add up. Its all small when it's separate, but not for the whole cake.

Time and skill is actually what people are paying for, surely?

A Betty Crocker type mix would be no good for a tiered cake - nothing wrong with them on their own but not the standard of a home made cake and definitely wouldn’t be good enough to get a good finish.

This must be how plasterers feel when they get told how easy it must be. What’s a plasterer’s daily rate these days?

I can't believe people thing £120 for a 3-tier cake is a lot of money.

I had a baby shower cake yesterday that was 2 tiers and it was £95. I'd happily pay it every time for the perfect cake.

You get what you pay for - it took 4 days plus all the ingredients and materials, so I'd go so far to say she's at a loss, never mind doing it at cost for 'family rates'.

Let your DH speak to her, I definitely would.

Time and skill is actually what people are paying for, surely?

You’d think, wouldn’t you!

A three tier cake could cost around £80 in ingredients and materials. Then add on 10-15 hours (at least) of (skilled) work. A lot of it in the middle of the night.

If people think making a massive cake is easy, why don;t they do it themselves - people usually buy this kind of thing surely ?
I'm a decent home baker, but I doubt I could manage a three tiered cake, all iced and decorated. I'd have to buy all the tins, tools etc. - very expensive for something you'd only used once or twice.
I doubt I could fit a cake that sie in my oven.
And most of all, I don't have the skill or know how, and I'd hate the stress of it and the time it took.
That's what I'd gladly pay for as much as anything else (the labour, the ingredients, the accessories) - the relief of not having to do it myself.

It's a constant battle for people who do anything creative, - people expect you to do it for nothing, because they see you being good at it and think it must therefore be easy. Or they think you should do it out of love because you enjoy what you do.

Plumbers and electricians probably enjoy what they do - but you don't expect them to do it for free.

It's good that she appreciated it. Send her the bill via husband to his sisters email and say, glad you all enjoy it, i know betty was pleased to hear that it all went to swell. insert bill for £70. `that's fine for a cake for 100 people.. If she has any quibbles, why would she expect your mother to spend 4 days make a huge cake for free? Life happens, just nip this in the bud. End it, or it will piss you off. She is probably expecting the bill.

Just becuase she was appreciative and grateful doesn;t indicate she thought it was free.

You were clear you'd pay £50 and sil would pay the balance.

Given she was already let down she's well aware of what a cake that size actually costs, so the only surprise should be that it's so cheap.

There's really no need to feel awkward, just get DH to deal with getting the money you're due 🤷🏻‍♂️

GrilledAubergine has it right.
Perhaps an email along the lines of, "What a great night, the cake seemed to go down really well. I was wondering when you were going to pay the balance of the cake bill. Please let me know. "
Any response of surprise answered with details of actual conversations.

I made a fancy cake once. Took 3 1/2 hours. I was knackered for the rest of the day!

Plumbers and electricians probably enjoy what they do - but you don't expect them to do it for free.

You'd be surprised! Neighbours can be the worst for this. I think it's a similar thing, relying on making the one with the skill feel awkward. Hopefully in this case it's just an oversight by the OP's SIL and it's easily sorted.

I think it’s a very cheap for a professionally created, iced cake of that size.

I too would expect my husband to speak to his brother or send a message saying thank you for the party. Glad you liked the cake, Hallolahs mother spent ages on it. We put the £50 towards it, as agreed. Please can you ping me the other £70 that you owe towards it so I can settle up with her?

Some of the comments here reinforce why I don’t bake cakes for a living.

I make a cake for a friends childs birthday a few years ago. It was 12” square and the ingredients plus the board / box came to £45. That didn’t include the cake tin, tools and other sundries such as good colouring.

Some people don’t seem to make realise that just because a supermarket can make a mass produced cake for a tenner, fully iced, this business model can’t be repeated at home.

Of course you should be asking for the money
They're probably relying on you not to due to Previous generosity and how awkward it'll be

Has DH asked her to Pay up her £70 yet? Hope you have it sorted, she was either too busy at the party to think about it....or she is a CF😂

There are some people on here that do not have a clue. Making a 3 tired cake to feed £120 is going to take up a lot of time and ingredients. I paid £55 for a professionally done single tired cake to feed 15 people. It was a Top Gun themed one and was excellent. They don't come cheap.