Fucking 70 quid for a cake????

[Hairwizard]

As title says. Quoted 'from' 70 quid for a Christening cake. This was based on a 6" square cake with 4 sponge layers. Not tiers. Buttercream icing. Any decs toppers etc would be extra and from 8 - 15 quid!
Am i missing something?? How the f does a cake cost that much?

WOW...This Violet Gin by Boe is bloody gorgeous

anotherlittlechicken

Go to Sainsbury's or Morrisons. You'll get one from there, for a fifth of that. It will probably be better too

Oh please, nothing against supermarket cakes as they serve a, market hut have a look at the ingredient list eh? It will be a cake but there us no way on earth it will be better than one made by a professional. It will he lucky to be 2 inches high for a start.

All the reasons/excuses some people are coming out with to charge £70 for a CAKE are hilarious. Eggs, butter, sugar, cake board, utensils, gas. PMSL! Bollocks does it cost £70 to make a bloody 6" square sponge cake!

Ah you're one of those cheapskates that expect people to work for nothing, people like you are regularly discussed on the cake decorating sites I'm on.

I would charge 20 for cake any cake toppers you pay extra I make and sell cakes

I'm a cake maker, and a 6 inch cake, 6 inches high (which mine are) will give a good 14 portions. The biggest cost is time, which people rarely want to pay for. Once, ingredients, boards, boxes, electricity (or gas), insurances, equipment, training are factored in, there is little profit to me made. I run my business on top of two other jobs, partly because I enjoy the artistry - it will never pay the bills.

I get my hair cut and blow dried and don't bat an eyelid at the £45 that costs, or nails at £30 a go.... neither takes anywhere near the time a well decorated cake takes from start to finish. It's such a shame our skill is so undervalued

@LagunaBubbles
Oh please, nothing against supermarket cakes as they serve a, market hut have a look at the ingredient list eh?
Exactly, read a shop bought cake list amongst a home made one and just see the difference.

Not RTFT but I once thought the price I was quoted for my 2 year old daughters cake was extortionate so I decided to make it myself. It was quite elaborate and a lot of thought and research went into it. Eg the best type of cake and the best tasting fondant and the best gel colours to get the correct colour fondant. This was before I even started making it and I spent hours researching. Then came the baking, the cooling, the crumb coating, the fondant colouring and then covering it with fondant. I could only do it in the evenings and went to bed at gone 2am for 3 nights in a row. To be fair it was quite an elaborate cake! I did a pretty good job of it but it was nowhere near as perfect as a professionals would have been. After doing it myself I can completely understand why they charge as much as they do. Saying that though, I have never succumbed and bought one.. I've just always tried my best and my children have always been happy with it!

I was once part of the entertainment schedule for a 5 year olds birthday party in a classy hotel in London for which I got paid £900. I was depressed to find out that the cake was worth £200 more than me! It was nothing that special to look at & looked like sponge / buttercream in the inside.

I think you're right, it's a lot for a six inch square cake, even with 4 layers.
Especially as that's just plain buttercream covering with no decorations.

People are jumping on you for complaining about the price without reading the fine detail of the post, and talking about completely irrelevant levels of detail and work in cakes they have known/made.

Hope you get one within your budget.

You've realised it isn't for you, that's fine. Your budget is store bought which has an industrial bakery with equipment, staff at all hours and wholesale ingredients to begin with. That's grand!! Nobody is insulting you for your question, I think everyone has done a HOW MUCH? at some point in their life. But cakes are a skill that takes time, especially if it's not industrialised, which makes things different for do you want store bought or a specialized baker.

As pp have said, if a woman can do it while doing something else at the same time it's seen as a hobby, if a man does it ignoring all else, it's an art that gets respect and payment.

Google the Egg Free Cake Box. They have shops in a lot of towns and their cakes are personalised and reasonable - about £30. They are egg free so they last longer.

Yep, I will stick with the shop bought ones ta.

Thanks all the same.

