AIBU to be disappointed in this cake…

[Notwhatiimagined]

I picked up dds cake today and it was not what I expected.

Would you be happy with this cake? I’ve attached two pics below, one was the pic I sent to the cake maker of what I wanted (a family dog) and the other picture is of the cake.

Also his head is made of Rice Krispies as apparently heads are hard to do. I wasn’t aware that it wouldn’t be all sponge.

It’s from a proper cake shop, not someone who does it as a hobby.

What do you all think?

[EmergencyPoncho]

The dinosaur one is bloody amazing!!

[budgiegirl]

@Kassiopeia

£110 for a cake?!!!!!!!!!
That's excessive. I'm surprised they are still in business.
I thought it would be closer to £30

They would go out of business if they charged £30 for personalised, shaped cake for 30 people. As has been said on this thread lots of times, that's unlikely to even cover the cost of the ingredients, never mind overheads/wages etc.

People also forget that the cake maker doesn't just spend time making the cake - there's all the other work that goes into running a business - shopping, cleaning, accounting, marketing, running a shop, employing people, talking to customers, invoicing, banking. Then there's insurance, energy bills, cleaning products, the list goes on. You could employ someone to do some of that work, but then that's an additional cost that has to be factored in. It's a lot more work and cost than just the time and ingredients spent actually making the cake.

[Notwhatiimagined]

Have not of*

[LookItsMeAgain]

I'd at least give her feedback on the cake @Notwhatiimagined but not using her service or recommending her would probably cover that area too.

[Notwhatiimagined]

Mumsnet deleted her comments for troll hunting. They also thought it couldn’t of been her as I assume they looked behind the scenes before they deleted the comments.

[HerRoyalWitchyness]

Grounddog isn’t the cake maker that’s why I’m not responding to her

You can't know that, what with this being an anonymous forum

[genic75]

@Kassiopeia

£110 for a cake?!!!!!!!!!
That's excessive. I'm surprised they are still in business.
I thought it would be closer to £30

That will have taken a couple of hours to bake, plus a few to decorate. Then ingredients etc….. how much do you think is reasonable for someone’s time and expertise?

[Justmeandmyfamily]

I paid £45 (with aprox 5 pound reduction as i know the person who was working there) for a standard 8" round fruit cake 5years ago NW so I guess that for something personalised it's a fair price

[Notwhatiimagined]

No I won’t be going back to her.

I just won’t use her again

[LookItsMeAgain]

Just wondering @Notwhatiimagined, if you're going to go back to the baker who made your cake and complain about the lack of 'cake' in the legs and how the cake tasted?

[LittleBearPad]

@Kassiopeia

£110 for a cake?!!!!!!!!!
That's excessive. I'm surprised they are still in business.
I thought it would be closer to £30

No the opposite is true. At £30 they will have long since gone bankrupt.

[TheKeatingFive]

It's lovely. I'm not quite sure what you were expecting.

[Graceambrose]

Well the cake looks better than the photo.
If you want a cake to look exactly like your dog, I would suggest that you make a jam sponge cake covered in thick cream with a printed photo of your dog on top! Cost£2to 3.

[Kassiopeia]

£110 for a cake?!!!!!!!!!
That's excessive. I'm surprised they are still in business.
I thought it would be closer to £30

[SleepingStandingUp]

T h if it looked funny inside I wouldn't be serving it to a load of 9 yos

[Rainbowsew]

@hoomans

We had this made last month from a local baker who runs a business from home and she only charged £40 and we were delighted with it. I felt like I was ripping her off to be honest and I thought at the time, god she can't be making a lot off that! So I can easily see how something bigger would cost £100 but I probably would have expected a bit more attention to detail tbh I'm not surprised you're disappointed.

Was that all cake?

See now that I think is under charged and probably worth £100 or more. The op's cake looked small and the piping looked amateur. And the extra parts, ie head and legs were not made of cake.

As lots of pp say there are ways of making that sort of dog look realistic without stretching to the level of skill of the dinosaur one for £350.

I'm with you op, it's disappointing particularly as the taste wasn't up to it either.

[budgiegirl]

Surely though that isn’t the point. If it’s not possible to make a cake or anything come to that at a proper wage then it’s an issue of whether the product can be reasonably seen as a profitable business. Sad but that’s how the market works. The cake has to be a decent thing. Not the customer’s responsibility to fund the wages regardless of results

I get what you're saying, and of course the cake has to be a decent thing. But customers also need to be realistic about what you will get for your money. The OP knew that one company was going to be charging £350 for what she wanted, she can't really be all that surprised that when she found a cake for £110, it's not of the same quality/style.

And the market will sustain a proper business, I know, I do this for a living. Yes, sometimes a customer will go elsewhere for a cake because a mates friend who is a hobbyist will do it cheaper, or a new business has just set up and hasn't done a proper costing calculation. But they invariably come back, because the new business has stopped as they don't make a profit, or the hobbyist has found that they are effectively giving their time for free due to the price they charge, and has stopped selling their cakes. Or because the cake wasn't what they wanted because it was unrealistically priced in the first place.

[EezyOozy]

Sorry I would vote but can’t make out which one is the cake and which is the photo …

🤣🤣🤣 10/10

[oakleydo]

Hang on, you showed them a photo of an actual dog and then said you wanted a cake to look like a real dog

Youre deluded. The cake looks really good

[MrsMomoa2]

Clearly a lot of people who don’t bake on here… I would say £110 is reasonable, whether or not you are happy a lot of work has gone into that and currently baking supplies are expensive so costs would be around £20-30. Then you add costs of overheads before costing an hourly rate which for many cake makers is rarely above minimum wage… (probably several hours work involved..)
Rice krispy treats are common in shaped cakes and are yummy I am sure your daughter will love it.
Now had you been expecting a full blown sculpted replica of your dog the price would have been at least double and very specialised.
I would say that you probably should have looked at what previous cakes the shop did before having such high expectations.
Cake is lovely

[Monz77]

I’ve clicked on “YABU” but I think it’s probably more of a case of you had certain expectations and this turned out differently to what you expected so you’re disappointed, which is fair. I personally like the cake!

[GoodVibesHere]

Oh I've just read that the legs were rice krispies too. That's terrible!

[GoodVibesHere]

The letter N is upside down.

The tail is not good, it looks like the baker forgot to make one, remembered at the last minute and splodged it on.

The overall impression is cartoon-like, very cute looking, and retro with a home-made charm.

As for the rice krispie head 🤮 I think it's awful that the baker didn't inform you beforehand.

[Offmyfence]

I'm sorry but £110 for a birthday cake for a 9th birthday is ridiculous!

Yeah they saw you coming!

It might have been weird inside but you're not going to get any money back.

I think a Colin the caterpillar would've been a better option.

[muttley68]

It's a lovely cake. For £4 you could have bought a photo cake topper of the actual dog and stuck it on any old cake