Rather get value for money.

I made cakes for friends as a hobby. I’d have £20 off them for ingredients, but would spend more as I’d buy ready to roll coloured fondant. Decorations are very expensive...a sparkly 50 cost nearly £10 off Amazon.
In addition to that, I’d have the cakes in the oven for hours, two layers at a time. You can’t squeeze them all in or they’d not turn out nicely.
I’d be working at a loss - generally as a gift. I didn’t have things like insurance to consider.
Baking is also time consuming. I’d start a cake after work at around 6pm and be working/ decorating through to the early hours of the following day.
If you want cheap, then opt for supermarkets or places like Greggs that just chuck them together cheaply.

anotherlittlechicken

That's fine we all make our own choices. As someone who doesn't even recognise that people's time is worth something and expect people to not charge for it you're not really the kind of customer a professional cake decorator wants anyway.

Each of these cakes cost me over £50 just to make (hobby not professional) and days and days of work.

We got 2 amazing cakes for our silver wedding from M&S for much less than that.

lady who used to do my ds birthday cakes gave it up.
Probably because people are expecting too much?
Even if it is only 16 people it’s just over £4 a slice. It’s not THAT much.

My daughter makes cakes for special occasions. Factor in ingredients, equipment, gas/electric, insurance etc etc then the labour on top & £70 is a bargain. People seem to want to pay a fraction over the cost of the ingredients, they want something for nothing. I don't know if it registers on their radar just how long it takes to make & decorate a cake; and the quality of her cakes is worth the money. If you want to keep costs down then go to Sainsburys, but you won't get the same quality

No WAY am I paying £75 for what I can do at home for £7
There’s no way you’re doing a professional job with a £7 box dye love. You might think it looks ok but the colour will have no depth or tone to it, you’re probably applying it wrong as everyone does and for £7 ... yeah there’s going to be loads of damage.
Shit cake, shit hair.. that’s fine if you want to settle but don’t try and pretend that cheap = better.

OP, I'd make it myself. Cake for 16 is 2 standard victoria sandwich cakes, then look on youtube for a tutorial on how to do the buttercream icing. It isn't actually that difficult if you take your time. Then order a topper from Amazon.
Yes it might look a bit amateurish, but it won't look 'shit' as the PP said. It's a cake, it will look like a cake.

DBML - Your cakes are lovely. I wish I was talented as you.

There's always soneone who will do it cheaper for you!

DBML's cakes are beautiful, but that's not what the OP wants. She wants a cake iced in buttercream without any decorations.

Just get a supermarket one. I always had them for my birthday and never complained!

We live above a cafe that makes cakes. They have a display and you can choose the basic cake you want and they will "add to it" for you, e.g. write a message on it. They do some really lovely ones. I gave my DDs nursery £30 to get cake and bits and pieces for the children when it was her birthday, and still got a non-supermarket cake, it just wasn't themed. It was massive though!

shit hair

How rude.

The good thing is that nobody actually has to buy the cake. If you want a cheaper one, find one. Or a supermarket one f that’s what you want. It’s really difficult to work doing anything creative because people assume you’re happy to do it for not much money. Look at it this way - add up your bills, mortgage, utilities, all your expenses for the year, divide by how many cakes you can realistically do in the year. That’s how much profit you need just to live doing the job. You’re also probably paying back student loans and have missed out on years of a good salary when you put yourself through qualifications etc. Don’t forget that it’s a human making this specifically for you and you have the choice of a generic factory made one with different ingredients if you want, but just move on and don’t complain about people trying to make a living. Same as hairdressers, yes they charge a higher amount than it’d cost you at home. How many do you see rolling in cash though? They’re not all being greedy, they’re just trying to make a living. I like to go eat out, a nice meal, in a nice place, maybe a nice cocktail to go with it. I don’t HAVE to pay that money. I could cook something at home, eat in my lounge, wash my own dishes, have a premixed cocktail from a can. But it’s not the same is it...